(Liam's POV)
The evening arrived like an execution date I had spent weeks trying to scrub from the calendar. Standing in front of our bedroom mirror, I adjusted the collar of my button-down shirt for what felt like the hundredth time, my fingers cold and clumsy. Beneath my skin, a low-voltage anxiety crackled, humming a relentless tune of dread. Tonight was the ceremonial dinner with our parents—a night designed to bind the final threads of our wedding together. For days, my mind had violently swung between a desperate desire to feel enthusiastic and a heavy, numbing terror.
I glanced at Linna through the reflection. She was a whirlwind of vibrant life, darting across the bedroom, smoothing down her skirt, her infectious energy vibrating through the small apartment. I looked at her and felt a profound, aching envy. I wanted to plug myself into her joy; I wanted to steal just a fraction of her light to burn away the fog in my own head.
"Are you ready?" she asked, pivoting toward me. Her eyes were bright, dancing with an effortless excitement that made it horribly easy to mask my own fracturing psyche.
"Yeah, ready as I'll ever be," I lied, forcing a smile that felt tight, like dry leather stretching across my face. I internally slammed a door on the hollow ache in my chest, shoving my apprehension into the dark, determined not to let my internal rot throw her off balance.
"Let's go over the battle plan one more time," she suggested, stepping into my space to straighten a stray lock of her hair in the mirror.
"We lead with the guest list to get the heavy lifting out of the way, then we move to the catering options. Oh! And don't let me forget to show them that cute geometric cake design I bookmarked!"
"Got it," I deadpanned, raising a hand to snap a rigid, sarcastic salute. Linna rolled her eyes, a beautiful, genuine giggle escaping her lips, and for a fleeting, fragile second, a spark of real warmth thawed the ice in my chest.
As we stepped out of the apartment and into the cool evening air, I consciously brushed away the lingering shadows. I repeated a silent mantra in my head: *Be normal. Support her. Do not ruin this night for her.*
The drive to her parents' house was soundtracked by the steady hum of tires on asphalt and Linna's animated voice. She enthusiastically recounted her day, detailing how she had pinned down the final vendor contracts. I nodded in all the right places, letting the rhythmic sway of the car act as a temporary tourniquet for the anxious whirlpool spinning in my mind.
But the moment the car engine died in her parents' driveway, the pressure returned, heavy and suffocating. Stepping out, the air was immediately thick with the familiar, comforting scents of Mrs. James's cooking and the blooming jasmine from her front garden. Before we could even ring the bell, the front door swung open.
"Linna! Liam!" Karen greeted us, her face completely illuminating as she threw her arms wide, enveloping both of us in a suffocating, lavender-scented hug.
"Hi, Mom!" Linna laughed, melting into the embrace. I stepped into the line of fire next, feeling the overwhelming, unconditional warmth of family affection as she squeezed me tightly, welcoming me like a son who had already taken her last name.
"Dinner is almost ready! Just a few more minutes!" Karen announced, practically vibrating with excitement as she bustled back toward the kitchen. In the dining room, Linna's father, Charles, was carefully arranging the silverware. When he looked up and saw us, a massive, proud grin broke across his weathered face.
"Glad you two could make it! We've been looking forward to this all week," he said, stepping over to give my hand a hearty, bone-crushing shake. "How are the wedding plans coming along? You two surviving the storm?"
I caught myself glancing sideways at Linna, completely paralyzed by the sheer weight pressing down on my lungs. How was I supposed to answer that? *Pretty well, I think,* I managed to drag out, my voice sounding tight. *A lot of moving parts, but we're getting there.*
"Nothing you two can't handle!" Charles boomed, clapping a heavy, reassuring hand onto my shoulder. "This is a milestone, son. A moment in your life to cherish forever. You're going to do great."
His confidence felt like a physical blow. *A moment to cherish.* Why couldn't I cherish it? As they dived deeper into the logistics, I fought to keep my head above water, nodding and smiling on cue. But as the kitchen filled with the sounds of clinking pans and easy laughter, that terrifying sense of absolute disconnection slid back over me like a heavy, suffocating wool blanket.
"Let's finalize the guest list first. I printed out the drafts you both sent over," Karen said, emerging from the kitchen with a stack of papers and setting them down on the table like a general presenting a treaty. Her excitement was tangible, almost electric. "I'm so thrilled you decided to expand the count for your friends. It's going to be an incredible turnout!"
