The wedding was in less than 72 hours, and the groom-to-be was nowhere to be found.

Claire had first been alerted to a potential problem when her sister texted her at 9:14 on Friday night: is Brad with you?

He's camping with the guys

She'd been half-asleep when she responded, but as soon as the text sent, Claire sat bolt upright.

Why? Is something wrong?

Without giving her sister time to respond, Claire called her.

"Isn't Andy with Brad? Is everything okay?"

"Relax, Claire," Adeline's irritated tone did nothing to sooth Claire's jangled nerves. She sighed loudly, the whoosh of air muffling her voice for a moment. "Brad was supposed to meet everyone at the campsite, and he didn't. Andy thinks he probably just fell asleep or something."

"Right, okay," Claire said, her mind racing. "Well he isn't here, so let me call his parents."

"Already did," Adeline said. "Stop freaking out, it's probably fine. Brad and I will handle it, go back to bed."

Claire barely heard her. She was already scrolling through her latest texts with Brad, seeing if he had provided a clue as to where he might be if not at his bachelor party.

"He texted me at four to say he got firewood, so we know he was definitely planning on- oh, God." Claire could barely keep the panic at bay. "His mechanic told him to change his brake pads like a week ago, I don't know if he did or not. What if his car crashed? What if-?"

"Claire, Jesus, see, this is why I didn't call you sooner. I'm sure he's fine. This wedding is making you crazy."

"My fiancé is missing!" Claire shrieked into the phone. "I'm allowed to be worried!" She closed her eyes. Deep breathes, like her therapist kept telling her. 

Adeline was right, of course. The wedding had been making Claire crazy (and emotional, and impatient, and a million other unpleasant things. Claire hated it).

She didn't know why, either. Her marriage to Brad was going to be the happiest day of her life. So why had she been so stressed out and temperamental in the weeks leading up to it? She was turning into someone she didn't recognize.

For a moment, she wished she and Brad had decided to elope, like he'd impulsively suggested the night he asked her to marry him. Her mother would have never spoken to her again, Claire knew, but there were times she wondered if that was necessarily a bad thing.

It was a moot point, at the moment- there would be no marriage (in secret or otherwise) if there was no groom.

"I'm calling him," Claire said. "Tell me immediately if you hear anything."

"I already-" Adeline started. Claire hung up.

She listened to the beginning lines of Brad's voicemail six times ("Hey, it's Brad, you know what to do-") before she moved on to Brad's parents, her parents, and half of the members of their wedding party. No one had heard from him.

Claire's mind galloped from possibility to possibility. A car accident seemed far more likely than a kidnapping or murder, but Claire wasn't taking anything off the table. Maybe he'd gotten stranded somewhere without cell reception. Maybe he'd simply stopped at a bar and had lost track of time.

Underneath the wild anxiety was a creeping fear- a fear so shameful that Claire's mind shied away from it, leaping towards other, more tragic possibilities that would mean Brad's disappearance was not one of his own accord.

It wasn't that she and Brad had been having problems, exactly. Their relationship- a whirlwind of emotions that was less than a year old- had always been up and down, but that was simply because they were so different. Brad was boisterous, quick to voice his opinion, and liked staying out late, while Claire preferred long, thoughtful discussions and quiet evenings at home.

She had never seriously dated much, before Brad. It had been a sore point for her mother, who could never seem to wrap her mind around the fact that Claire was quite happy being single and had no desire for children, despite being almost thirty years old.

"What about dating online?" Her mother would suggest every Christmas dinner, as though the possibility was one Claire had never before entertained. "That's how Miranda's son met his wife, and the Clarks' daughter has been seeing a stock broker she met online, very nice young man-"

"Let her be," Claire's father would say, and Adeline and her husband, Andy, would shift uncomfortably, and Claire would drain her glass of red wine in one gulp.

"I just want you to be happy," her mother would say, despairingly, and Claire would grimace.

"I am happy, mom," she would insist, but her mother would just look at her sadly and purse her lips before changing the subject.

Dating Brad had changed all that. It had taken him months to finally get her to agree to one date, but Claire quickly found that dating Brad was easy, and actually made her life a lot less complicated. For the first time, she had someone to bring to family dinners and holiday parties. People stopped asking how work was, and instead asked how she and Brad were. Time spent with Adeline and Andy turned into regular double-dates. And above all, Claire's mother had stopped treating her oldest daughter like a tragedy-in-the-making.

When Brad asked for Claire's hand in marriage, seven months into their relationship, she'd said yes immediately. She was happy at the prospect of marrying him, of course, but overwhelmingly she just felt relieved. Finally, here was the proof: Claire was not a freak of nature. She was capable of a relationship, and what was more, she wanted one! She wanted to be married, to have someone to rely on, to maybe have kids one day.

...Didn't she?

Of course she did. Brad wanted to get married. Brad wanted kids. Her mother had wanted those things as well; had found joy, and even purpose, in them. So although Claire might never have fantasized about her wedding day or picked out baby names the way her sister had, Claire could learn to want those things. Already had learned to want those things.

She had to remind herself of that fact, sometimes. That this was what she wanted.

