Around them, the people who loved them watched, but Maddie no longer felt as though she were performing. She remembered the woman she’d been one year earlier, sitting alone at a table set for two hundred, forcing herself to swallow the first bite while strangers whispered.

She wished she could reach backward through time and tell that woman something.

Not that a better man was coming. That was not the lesson. A woman’s life was not rescued merely because another man arrived. Maddie had rescued herself the moment she refused the back door.

She had saved herself when she sat down, unfolded her napkin, and claimed the night Tyler had tried to steal. Eli had not carried her out of the wreckage.

He had done something quieter and more precious. He had seen her standing there and treated her not as a tragedy, not as a spectacle, not as a woman waiting to be saved — but as someone worthy of a seat, a meal, and a dance.

Halfway through the song, Eli whispered, “Are you happy?”