The longer I watched, the more it curdled in me, until a bitter laugh scraped out.

They'd done everything but kiss.

And now they wanted me to believe nobody had crossed a line.

Chad's posts kept coming, one after another.

Greeting guests. Toasts. Working the room. The parents' speeches.

Somewhere in there it had gone far past what Lorraine promised me, which was only that he'd get to feel the entrance walk.

It wasn't until the very last part, the bouquet toss, that Lorraine finally bothered to message me.

【Are you at the hotel yet? Wait in the lounge a little longer. Chad's having fun, so he went ahead and did the rest of it too.】

【Don't be upset about it. Call it your apology for making him cry earlier.】

The lounge was two rooms down from the ballroom.

Even that close, she couldn't be bothered to come look at me once.

I didn't answer her.

I just took a screenshot from the corner of one of Chad's videos, the wedding cake already wrecked past recognition, and sent it to her.

【Why did you let him touch my cake.】

【It's just a cake, what's the big deal, I'll have the hotel go buy another one.】

I bit down hard on the soft flesh inside my cheek.

【The things you promised me. Have you forgotten all of them?】

Why, when I was already this far past disappointed, did it still hurt this much?

The suit I'd hunted through more than a dozen shops to find, ripped when Chad tried it on behind my back. Lorraine said, what's the big deal, we'll swap it.

The little garden chapel I loved, quietly switched to some dreamy fantasy-style ballroom by Chad. Lorraine said, listen to him, he has better taste.

By the very end of the planning, the one thing I asked for was to make the wedding cake with my own hands.

I'd told Lorraine this. As a pastry chef, it was the one thing I wanted most.

Chad hadn't come back to the country yet, back then.

Lorraine stood in front of the dessert shop that was about to open and threw herself into my arms, laughing.

"My baby is so easy to please."

"Fine. Come the wedding, I'll watch every single guest go down the line, and each of them has to finish it and write my pastry master an eight-hundred-word rave review."

I gave her nose a gentle tug.

"Smart mouth."

I dragged the progress bar back again and again, watching that short clip.

The cake I'd come to the hotel early to make, hacked into pieces.

Before anyone had even tasted it, Chad smeared it across the face of one of Lorraine's friends.

The whole crowd broke into laughter, wiping cream on each other.

My one wish, ground under their heels, smeared on the wall, scraped into the food waste.

The reply on the other side stalled for a few seconds.

The next second, it drove straight back into my chest.

【Julius, don't be so ungrateful.】

【It's just a cake, why make a thing of it. Not one of your relatives showed up, my family put on this whole wedding, and even the groomsmen were people Chad rounded up to keep up appearances for you.】

The old wound, torn open again.

I hit the screen so hard it clicked.

【Why my parents wouldn't come, aren't you the one who knows best?】

The other end went quiet.

The pain I'd buried came down on me again, riding in on the memory.

That day, I was walking down the street when a sign came out of nowhere and hit me.

Red all over the ground. A tearing kind of pain.

On instinct, I dialed the one number I trusted most.

The moment it connected, a rude male voice was already shouting.

"Hey, hey, you busy man. You said you'd hang out with your buddy all day. Phone off, no calls!"

There was the bright jingling clatter of the parade floats, then the "beep-beep" of the call being hung up.

And I lost consciousness completely.

When I came to, I was lying in a hospital.

The first face I saw wasn't Lorraine's. It was a stranger's.

He was just a stranger passing by when he found me. He rushed me to the hospital and signed the surgery consent form himself.

A stranger, taking on that risk to sign for me.

Lorraine, the woman who was supposed to be my fiancée, hung up on me to go watch the parade floats with her guy best friend.

The doctor couldn't hide his pity.

"Good thing you got here in time. You almost died, you know that?"

A suffocating despair closed over me.

I called Lorraine again and again.

By the time night fell, my parents had arrived from hundreds of miles away. Lorraine, three miles down the road at the amusement park with Chad, never came.

That day something in me went cold for good, and I went home with my parents.

Something came to mind, and I opened the chat with the cousin I was closest to.

Before the ceremony, he'd messaged me.

【Jules, is the wedding starting soon?】

A few minutes later.

【Don't be too upset. I know Aunt and Uncle wouldn't let us come to the wedding, but honestly, they already regret it.】

【I really believe things between you two can get better.】

He'd sent me a video.

Looking at my parents on the thumbnail, I couldn't bring myself to open it.

Now, with a shaking finger, I pressed play.

On the couch at my aunt's place, both my parents' eyes were already red.

My mother kept wiping at her tears.

"Why is that boy so stubborn? We told him that woman was no good."

"Who leaves their fiancé lying there with a smashed head, life on the line, to go play around with another woman?"

"And then what? She kneels in the snow one night, kneels herself right into a hospital bed, mumbles some empty little vow, and he goes soft."

My father sat there gripping his teacup, saying nothing.

My mother, furious, smacked him.

"And you. Why say something so harsh? Telling him if he dared marry her, you'd disown him as your son."

"Well, now you've done it. Our son really has run off."

Looking at the new gray in my parents' hair, my tears fell one after another.

My father was silent for a long time.

Then he took a bank card out of his wallet and handed it to my cousin.

"Howie Abbott, get this to your cousin when you can."

"There's five hundred thousand dollars in bride-price money in there. Don't let that girl's family look down on him."

A whole day of held-back emotion broke all at once.

I covered my face and couldn't stop the sobs, crying until my throat went raw.

There was only one thought in my head.

I want to go home.

I didn't bother sorting anything, just grabbed my things and stuffed them into the suitcase.

I couldn't even wait for the morning train, so I paid two thousand dollars for a long-distance Uber straight home.

The moment I zipped the suitcase shut, Lorraine called.

"Why aren't you answering my texts?"

I didn't respond.

She clicked her tongue but didn't press it, her tone offhand.

"Things got a little out of hand. A lot of the ballroom decorations got wrecked."

"I had the hotel set up a small hall on short notice. We'll just run our ceremony in there."

The main hall was ten thousand square feet. The small one was a thousand.

The people who came for the wedding experience got the main hall. The actual groom got the small one.

The way Lorraine said it, it was as easy as swapping a parking spot.

But I couldn't be bothered to care anymore.

I answered flatly: "Fine."

The complaint she'd braced for didn't come, and Lorraine paused.

Then, catching up, she let out a breath of relief.

"Now that's more like it."

"The hotel's already setting up, and I just had someone make an exact copy of the wedding cake."

Something crossed her mind, and her voice dropped, turning a little tender.

"Lorraine, I'm about to really become your wife."

"The wedding starts at nine. Make sure you're there on time."

The call ended.

I slipped the diamond ring off my ring finger and set it on the hotel nightstand.

Then I turned, and got into the Uber home.