On My Wedding Day, Husband Called From Three Years in the Future

On my wedding day, I received a call from my husband three years in the future via a time machine. In the video, he was lying in bed with my maid of honor, calmly telling me he had cheated.

The screen went black.

I sat frozen on the suite's sofa, unable to process it.

Ethan and I had been together for eight years, since college.

He was the youngest rising-star attorney out of his law school. I was the surgical prodigy out of mine.

To everyone we knew, we were the golden couple. There was no way he'd betrayed me.

I didn't believe it. It had to be a prank, or a deepfake.

I called Ethan. Busy.

I called Vivian, my maid of honor. No answer.

I called again. The phone was off.

Something inside me dropped, slow and sick.

I lifted my dress and walked out of the ballroom, not caring who saw.

Vivian's room was in the other tower of the hotel.

I stood outside her door. The hallway was unnervingly quiet, with only the sound of my own breathing, hard and shallow.

On the carpet outside her room sat a pair of handmade men's leather shoes.

He'd worn those shoes that morning, when he picked me up for the ceremony.

In front of every guest there, he'd dropped to one knee, kissed my forehead, and promised to love me for the rest of my life.

I didn't knock. My blood felt like it had stopped moving.

My phone buzzed: a text from a number I didn't know.

Future Ethan.

[Don't knock. Walking in will only make it worse.]

[Just open our joint account. Look at the password.]

My fingers wouldn't stop shaking as I pulled up the Chase app and entered our account number.

I tried my birthday first. Wrong. Then our anniversary. Also wrong.

I stared at the number field, and something in me already knew. I typed Vivian's birthday.

0816.

The screen loaded, and the balance was right there in front of me.

Seven figures, in dollars.

My back hit the wall, and I slid down to the floor.

I texted him back.

[Why is the password her birthday?]

It took him a long time to reply.

[Because every dollar in that account was saved for her.]

[From the day you got into your MD-PhD program, I knew you'd keep getting further from me. She was the one who'd always be waiting.]

The pain in my chest was so sharp I couldn't breathe.

I thought back to the ceremony, to Vivian standing in the crowd, crying harder than I was.

I'd thought she was happy for me. Now I understood: those tears had been for herself.

I stumbled back toward the bridal suite, my head a complete blur.

I didn't want it to be real. Ethan had loved me, really loved me.

In college, when I'd been sick with a high fever, he carried me on his back for blocks to get to the ER, and sat with me all night.

When my MD-PhD was breaking me, when I was losing hair from the stress, he made me a different soup every single day, just to make me smile.

How could that man do this to me?

He came back at three in the morning, smelling like whiskey.

When he saw me sitting on the couch, staring at nothing, he stopped for a second.

Then he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me from behind. His voice was soft, apologetic.

"How'd you get the dress wet? Are you still mad?"

"I had some important clients tonight. I couldn't get away. I'm sorry, Jo."

He kissed the back of my neck, slow and lingering.

"Jo, don't be mad. We just got married. I swear, every night from here on out, I'm coming home to you."

A tear hit the back of my hand, hot.

He turned me around, cupped my face, and brushed the tear away with his thumb. Then he gave me a small smile.

"Are you tearing up on me? Or just wiped out?"

I lowered my eyes. Under the whiskey, I smelled something else on him: perfume, light.

It was Vivian's favorite.