"Fine, don't apologize. But you'd better make up for it with action! Call everyone and tell them you're the one who called off the wedding!"

Before I could refuse, he hung up.

Then a text came through:

"Grace, I'm begging you, please stop making a scene. I'm just going with Nellie for her treatment. It's not like I'm never coming back to marry you. Canceling the wedding is just so we can save your dream ceremony for the perfect time."

Those familiar words stung, burning behind my eyes.

The perfect time.

I'd been hearing that for eight years. Nearly three thousand days and nights, waiting for him to marry me.

And what I got instead was him leaving to be with another woman for two years.

Mark Rowe, I'm done waiting for you.

Because we were never right for each other.

The message disappeared. He'd unsent it.

A new one popped up:

"That last message wasn't appropriate for Nellie to see. She's been really sensitive since she got sick. Just do what I asked, okay? Whatever I owe you, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you after these two years!"

I actually laughed out loud.

I waited two minutes. Sure enough, he unsent that one too.

So which was it? Was he lying to me, or to himself?

He'd already made up his mind to stay by Nellie's side until she recovered. Why bother promising me two years?

And if she never got better, was I supposed to wait forever?

I shook my head, forcing the thought away.

I typed a single word: "Okay." Hit send.

A red exclamation mark. Message failed.

He'd already deleted me. Couldn't even wait, all so he could keep Nellie happy.

Fine by me.

I didn't care. I posted on social media that the wedding was off.

The questions flooded in almost instantly. Why? What happened?

I didn't want drama, so I stuck to Mark's script and said it was my decision.

But my friends weren't buying it. The messages poured in:

"Grace, Mark isn't that broke nobody he used to be. Every woman in the city would throw herself at him now. You cancel this wedding, and you're basically handing your man to someone else on a silver platter!"

I didn't reply.

Because Mark was already someone else's husband.

Shortly after my post went up, Nellie sent me a photo of their marriage certificate.

Her tone dripped with triumph as she thanked me for my generous assistance.

"Grace, thanks so much for the assist! Mark was originally just going to accompany me as my boyfriend, but to make it easier to sign medical forms for me, he rushed and got us legally married!"

I didn't dignify it with a response. Delete. Block. Done.

My phone buzzed again. My mother, calling to chew me out.

"What is wrong with you? The fruit's right there on the branch and you won't pick it! What are you trying to prove? By the time you come to your senses, he might not want to marry you anymore!"

A dry laugh escaped me.

"What if he's the one who doesn't want to get married?"

She went silent for a beat, then laid into me even harder.

"Then you clearly did something wrong! Swallow your pride, sweet-talk him, patch things up. Don't tell me you followed that man for all these years just to walk away with nothing!"

Eight years loving Mark Rowe. He always said the same thing: career first, then family.

But when success finally came, when he had the house and the car, building a family with me wasn't what he had in mind.

It wasn't that I hadn't tried. Trying just didn't matter.

For eight years, I'd been by his side through everything. The startup grind. The basement apartment. The instant noodles. I'd swallowed my pride a thousand times over, telling him I dreamed of being his wife, for richer or poorer.

I'd even given up three pregnancies.

Because he said the timing wasn't right. He didn't want a child suffering alongside them.

I loved him, so whatever he said, no matter how much it gutted me, I went along with it.

Just like tonight, when he said he wanted to be there for Nellie's treatment.

After all, he was the one who despised her trailing after him like a lovesick puppy.

He'd even said her love made him sick.

In that moment, though my heart felt like it was being carved open, a strange relief washed over me.

If the wedding was off, at least I didn't have to keep lowering myself to the dust, waiting for him to finally marry me.

My mother was still rambling on about how women who knew how to act sweet always had the best lives. The grievance lodged in my chest suddenly lost its desire for an audience.

"Mom, the wedding's canceled. There's no way I'm marrying him!"

I hung up and called the wedding planning company to cancel tomorrow's ceremony.

The emcee went quiet for a beat before speaking.

"Mr. Rowe already called about this. The thing is, he asked us to keep the decorations and banners in storage for two years. That's going to be tough. Most of those materials are single-use..."

It clicked instantly. He'd picked that fight on purpose, just to make me deal with all the fallout and the questions.

And he actually believed I'd wait for him for two years, like those cheap decorations gathering dust in a warehouse.

"Throw it all out. Even if it weren't disposable, two years in storage would rot it."

Just like his love for me.

It would fade and vanish with time.

After hanging up, I scrolled to my mother-in-law's number and felt a headache coming on.

Philippa Rowe despised Nellie Simmons. If she found out her son had already signed a marriage certificate with that woman, she might keel over from sheer rage.

I took a deep breath and transferred the $88,000 wedding fund back to her, every last cent.

I counted to three in my head.

The phone rang.

"Grace, sweetheart, why did you send the wedding fund back?"

"Mom, Mark and I aren't getting married right now. We'll talk about it in a couple of years."

Philippa was sharp. She caught the wrongness immediately.

"Did Mark do something to hurt you? I'm going over there right now! The wedding tomorrow is happening as planned!"

"Mrs. Rowe, the wedding really can't go forward..."

But Philippa had already hung up.

