Eight Years of Love, Deleted Like Trash

Half an hour before the wedding rehearsal dinner, I told the wedding planner to delete the video they'd prepared.

Her face went white.

"Miss Sullivan, that wedding video took three months to edit. Both sets of parents and all the relatives are waiting to see it."

I handed her a USB drive.

"Play this instead."

She opened the file. Ten seconds in, her fingers froze on the mouse.

"Are you sure you want to show this?"

I looked at the huge LED screen at the front of the banquet hall.

It was supposed to play the memories of Eugene James and me falling in love.

But we barely had any. So few that half of the three-minute video was filler shots of scenery.

I'd always told myself he just wasn't good at expressing things.

Until last night, when I found his cloud account still logged into the old phone he'd handed down to me, and inside it, a folder called:

"Three Thousand Days for Sheila Swanson."

Everything tender he had never given me was saved in there.

That was the moment I finally understood.

It wasn't that he couldn't love someone. He just couldn't love me.

So today, I put his three thousand days up on the big screen at the rehearsal dinner.

I don't want this wedding anymore.

But these eight years, I was going to make everyone see them clearly.

...

The screen lit up.

Not a photo of Eugene and me together. A split screen, left and right.

On the left, Sheila sat in front of a cake, eyes curved in a smile, Eugene's hand entering the frame to light her candles.

His voice was very soft. "Happy birthday, Sheila."

On the right, the message I'd sent him that same day.

"I'm at the restaurant. The food's going cold."

Below it, his reply.

"Working late. Don't wait up."

A murmur swept through the banquet hall.

The next clip. On the left, a snowfield.

Sheila crouched beside a snowman, nose red with cold, and Eugene laughed and said:

"Keep your gloves on, or you'll freeze and cry again."

On the right, me with a 102-degree fever, asking him in the chat:

"Can you come home tonight?"

He said:

"Sheila wants to see the snow, I'll stay with her a while. Take your fever meds."

The next clip. On the left, a rooftop.

Sheila was wrapped in Eugene's coat, shoulders shaking as she cried, and Eugene said:

"I'm here. Don't be afraid."

On the right, a photo from the ER.

An IV stand. A notice slip: acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

I'd called him six times with no answer. The last message was his reply to me:

"Something happened to Sheila. Stop making a scene."

I heard Sarah James suck in a breath, but she recovered fast, slapping the table and standing up.

"Turn it off! What is all this garbage!"

Nobody moved.

The planner glanced at me. I nodded, and the screen kept playing.

On the left, Sheila leaning out a car window, letting the wind blow over her.

On the right, the chat from when I'd sent Eugene photos of wedding dresses. I asked him:

"Do you think this one looks good?"

He replied:

"They all look about the same."

And that same night, on the left, he texted Sheila:

"A mermaid cut suits you. You've got a thin waist."

The hall finally erupted.

"What is this supposed to mean? The groom's gone way too far."

"Who is that woman?"

"Didn't they say the bride and groom dated for eight years?"

That was when Eugene shoved the door open and walked in.

He still had the car keys in his hand, and behind him came Sheila, limping.

Sheila wore a white knit dress, her hair loose over her shoulders, her eyes red.

The moment she came in and saw the screen, the color drained from her face.

Eugene rushed to the front in a few strides.

"Sally Sullivan, what are you doing?"

I picked up the mic.

"Playing your love memories."