Chapter 9 - Back on the Big Screen
Ethan and I waited a year to get married.
Small ceremony.
Forty guests.
Rachel stood beside me.
Walter, Ethan’s elderly rescue dog, wore a bow tie and slept through most of the vows.
Hope was carried down the aisle by my father.
I had expected marriage to feel frightening.
Instead, it felt quiet.
Maybe because this time I understood something I hadn’t understood at twenty-seven.
A wedding did not guarantee safety.
A ring did not guarantee honesty.
Love did not eliminate risk.
You simply chose someone whose character made the risk worth taking.
Three years after the Fan Cam incident, Apex assigned me to the same race again.
I almost refused.
Then Ethan grinned.
“You know eventually you have to defeat your mortal enemy.”
“Daniel?”
“The giant television.”
I laughed.
So we went.
Hope wore tiny noise-protection headphones.
Ethan carried her on his shoulders.
Rachel joined us.
The afternoon was bright and warm.
Engines thundered below.
I stood near the same railing where I had once covered my mouth and watched my marriage collapse.
The memory came.
But it didn’t own me.
Then the crowd started shouting.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
I froze.
Ethan looked upward.
The Fan Cam.
On the enormous screen was a young couple laughing.
They kissed.
The camera moved.
Another couple.
Then another.
I exhaled.
Ethan squeezed my hand.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
And I was.
Then Rachel started laughing.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
I looked up.
My face filled the forty-foot screen.
Beside me, Ethan stared upward in horror.
Hope waved enthusiastically.
The stadium cheered.
I burst out laughing.
Ethan pointed at himself.
“Am I supposed to kiss you?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
“Ethan!”
He kissed me.
Not theatrically.
Not for the crowd.
Just a soft kiss.
Hope shoved her little face between ours.
The stadium laughed.
Then the camera moved away.
I wiped tears from my cheeks.
Happy ones.
Rachel hugged me.
“Now that’s how you fix a Fan Cam memory.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You don’t fix memories. You make new ones.”
Later that afternoon, I received a text.
Daniel.
Saw the Fan Cam. Life has a weird sense of humor.
I smiled.
Then another message arrived.
I need to tell you something before you hear it elsewhere.
My stomach tightened.
Old instincts.
Old scars.
I called.
Daniel answered.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“Noah?”
“He’s great.”
“Then what?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I’m getting married.”
I went silent.
Her name was Rebecca.
A teacher.
They had been dating for almost two years.
I knew about her vaguely through Olivia but hadn’t realized it was serious.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
He sounded nervous.
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you sound like you’re confessing to a crime?”
He laughed.
“Old habit.”
Then he became serious.
“I wanted to tell you because she knows everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
The affair.
The fraud.
The lies.
The kidnapping.
The divorce.
All of it.
“I’m trying to do this differently.”
I looked across the hospitality deck.
Ethan was kneeling beside Hope, helping her straighten her tiny headphones.
“I hope you do.”
Daniel was quiet.
“Are you happy?”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
There it was.
The ending neither of us could have imagined.
Not reconciliation.
Not revenge.
Separate lives.
Peace.
Months later, Daniel married Rebecca.
I didn’t attend.
I wasn’t supposed to.
Olivia did, because Noah was the ring bearer.
She sent me one photograph afterward.
Daniel crouched beside his son.
Rebecca stood behind them.
Noah looked ridiculously proud in a miniature suit.
I showed Ethan.
“He looks happy,” he said.
“He does.”
“Does that bother you?”
I considered the question.
“No.”
And that answer surprised me less than it once would have.
That night, after Hope went to sleep, I opened the old cloud folder containing photographs from my first marriage.
I had avoided it for years.
There were thousands.
Daniel and me at twenty-five.
Our first apartment.
Our wedding.
Christmas.
Vacations.
Ordinary Tuesdays.
I had once wanted to delete everything.
Now I didn’t.
Those years had happened.
Some had been good.
Some had been lies.
Most were probably a mixture of both.
I closed the folder without deleting anything.
Then I noticed one old photograph.
Christmas morning.
Daniel wearing the navy jacket for the first time.
I stared at it.
And smiled.
Not because I missed him.
Because the jacket no longer hurt.
I closed the laptop.
Ethan called from the bedroom.
“You coming?”
“In a minute.”
I stood.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Rachel.
She had sent me a screenshot from social media.
The new Fan Cam video had gone viral.
This time the headline read:
THREE YEARS AFTER HEARTBREAK WENT VIRAL, WOMAN RETURNS TO SAME TRACK WITH HUSBAND AND BABY.
I groaned.
“Not again.”
Then I noticed the view count.
Twelve million.
And underneath it was a message request from a television producer.
We’d like to speak with you about sharing your story.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
For years, other people had told my story for me.
Maybe it was time I told it myself.
