In sickness and health - Prologue

You know when people say, "It'll be the happiest day of your life" and you think, Okay, but what if that's kind of... depressing? Like, the idea that it's all downhill from here? I thought about that on my wedding day. In between the speeches and the selfies and my mom crying so hard the makeup artist had to physically drag her out of the bathroom. I thought: If this is the peak, I should probably take a long, slow look around.

And God, it was beautiful. Will looked like a man in a magazine ad for a watch he could never afford. That whole crinkly-eyed smile thing he does like he knows a secret, and I'm the secret. It kills me every time. We were married in this big white tent, the kind that looks classy in pictures but in real life smells like plastic and fear of rain. My dress wasn't the one I thought I'd wear, I had a spreadsheet for that, obviously. But when I put it on, I didn't feel like a bride, I felt like myself, and that felt... revolutionary.

Everyone kept saying we were so in love, like it was this tangible object we'd brought as a centerpiece. And I guess we were. Are. Will isn't like other people I've dated, he's a lawyer, so yes, he can be intense, like "let me cite three statutes why you're wrong" intense, but with me, he's this goofy, barefoot-in-the-kitchen guy who sings Stevie Wonder in a falsetto while loading the dishwasher. He calls me "professor" like I'm some sexy, unapproachable genius, even though I spend half my day explaining why you can't eat glue to seven-year-olds. And for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I had to pretend to be anyone else. He looked at me like he'd already read the book and still wanted to buy the collector's edition.

The honeymoon was Italy. Obviously. Tuscany. Rolling hills like a painting that someone filtered to death on Instagram but somehow the real thing still makes you want to cry. We checked into this little villa outside Siena with a vineyard and a pool so clear it looked like glass. After the wedding chaos, the drunk uncle, the playlist drama, the actual fistfight between my cousins. This felt like silence, like an exhale I didn't know I'd been holding.

The morning of the accident was... nothing. Which I guess is how these stories always go. It was hot. Too hot for clothes, too hot for thinking. We had lunch on the terrace, pasta so good it made me consider writing a breakup letter to Olive Garden and then Will stretched out on a lounge chair, already turning the shade of pink that dermatologists have nightmares about. I was restless, that vibrating feeling I get when the plan runs out. Like: okay, what now? I wanted to move. To do something. To make the memory bigger.

The pool shimmered like an invitation. I told Will I was going for a swim, and he made some dumb joke about Baywatch that I pretended to find funny because I was already walking away. The tiles burned my feet as I crossed to the edge. And then I did what I've done a thousand times at a thousand pools. I dove in.

Except, I guess I didn't. Not really. Because halfway through the air I knew something was wrong. The bottom rushed up faster than it should have. And then this sickening crack, like snapping celery but inside my body, and everything went... quiet.

There's a moment where you think, Okay, this is bad, but I'll fix it. I'll kick. I'll swim. Except nothing moves. Your arms, your legs, they're just... gone. The water presses in and you realize your life, your entire stupid, meticulously planned, color-coded life, has been divided into a before and an after, and you're sinking.

I don't remember the rest clearly. I remember light. Hands. Will's voice, high-pitched and panicked in a way I've never heard before. And the last thing before everything went black was this insane thought: We didn't even finish the bottle of wine.