I looked down at the neatly typed pages, but the letters immediately began to blur. The ink swam together on the white paper, a metaphor for how the entire evening was slipping through my fingers, wrapped in a thick, numbing film. Next to me, Linna was practically glowing as she pointed at the pages, completely attuned to a frequency of joy that I couldn't tune into.
"Okay, so we have family clustered here, college friends here, and we can't forget the high school crew! Everyone is going to lose their minds when they see the venue!" she chimed in. I nodded, a robot obeying commands, while the emptiness in my gut expanded into a freezing vacuum. I felt my heart sinking beneath a dark, heavy current of self-doubt.
"Liam, what do you think of the layout for this list?" Charles asked suddenly, his voice piercing through the fog and snapping me back to reality.
"Uh, good?" I stammered, the word falling flat, landing on the table with all the grace of a lead weight.
"Just good?" Linna pressed gently. She turned to look at me, her enthusiasm faltering for a split second as her brow furrowed with a sudden, sharp concern. "We want it to be perfect, don't we? We really want everyone to feel special, Liam."
"Yeah, of course," I forced out, but as the lie left my lips, a crushing wave of guilt flooded my chest. I hated myself in that moment. I hated how detached I was, how I was a black hole sucking the energy out of their beautiful evening. Desperate to salvage the mood, I tried to inject some levity. "Perfect is subjective anyway, right?"
It was a clumsy, desperate quip. It fell dead on arrival, entirely failing to elicit the easy laughter I had hoped for.
"Alright, Mr. Perfectionist. Let's move on then," Linna said softly, her voice carrying a fragile brightness as she tried to keep the mood alive for her parents' sake. But I didn't miss the shadow of worry darkening her eyes, or the way her smile looked a little more forced now.
Dinner was served, and the table was soon piled high with fragrant, steaming dishes. As we began to eat, the room filled with the comfortable, looping rhythm of family stories. It was a beautiful scene—laughter bouncing off the walls, decades of shared history and love filling the air. Yet, I felt myself physically retreating into the background, my entire presence dissolving into a shadow at the edge of the room.
Karen started sharing amusing, nostalgic anecdotes from Linna's childhood, her face softening with pure maternal love. I forced myself to laugh along, nodding at every punchline, feeling like an imposter who had snuck into a stranger's house.
"Oh, remember the time Linna genuinely believed she could train that bloated hamster to be a pet show star?" Charles laughed, his chest heaving with warmth.
"I still maintain he was a misunderstood genius," Linna shot back, a brilliant spark of the girl she used to be flashing in her eyes. Despite the numbness, my lips curled into a faint, involuntary smile. She was beautiful. She deserved a fiancé who was whole.
But as the conversation rolled onward, I found myself tuning out again, a soft, distant echo drowning out their voices. A toxic cocktail of envy and deep despair stirred in my gut. They were all so profoundly *present*. They were living in the moment, breathing it in, while I felt suspended in amber—a ghostly spectator to a life I was supposed to be leading.
During a brief lull in the chatter, Linna caught my eye. The mask had completely slipped from her face; her eyes were wide, etched with a raw, painful concern that she couldn't hide anymore. As her parents kept talking, gesturing excitedly about wedding day logistics, the distance between my heart and the reality of this room felt like a yawning, bottomless chasm.
"Liam, are you alright?" Linna whispered, leaning in so close her shoulder brushed mine. Her voice was a tiny, fragile thing, kept low so her parents wouldn't hear.
"Yeah," I breathed, but the energy required to fake another smile was entirely gone. "I'm okay."
She didn't believe me. The agonizing worry in her eyes deepened, but the momentum of the dinner dragged us forward. The evening pressed on, a painful contrast of jubilant laughter ringing around the table and a heavy, suffocating silence locking me inside my own skull.
Finally, the dinner began to wind down. Plates were stacked, and the conversation drifted back toward the final, heavy details of the wedding schedule. The apprehension in my chest spiked, bubbling up into a panic so acute I knew I couldn't suppress it for much longer. The truth was clawing its way up my throat.
"I, uh... I need to talk to you later. About something," I murmured to Linna, the words slipping out in a hurried, quiet rush while her parents were distracted arguing over hotel blocks.
Linna froze, her eyebrows drawing together as she felt the sudden, alarming gravity in my voice. "Of course," she whispered, her gaze dropping to her lap for a fraction of a second.
The weight of that unspoken promise sat like a slab of concrete on my chest for the rest of the night. As the evening concluded with lingering hugs and loving banter, I moved through the motions like a man drowning in slow motion, caught in a dark, relentless tide. I didn't know what I was going to say to her when we got home, but looking at the woman I loved, I knew the time for hiding was officially over.