They said it wasn’t real. They said we’d grow out of it. Eight years later, we were still together—quietly building a life, holding onto a love the world never fully accepted. I thought coming home would bring us closer. I didn’t expect it would be the beginning of goodbye. The Runaway Groom: Not a Wedding Story is my first ever story. A tribute to a love that was strong, but not loud. A story of silence, of almosts, of the question that came too late. How do you mourn a wedding that never happened?