A few weeks prior, while wedding dress shopping, Adeline had turned to her big sister, and said: "You know, Claire, other people might not always understand the way you live your life but, who cares? It's your life. And unlike Mom, I actually do want you to be happy. Not her version of happy. Your version of happy." She'd looked to Claire, then, and waited.

Claire hadn't known how to respond. It was easy for Adeline (perfect, predictable Adeline, who had married her true love at 23 and was expecting a baby in a few months) to say something like that. Adeline's idea of "happy" was very much in-line with everyone else's. Claire's version of "happy" had always been a packed work schedule and a glass of wine paired with a trashy detective novel on the weekends, but surely there was something wrong with that. With her.

Claire pushed the memories aside. They weren't going to help her stress levels, and they certainly weren't going to help her find Brad.

She went to Brad's Facebook page, then his Instagram, and quickly established he hadn't posted anything all day. Then, on a whim, she began to crawl through his tagged posts on Instagram.

He had been tagged in a photo posted only an hour previously.

Six people Claire didn't recognize were crowded together in front of a bar. Everyone was young, maybe college-aged, and they were clearly wasted. The girls wore tiny dresses and the guys all wore t-shirts and jeans, except for one who had a t-shirt tied around his head and a girl hanging off his arm. The photo had been posted by "beccaboop94" and the location was tagged as "Bingo Bar and Nightclub, Las Vegas, NV".

Las Vegas? That was hours away. The tag must have been an accident. Claire was about to click away from the photo when her heart suddenly plummeted.

The guy with the t-shirt around his head and the buxom blond girl hanging off his arm was Brad.

Claire didn't know how long she stared at the photo, just that her brain had screamed to a halt. As if in a trance, she took a screen shot and texted it to him. She didn't say anything, just stared at her phone screen, and waited.

Within a minute, her phone vibrated: Brad was calling her. She felt like she'd been slapped in the face. She let the phone go to voicemail, and waited for it to vibrate once again, indicating she had a voicemail.

"Claire- babe, I can explain." Brad's voice was slurred and earnest. Claire could hear rowdy shouts and muffled music in the background. "I just... I had to get away for a few hours, you know? Please babe, pick up, I'll explain everything. I love you. I-" Brad's voice cracked. "I don't want to lose you. I'm sorry. Just call me back."

Claire's ears were ringing, and she had a sudden moment of clarity. She imagined herself, in five years, in ten years, in twenty years- sitting in this very bed, hearing this same message again, and again, and again. No- not the same message, exactly, but variations of it.

Was this her future?

Calmly, Claire picked up her car keys and left the apartment. She drove to her parents' house (they lived only ten minutes from the apartment) and let herself inside through the garage.

Soon, she was standing in her childhood bedroom, gazing around as though she had never seen the room before. Little had changed since her high school years. Books lined wooden shelves on one wall, and the other was covered with posters of bands and musicians she hadn't listened to in years.

Silently, Claire slid open the closet door.

There was her wedding dress, long and white and resplendent beneath the clear plastic covering. Claire hadn't cared much for the dress when she'd bought it, but then again, she didn't care much for dresses in general. Her sister had gushed over it, however, and her mother had actually clapped her hands when Claire exited the dressing room, so Claire had bought it, wincing slightly when the cashier reminded her all sales were final.

Claire knew, with a sudden resolve that was almost frightening, that she would never wear this dress down the aisle.

She opened her desk drawer, and after rummaging around, found what she was looking for: A small pair of embossed metal scissors, its handles decorated with carefully crafted silver angels. It was an antique, had belonged to Claire's grandmother half a century ago. Despite their age, the blades were still sharp and lethal.

She returned to the dress, and stabbed, jamming the open blades into the delicate white lace of the right sleeve and yanking downward. The fabric tore with almost comical ease.

Blood pounded in her ears and she stabbed again, and again, tearing, ripping, shredding.

With every stab, she felt more confident, more like herself. She gritted her teeth and tore at the neckline, then the train.

"What are you doing?"

Her mother stood in the doorway, wrapped in a pink, silk bathrobe, her expression mortified. Claire tossed the mangled dress onto the back of her desk chair and turned to face her.

"I'm not going to marry Brad," she said simply. "The wedding is canceled. I'll send out an email tomorrow." Her mother stared at her daughter, aghast.

"Honey-" her voice was somehow both gentle and frantic- "whatever, happened, we will work through it. If he said something, or did something, I'm sure we can-"

"No," Claire said simply. "We could, but we won't. I won't." She placed the scissors back in their drawer. "I'm going to sleep here tonight. And then I'll get my things from the apartment in the morning, and then I'll decide what to do from there."

"Are you sure?" Her mother asked.

Claire looked at her hands. Her thumb and pointer finger were rubbed raw. The ache felt good. She looked at her mother and nodded calmly.

She had never been more sure of anything in her life. 

--

Thank you @_TheSeaSoul_ for this entry's prompt: SCISSORS.

This is part of my collection of short stories, Everyday Objects, in which I write an original story inspired by an object provided by a reader.

Comment below with a RANDOM OBJECT to inspire my next tale, and thanks for reading!