The pool ran along one side of the stone terrace. I kept to quieter edges of the crowd because people kept reaching for me.
At one point, a guest I barely knew touched my right elbow while leaning in for a hug. I stepped back so quickly I startled her.
“Sorry,” I said. “Shoulder.”
She apologized immediately.
Lena, who was standing a few feet away with Sophia, her maid of honor, heard me.
“You’ve told the entire wedding about that shoulder,” she called.
A few people laughed.
I smiled too, because that was the role I knew.
“I’m trying to avoid surgery.”
“Very dramatic.”
“Very doctor’s orders.”
.
Caleb, her fiancé, walked over carrying a glass of water and handed it to her.
“Leave her alone,” he said, smiling, but there was enough firmness beneath it that I noticed.
Lena leaned into him. “She knows I’m kidding.”
“I know,” I said.
The words came out automatically.
Nobody forced me to defend her. I did it before anyone asked.
The photographer called Lena toward the garden steps, and she disappeared.
I felt relieved. If I could get through the ceremony and dinner, I could go back to the hotel, ice my shoulder, and call the day a success.
About twenty minutes later, I was talking to one of our cousins near the pool.
I heard Lena behind me.
“Tessa.”
I turned.
She had a particular look when she had already decided something was funny. Her eyes would brighten before anyone else knew the joke.
“What?” I asked.
“Smile.”
.
I barely had time to frown.
Both of her hands hit my upper back.
Hard.
My feet left the stone edge. Instinct took over before thought could. I threw my left arm outward, and my right side reacted too late. My body twisted in the air, and when I hit the water, a hot tearing pain went through my shoulder so sharply that for a second I forgot I was underwater.
I came up coughing.
People were shouting.
Someone crouched at the edge and reached toward me. “Give me your hand.”
I tried to lift my right arm.
Nothing happened except pain.
“My left,” I gasped. “Take my left.”
A man I barely knew stepped halfway into the pool while another guest grabbed my left forearm. Together they hauled me onto the stone.
I was soaked from head to toe. My dress clung to my legs. My hair was in my face. My right arm hung uselessly while I held it against my body with my left hand.
And Lena was laughing.
Not nervous laughter. Not the reflexive laugh people make when they realize a prank has gone wrong and panic hasn’t caught up yet.
She was laughing at my expression.
“Oh my God, Tessa. Your face.”
I stared at her.
“I can’t lift my arm.”
Her smile flickered for half a second.
Then she looked around at everyone else.
“It was just a joke.”
Nobody answered right away.
That silence was the first crack in something I had thought was permanent.
Mom hurried over with a towel. “Let’s not panic.”
“I’m not panicking,” I said. “I can’t move it.”
Dad said, “Somebody get ice.”
Lena folded her arms. “She landed in water, not concrete.”
I wasn’t furious yet. I was too shocked, too cold, and too busy trying not to move my shoulder. Some part of me was still searching for an explanation that would let everybody go back to normal.
