When the door closed, I slipped off my sandals and padded across the tiles to the cold marble floor of the bathroom. The quiet allowed me enough time to think about my awkward reunion with Taylor, and a lump formed in my throat. Colorado Springs was a thousand miles away, and I couldn’t seem to hide from the guilt. Instead of seeing it in my reflection in the mirror, it had been in Taylor’s eyes.

As glad as I was to see him and to know that he wanted me despite the knowledge that we would never have children, something still felt off. So many questions crowded my mind. Maybe I had hurt him beyond repair. Maybe what I had done to him changed him. Maybe it had changed us.

My shirt stuck to my damp skin as I lifted the bottom hem. The air was so thick that it still covered me, even after I peeled off my clothes.

I tried not to cry while in the shower, scolding myself for finding a way to be melancholy while in a marble bathroom under a shower with high water pressure instead of the antique plumbing in the loft. After a while, I reasoned that my face was wet anyway, and I was alone, so I might as well get it out of my system.

So, I cried. I cried for Olive, for my parents, for what I’d done to Taylor. I cried for not being content before, and I cried because I knew we couldn’t get that back. Being the first woman Taylor loved, I had no idea what it must have taken him to admit it to himself—or me. I had destroyed that trust, seemingly for no reason. I cried because I was angry. And then I cried for crying on a beautiful tropical island in a five-star resort.

When I was all cried out, I washed, rinsed, and pulled on the lever, the stream of water disappearing as if it were never there, just like a Caribbean rain shower.

I wrapped the fluffiest white towel I’d ever touched around my chest and stepped out, wiping the moisture from the mirror.

There I was, a blurry mess, but this time, I had puffy red eyes. “Shit.” I quickly wet a rag with cold water and held it against my eyes.

When they looked almost back to normal, I combed out my wet hair and then used the hotel blow-dryer. The ceremony was in forty-five minutes. I had taken longer in the shower than I’d meant to.