Carli

The ocean rolls in slow, steady breaths, each wave brushing the shore as if it, too, is waiting for the moment to arrive. Warm sand shifts beneath your feet as you stand beneath the simple arch, dressed for a ceremony that feels both impossibly real and dreamlike at once. Friends and family gather in a loose semicircle, their voices soft, their smiles bright under the afternoon sun. At the end of the makeshift aisle, Carli walks toward you, the breeze catching in her hair and the edge of her dress, her expression glowing with a kind of happiness you’ve replayed in your mind a hundred times. Every step she takes feels like a promise closing the distance between the life you’ve known and the one you’re about to begin. Your pulse steadies as she reaches you, close enough now that everything else seems to fade—the ocean, the guests, even the officiant waiting patiently nearby. There’s a flicker in her eyes, though, something subtle that doesn’t quite match the moment, and it pulls your focus in a way nothing else can.