"I was burned all over my body after saving my little sister from a house fire when she was ten. Years later, I came to her wedding in a wheelchair, and she whispered, “Go sit in the back. You’re ruining my perfect wedding.”

The church in Charleston, South Carolina, smelled like white roses, polished wood, and expensive perfume.

I sat at the end of the second row, my wheelchair angled carefully so I would not block the aisle. My hands rested in my lap beneath thin ivory gloves. Scars climbed from my fingers to my neck and crossed the left side of my face.

People tried not to stare.

Some failed.

My younger sister, Emily Whitmore, stood near the altar in a pearl-white gown while the photographer adjusted her veil. At twenty-two, she was beautiful in the effortless way our mother had always worshipped.

I remembered Emily at ten years old, screaming from our second-floor bedroom while smoke swallowed the hallway.

I had been seventeen.

The firefighters were still minutes away, so I ran back inside.

I found her beneath a fallen curtain, clutching a stuffed rabbit. I covered her body with mine and dragged her through heat so fierce that parts of my dress melted against my skin.

Emily survived with one small scar beneath her shoulder.

I spent fourteen months in hospitals.

Before the ceremony began, she walked down the aisle smiling for photographs. When she reached me, she bent as though she intended to kiss my cheek.

“Go sit in the back,” she whispered.

I stared at her.

“You’re ruining the atmosphere. I want the pictures to look perfect.”

My throat tightened. “Emily—”

“Please don’t make this about you.”

Behind her, Mom studied the flowers. Dad looked straight ahead.

Neither defended me.

I touched the wheels of my chair.

That was when Margaret Callahan, the groom’s mother, rose from the front row.