I am Nola Flores, thirty-two years old, and I am a Commander in the United States Navy SEALs. I have been trained to endure freezing surf, sleep deprivation, and the kind of psychological pressure that breaks ordinary men. I’ve jumped from planes at altitude, navigated hostile territory in complete darkness, and led teams through scenarios where hesitation means death.
But nothing in the BUD/S manual prepared me for the silence of a historic Episcopal church in Virginia on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. I stood in the vestibule, the heavy oak doors acting as the final barrier between me and my future. The air was thick with the scent of lilies and old floor wax, that particular smell that seems to live permanently in churches built before the Civil War.
Through the crack in the door, I could see them—one hundred forty-two guests filling the pews. My gaze swept over the crowd, recognizing faces that had been through hell and back with me. My team from Coronado sat stoic in their seats, their posture rigid even in civilian clothes, the military bearing impossible to hide.
My command staff from Naval Station Norfolk, officers in their immaculate dress whites, filled the middle rows, their medals catching the light from the stained glass windows. And then I saw the gap. The first three pews on the bride’s side were empty.
Aggressively, violently empty. The ushers, following protocol, had placed white silk ribbons across the ends of those rows, marking them “Reserved for Family.” Now, those ribbons looked less like decorations and more like police tape cordoning off a crime scene. My father, my mother, and my brother—the Golden Boy who could do no wrong—were not there.
Not a single one. My stomach clenched with a nausea that had nothing to do with wedding nerves. I pulled my phone from the hidden pocket of my dress one last time, checking with the desperate hope of someone who should know better.
I had called my brother in desperation twenty minutes ago, my voice breaking as I begged him to tell me they were just running late, stuck in traffic on I-64. The only response was a text message glowing on the screen like a slap across the face: “Don’t expect much from us.”
Five words. That’s all it took to confirm what I’d been denying for weeks—they weren’t coming.
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