It was Mark's turn to figure out how to handle his own mother.

And it was my turn to pack and leave.

The apartment was still dressed for a celebration. Every detail reflected the happy married life I'd spent weeks imagining.

Now each one was a blade twisting into my chest.

There wasn't much to take. A single suitcase, and it wasn't even full.

But there was plenty to throw away.

By the time I finished, I noticed Mark had called me several times.

Didn't take a genius to figure out why. He wanted to blame me for not keeping Philippa under control.

I set the key on the entryway table and picked up the last framed wedding portrait on my way to the door.

I walked straight into Mark.

The portrait smashed against the floor, shattering into pieces.

A shard sliced across the top of my foot, and blood welled up instantly.

Mark grabbed Nellie and pulled her behind him, his face tight with irritation.

"Grace, what the hell? Didn't you see Nellie standing there? What if you'd hurt her?"

He didn't see the blood pooling on my foot. Instead, he crouched down and carefully brushed a speck of glass no bigger than a pinhead off Nellie's shoe.

I had no interest in watching him dote on another woman. I grabbed my suitcase and walked past them.

His peripheral vision caught the suitcase. He shot to his feet and seized my arm.

"Grace, where are you going?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but his phone rang.

I saw the caller ID. Philippa.

He answered with barely concealed impatience.

"Fine! I know! It's not canceled! I'll smooth things over with her! Don't worry!"

He hung up and turned to me.

"Grace, my mom says the wedding tomorrow has to go ahead as planned."

"I don't want to upset her, so let's keep everything as is. But could you run away? Flee to France? I'll book the ticket for you myself."

"My mom adores you. If you bolt, she'll definitely send me after you. That way I can keep pretending I'm overseas chasing you down."

I stared, wide-eyed, unable to believe these words had come from the man I'd loved for years.

But then I remembered he'd gone so far as to sign a marriage certificate just to accompany Nellie for her treatment.

And suddenly, nothing he said or did seemed surprising anymore.

I was leaving anyway. Might as well grant him this one last favor.

"Fine."

Maybe it was how easily I complied that finally made Mark stop being blind.

He noticed the shattered wedding photo on the floor. Then his gaze dropped to the blood smeared across the top of my foot.

His eyes went red with panic. He rushed back into the bridal suite to grab the first-aid kit.

The moment he was gone, Nellie lifted her chin, her expression dripping with provocation.

"Grace, you really are pathetic. You already know I'm Mark's wife, and you still wanted to go through with the wedding?"

"So what if his mother doesn't like me? She can fight it all she wants. At the end of the day, Mark still calls me his wife."

"And you? You'll just be the other woman everyone spits on."

"Oh, and don't kid yourself thinking he'll divorce me and marry you in two years, because..."

She tugged her collar aside, revealing a trail of marks along her skin, her smile dripping with satisfaction.

"He told me I'm the first woman who's ever made him feel what ecstasy really means."

"Oh, and in case you didn't know, our first time was the night of your birthday."

I lowered my eyes to hide the tears that surged up without warning.

So Mark had betrayed me long ago.

And he'd played me for a fool, stringing me along for two more years.

My thirtieth birthday was the first time Mark had ever thrown me a real celebration.

Nellie had shamelessly confessed her feelings to him that night.

He'd torn into her in front of everyone, humiliating her so badly she couldn't show her face.

But on the drive home, he'd gotten some urgent call and dumped me on the side of a mountain road.

The next day, he came back full of apologies.

And proposed.

Said he wanted to give me a fairy-tale wedding.

I had waited eight years for that moment.

The joy crushed every ounce of unease I'd been carrying.

But that night, he forgot to lock the bathroom door. When I walked in, I saw the scratches raked down his back.

Fresh scratches. I demanded to know what happened.

He didn't even flinch. Said he'd been scratched by a cat.

Even pulled up his rabies vaccination record as proof.

I forced myself to believe him.

But a woman's intuition is a stubborn thing. Even while I was planning the wedding, none of it felt real.

A voice in the back of my mind kept whispering: He finally agreed to marry me because he'd done something unforgivable, and this was his way of making up for it.

I buried my head in the sand, too afraid to dig for the truth.

But I couldn't let it go, either. So I started following him in secret.

When I discovered that his so-called client meetings were actually trips to Nellie's apartment, I stopped confronting him. I just waited for him to come clean.

That was why I didn't push when he skipped the rehearsal.

When he texted saying he needed to be with Nellie for her treatment, I didn't object.

"Excuse me."

I had no interest in wasting words on Nellie. I just wanted to leave.

But the second Mark stepped out with the first-aid kit, she grabbed my hand and threw herself backward onto the carpet of broken glass.

A sickening crunch.

Blood. On Nellie's lips. On her hands. Everywhere.

She looked up at me, her voice slurred and trembling.

"Grace, I know you don't like me, but why would you push me?"

Mark saw the blood and lunged forward, shoving me to the ground.

"Nellie, don't be scared. I'm taking you to the hospital right now."

He scooped her up and bolted for the door.

Before he left, he turned back. His eyes cut through me, cold as steel.

"Grace, I never thought you could be this vicious. Attacking a sick woman. How could you be so heartless?"