I jerked my arm away. “You’re jealous. You can’t stand that I finally have something good.”

I saw the words hit her.

“So say what you think.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

I pointed at the door. “Then leave.”

She did it.

And those were the last words I spoke to my sister while she was still alive to answer me.

My wedding day began under a radiant sun.

The church was fragrant with lilies and candle wax. Ryan waited at the altar, calm and serene. Afterwards, everyone drove to the restaurant downtown for the reception.

I glanced towards the entrance, but Claire never came. I tried calling her several times, but I went straight to her voicemail.

My father insisted that she was upset and that she would eventually calm down. My mother told me not to let her ruin my day. So I smiled at my cousins, thanked people for the gifts, and pretended my stomach wasn’t growing.

An hour passed. Then my mother’s phone rang.

She listened for a few seconds before turning pale and putting a hand to her mouth. “There was a crash,” she murmured.

For a second, no one seemed able to move. Then chairs moved back, car keys appeared, and suddenly we were all rushing outside before the roll call was even completely over.

The rain started to fall during the journey. A driving rain streaked across the road, turning the headlights into blurry trails.

The rescue teams were still working when we arrived. Flashlights swept the riverbank. Mud had soaked the hem of my wedding dress.

Claire had taken a different route, a shortcut along the river. Her car went off the road and ended up in the water.

The next day, her body was found, and instead of a honeymoon, there was a funeral. Black dresses. Dishes piled high on the counters. You could hear: “She knew you loved her,” with that terrible, bittersweet certainty you use when you have nothing interesting to say.

And all this time, one thought kept nagging at me.

Claire was trying to tell me something.

A week later, Ryan left for work. Twenty minutes after he left, my phone rang.

“Megan?” I replied, surprised.

Megan was Claire’s best friend at work, a woman I had only met twice but whom I immediately liked because she spoke to Claire without flinching.

Her voice was tense. “Alice, I need you to come to the office immediately.”

“For what?”

“She left you a phone number. And a note. They were on my desk. I just got back from my sick grandfather’s house this morning and found them. Come immediately.”

I didn’t call Ryan. I grabbed my keys and drove seventy-five kilometers to the city, my heart pounding so hard my fingers were shaking on the steering wheel.

Megan was waiting near the reception desk, pale and wringing her hands. She silently led me to her office.

An envelope with my name written in Claire’s handwriting was lying there. Next to it, her phone. I thought it had been lost with the car. I pictured it lying at the bottom of the river, with all the words she had never had time to say.

Megan murmured, “The security guard said she was in a hurry that day and probably forgot them.”

My fingers were barely working when I opened the envelope.

“Alice, if you’re reading this, it’s time the truth came out. Don’t trust Ryan. Watch the latest video in the gallery on this phone.”

I stopped breathing.

I picked up the phone. My thumb was shaking so much that I missed the screen the first time. Then I opened the gallery and pressed play.

The screen displayed Ryan.

That’s not my Ryan standing at the altar. A younger Ryan, but the same face, the same voice, the same smile.

Claire stood before him as he slipped a ring onto her finger. Then he kissed her.