If there is one universal truth, it is that marriage changes everything. Your relationship with your current spouse changes, as do your relationships with your closest friends. This is especially true if you move to a whole new place after taking that next step—a reality one woman had to face after her best friend told her she was getting married. In a personal essay on TodayWriter Jillian Pretzel talked about how devastated she was when her neighbor Stephanie told her she was engaged, getting married soon, and moving to a new town.

Although Jillian was not thrilled by the news, did offered to take on an important task of the big day: delivering the wedding cake to the venue. When she reached the reception venue, however, she realized she had failed – the cake had tipped over during transport, creating a huge frosting-covered mess. An accident, no doubt – or was that it? “I stood frozen, staring at the cake. Frosting was everywhere, bits of the yellow cake oozing out,” she wrote. “I had the frightening thought that I might have somehow, subconsciously, done this on purpose.”

In her essay, Jillian explained that she woke up the morning of the wedding feeling “weird” and “distracted.” “I was late getting ready, late picking up the cake, and now I was late for my friend Stephanie’s wedding.” “I had completely missed the ceremony and it was already cocktail hour,” she explained. “I just wanted to get the cake through the crowd to the dessert table before the bride noticed.”

Jillian sighed in relief as she placed the box of candy on the dessert station—and then lifted the lid. She was suddenly overcome with guilt over her lack of enthusiasm and how scared she was about the upcoming shift. “I stood there, frustrated, sad, and close to tears. I had missed my friend’s wedding ceremony, missed her finally saying ‘I do,’ and now I was ruining the reception by delivering a cake that was so bad,” she wrote. “Stephanie had been there for me for the past two years, supporting and encouraging me many times, and I had let her down on her big day. I wanted to get up from the table, walk to my car, and drive away as quickly as possible. But I knew I had to try to make this right somehow.”

Luckily, Jillian worked quickly with the venue’s catering service to fix the mistake and was able to put the cake’s layers back together and smooth out the frosting (and Stephanie, who learned of the fiasco the next day, said it was no big deal). With the mistake behind her, she returned to her family and the party. “As we mingled with the other guests, chatted with some of Stephanie’s other friends, and finally found our table, I felt a little like that cake,” she wrote. “Before, I was a limp wreck, but now I felt patched back together and ready to party. Sure, I lost a great neighbor, but at the same time, there was so much to be thankful for, so much to celebrate. Of course I wanted to be there. I wanted to stand tall and celebrate my friend.”

To this day, however, Jillian struggles with the intrusive thought that she deliberately destroyed the candy as a result of her anger over her friend moving away and turning their relationship upside down (which has changed, she admits). “Every now and then I wonder what my first thought was when I opened the box, if I really did break it on purpose. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that it was an accident. Things happen: cakes fall, we’re late, friends move,” she wrote. “We just have to try to do our best and, when we’re down, hope that someone will help us back on our feet and smooth out the edges.”