Frank drove her home through the rain. Maddie held Eli’s card in one hand and her engagement ring in the other. When they reached the house, she placed Tyler’s ring inside an envelope.

Eli’s card went into her wallet.

Chapter 7 — The Photographs

By noon the next day, a photograph of Maddie eating alone at the head table had been shared more than eight thousand times. One of Tyler’s cousins had taken it from the hallway.

The original caption read, Tyler’s bride refused to leave and ate the whole wedding dinner by herself. Most of the comments were cruel. Some called her desperate.

Others called her unstable. Strangers debated whether her decision had been brave or pathetic, as if the worst night of her life had been produced for their entertainment.

Then a second photograph appeared. It had been taken through the ballroom’s glass doors after midnight — Maddie and Eli dancing beneath the chandeliers, her feet bare, his apron draped across an empty chair.