Chapter 1
“It was only a joke!”
My sister Vanessa was still laughing when two strangers dragged me out of the hotel pool.
I wasn’t.
I couldn’t even lift my right arm.
Water poured from my hair and dress as I collapsed onto the warm concrete beside the pool, coughing so hard my chest hurt.
My right arm hung against my side.
Heavy.
Useless.
Terrifyingly familiar.
A bridesmaid rushed forward and wrapped a towel around my shoulders.
“Emily, are you okay?”
I tried to answer.
The sharp pain spreading from my shoulder down my arm made the words disappear.
Then I heard Vanessa laugh again.
“Oh, come on. Everybody needs to calm down.”
I looked up at my sister.
She stood near the edge of the pool in her white rehearsal-dinner dress, holding a champagne glass like nothing had happened.
Like she hadn’t just pushed me into deep water knowing I couldn’t properly use one arm.
Three months earlier, a car accident had damaged the nerves around my right shoulder.
The surgery had gone well.
Recovery hadn’t.
For weeks, I had slept sitting upright.
I had needed help washing my hair.
Buttoning shirts had made me cry.
Only recently had my doctor allowed me to stop wearing the sling.
But he had given me one clear warning.
No swimming alone.
My right arm still couldn’t rise much higher than my chest.
Vanessa knew that.
She had driven me to one of my physical therapy appointments.
She had watched me struggle to lift a two-pound weight.
She knew.
And she pushed me anyway.
“I barely touched you,” Vanessa said.
One of the men who had pulled me from the pool stared at her.
“You shoved her pretty hard.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“She was standing beside the water. Obviously I didn’t expect her to act like she was drowning.”
Then a calm male voice came from behind her.
“You used both hands.”
Vanessa froze.
So did I.
Daniel Mercer stood several feet away.
Her fiancé.
The man she was supposed to marry the next afternoon.
Until then, I hadn’t realized he had seen anything.
Daniel was still holding the drink he’d carried outside, but his attention was entirely on Vanessa.
His expression wasn’t angry.
That somehow made it worse.
Vanessa forced a little smile.
“Daniel, seriously?”
“You pushed her with both hands.”
“It was playful.”
“She couldn’t defend herself.”
“She knows how to swim.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“She told us last night that she still can’t use her right arm normally.”
Vanessa gave a short laugh.
“She exaggerates.”
My stomach twisted.
That sentence hurt almost as much as my shoulder.
Twenty minutes earlier, Aunt Caroline had asked how my recovery was going.
I had answered honestly.
“Better. Still painful sometimes.”
Vanessa immediately interrupted.
“You’d think she survived a war.”
Everyone had gone quiet.
Vanessa continued anyway.
“She’s turned one little accident into her entire personality.”
I had walked away because I refused to argue with her during her wedding weekend.
Apparently that wasn’t enough.
She followed me onto the pool terrace.
I remembered hearing her heels behind me.
Then her voice.
“Maybe some cold water will wake you up.”
Before I could turn, both hands hit my back.
Hard.
I fell sideways.
The moment I hit the water, instinct told me to raise both arms.
My left arm moved.
My right shoulder exploded with pain.
I swallowed water.
I kicked.
I tried reaching for the edge.
My fingers missed.
For several horrifying seconds, I wasn’t Emily at my sister’s wedding celebration.
I was back inside my wrecked car.
Trapped.
Helpless.
Unable to move.
Then someone jumped into the pool.
Hands caught me beneath my shoulders.
Someone else reached from the edge.
They pulled me out.
Now Daniel looked at Vanessa and asked the question no one else had asked.
“Did you believe she could get herself out?”
Vanessa’s smile vanished completely.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one.”
“I didn’t want her hurt.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
People around us stopped pretending not to listen.
Nearly thirty friends and relatives stood across the terrace.
Silent.
Watching.
Vanessa noticed.
And instead of becoming ashamed, she became furious.
“This is unbelievable.”
She looked around at everyone.
“This is my wedding weekend!”
Nobody responded.
Vanessa pointed toward me.
“Can we please stop making everything about Emily for five minutes?”
I stared at her.
I hadn’t asked anyone to make anything about me.
I hadn’t even wanted to come to the wedding at first because traveling during recovery was difficult.
Vanessa had insisted.
“You’re my sister,” she’d told me.
“You have to be there.”
Now I understood why.
She wanted me present.
She just didn’t want me receiving sympathy.
Daniel watched her for several seconds.
Then something changed in his face.
Not rage.
Decision.
He reached into his pocket.
Vanessa frowned.
“What are you doing?”
Daniel unlocked his phone.
“Taking care of something.”
“Daniel?”
He walked away.
Vanessa scoffed.
“He’s being dramatic too.”
I looked toward him.
He crossed the terrace and disappeared through the hotel doors.
At the time, I assumed he was calling security.
Or a doctor.
I was wrong.
The hotel physician examined my shoulder twenty minutes later and said I probably hadn’t torn anything, but I needed imaging as soon as possible.
One of my cousins helped me upstairs.
Vanessa never came with us.
She went to change for dinner.
While I sat in my hotel room with an ice pack against my shoulder, Daniel stood alone in a quiet hallway downstairs and called the Maui resort where he and Vanessa were supposed to spend twelve days after their wedding.
Oceanfront suite.
Private terrace.
Couples massage.
Everything Vanessa had talked about for almost a year.
Daniel canceled all of it.
Every reservation.
Every upgrade.
Every carefully planned romantic detail.
He didn’t tell Vanessa.
He didn’t tell me.
And when the reception dinner began less than an hour later, my sister walked into the ballroom smiling like nothing had happened.
She believed the worst consequence of pushing me into that pool was a few uncomfortable looks from relatives.
May you like
She had no idea that somewhere in the hotel, her fiancé had already begun dismantling the future she thought was guaranteed.
And before that night ended, Vanessa was going to learn that the honeymoon wasn’t the only thing Daniel was reconsidering.
