She Was Alive All Along

Ronnie's POV

Stage lights converged on the platform above me.

Maddie Paisley smiled tenderly and threw herself into Jace Lowe's arms. The tips of his ears flushed red. Petals rained down from the ceiling, and the two of them kissed as if nothing else in the world existed.

I stood frozen, staring at the scene, my fingertips gone cold. I wanted to shout, to demand an explanation, but my voice caught in my throat the moment I scanned the crowd of familiar faces. I couldn't force out a single word.

"Maddie and Jace have finally found their happy ending. You two had better take good care of each other!"

The one holding up the train of the wedding dress was a girl from a poor family I had put through school myself, then found a job at the company.

"Maddie, you'd better keep looking out for Jace from now on. Don't let some clueless outsider push him around again!"

The one filming everything on a camcorder was my college roommate. When his parents died, I had stayed up three sleepless nights helping him handle the funeral, then lent him ten thousand dollars on top of it.

"Don't worry, if some jackass ever lays a hand on Jace, I'll take care of it myself."

The one in the groomsman's suit was Maddie's childhood friend. Just last week, when his wife was in a car accident, I had rushed over in the middle of the night to donate blood for her. He had knelt in the hospital hallway afterward, sobbing that I was the one person he owed his life to.

When the kiss finally ended, everyone surged forward to congratulate the newlyweds. Jace rested a hand gently on Maddie's slightly rounded belly, his face soaked in happiness.

Ashlyn raised a glass and clinked it against theirs, teasing them.

"I'm the real hero behind this wedding going off without a hitch. You two owe me a night of drinking until we get totally wasted."

I was the only one left standing in the shadows, my feet leaden, unable to take a single step forward. Tears blurred my vision. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

So everyone had known the truth this whole time. When Ashlyn had mentioned new information about Maddie's remains and, red-eyed, urged me to let it go, it hadn't been out of sympathy at all. She had just been keeping me busy so I wouldn't interrupt their beautiful love story.

They had all known exactly how much these five years had cost me, searching for Maddie's body. How the news of her death had nearly driven me to end my own life.

How I had climbed that mountain again and again until my eyesight started to fail. How the damp, cold weather still sent a lingering ache through my bones that never fully went away.

Everyone had watched it happen and quietly agreed to keep it all from me, as if I were nothing but the villain who might ruin their grand romance.

The tears finally broke free and hit the floor. As the ceremony wound down, the crowd started drifting toward the doors. I wiped frantically at my face, trying to disappear before anyone noticed me, but I still ended up meeting Maddie's startled eyes by accident.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them.

Five years apart, and she didn't ask how I had been. She didn't try to explain any of what had just happened. She only asked what I was doing here.

I tipped my head back, choking down the tears, and let a bitter smile twist across my face.

"If I weren't here, how would I ever find out my wife of five years, the one everyone told me was dead, was busy marrying someone else?"

She said nothing, just stood there in silence.

Beside her, Jace's eyes suddenly reddened.

"I'm sorry, bro. This is all my fault. I fell in love with Maddie. Don't blame her."

He walked toward me quickly. Then, where no one else could see his face, he leaned in and dropped his voice to a mocking whisper.

"You're damn pathetic. Everyone kept you in the dark.

"Your climbing rope didn't just snap on its own. That was Ashlyn. And the rescue team taking their time getting to you? That was Maddie's order.

"Even the excuse everyone gave for missing your son's hundred-day celebration was that they were busy. They were actually all at my birthday party."

My blood ran cold. The deep, needling ache in my legs was still spreading, but I couldn't feel it anymore. I started laughing, and tears spilled from the corners of my eyes.

So every wound I had carried had been inflicted by the people I loved most.

By the time I came back to myself, my fist was already flying toward Jace's face.