The following weeks unfolded like pages of a carefully written diary. Each day was annotated by plans: tasting cakes, testing playlists, ironing out logistics no one but the bride and groom could care about. Katrina found herself surrounded by voices—her mother insisting on hymns, her best friend pushing for modern touches, coworkers teasing her about the honeymoon.
Eddie took it all with the patience of someone who knew the difference between details and destiny. He let her argue about flower colors, let her fret over napkin folds, and nodded along with the understanding that the only detail that mattered was that she would walk toward him down the aisle.
There were moments of sweetness that seemed to cement the inevitability of it all. A neighbor’s little girl, no more than five, toddled up to Katrina in the grocery store and tugged on her skirt, asking in a tiny voice if she could be the flower girl. Katrina laughed, kneeling to tuck the child’s hair behind her ear, and promised she would scatter petals like stars. Eddie watched the exchange and thought, fleetingly, about the future—their future—with children who would bear both their stubbornness, both their laughter.
One evening, after a long day, they ended up on the hood of Eddie’s Honda once more, just as they had in high school. The stars spilled across the Spokane sky, clear and cold. “Do you ever think about how everything lined up for us?” Eddie asked quietly.
Katrina lay beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. “All the time,” she admitted. “Sometimes it feels like we were born inside the same sentence. Like life keeps underlining it so we don’t forget.” Eddie smiled, kissed her forehead, and said, “Then let’s not forget.”
It should have been enough—enough to silence whatever threads of unease might have been stirring in the hidden corners of Katrina’s heart. But shadows do not disappear simply because you will them away. They wait. They gather.
Her dreams began to shift. Once filled with images of Spokane—the river bend, the church choir loft, the familiar streets—her sleep now carried her elsewhere. She dreamt of plains stretching endlessly, of red cloth moving like fire in the wind, of songs she did not recognize but woke humming as if she had known them her whole life. She told Eddie once, laughing it off, that her brain was “weirdly multicultural at night.” He kissed her hand and teased her about binge-watching too many documentaries. Neither of them pressed further.
At work, she noticed things others did not. Lemayan—always composed, always observing—had a way of speaking that made mundane topics feel like secrets worth knowing. He was not intrusive; he never crossed professional lines. But he carried an air of something else, something larger than the small world of spreadsheets and contracts. His words painted horizons. When he spoke of his home, of cattle herded across the plains, of dances under starlit skies, it was not just description—it was invitation. Katrina caught herself listening too closely.
She scolded herself afterward, reminding herself of the arbor waiting in Eddie’s father’s garage, of the invitations already mailed, of the church bells already tuned for their day. Yet, in the quiet moments—when Spokane’s streets grew too predictable, when the bend of the river felt too known—her mind wandered toward places she had never seen.
Eddie took it all with the patience of someone who knew the difference between details and destiny. He let her argue about flower colors, let her fret over napkin folds, and nodded along with the understanding that the only detail that mattered was that she would walk toward him down the aisle.
There were moments of sweetness that seemed to cement the inevitability of it all. A neighbor’s little girl, no more than five, toddled up to Katrina in the grocery store and tugged on her skirt, asking in a tiny voice if she could be the flower girl. Katrina laughed, kneeling to tuck the child’s hair behind her ear, and promised she would scatter petals like stars. Eddie watched the exchange and thought, fleetingly, about the future—their future—with children who would bear both their stubbornness, both their laughter.
One evening, after a long day, they ended up on the hood of Eddie’s Honda once more, just as they had in high school. The stars spilled across the Spokane sky, clear and cold. “Do you ever think about how everything lined up for us?” Eddie asked quietly.
Katrina lay beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. “All the time,” she admitted. “Sometimes it feels like we were born inside the same sentence. Like life keeps underlining it so we don’t forget.” Eddie smiled, kissed her forehead, and said, “Then let’s not forget.”
It should have been enough—enough to silence whatever threads of unease might have been stirring in the hidden corners of Katrina’s heart. But shadows do not disappear simply because you will them away. They wait. They gather.
Her dreams began to shift. Once filled with images of Spokane—the river bend, the church choir loft, the familiar streets—her sleep now carried her elsewhere. She dreamt of plains stretching endlessly, of red cloth moving like fire in the wind, of songs she did not recognize but woke humming as if she had known them her whole life. She told Eddie once, laughing it off, that her brain was “weirdly multicultural at night.” He kissed her hand and teased her about binge-watching too many documentaries. Neither of them pressed further.
At work, she noticed things others did not. Lemayan—always composed, always observing—had a way of speaking that made mundane topics feel like secrets worth knowing. He was not intrusive; he never crossed professional lines. But he carried an air of something else, something larger than the small world of spreadsheets and contracts. His words painted horizons. When he spoke of his home, of cattle herded across the plains, of dances under starlit skies, it was not just description—it was invitation. Katrina caught herself listening too closely.
She scolded herself afterward, reminding herself of the arbor waiting in Eddie’s father’s garage, of the invitations already mailed, of the church bells already tuned for their day. Yet, in the quiet moments—when Spokane’s streets grew too predictable, when the bend of the river felt too known—her mind wandered toward places she had never seen.
