Ten Years Wasted The Bride Who Never Showed

The bike's kickstand sliced a bloody line down my shin, and I hit the ground shaking from the pain.

A girl got out of her car, called the police for me, and dialed 911.

While we waited, her phone kept ringing. The street was loud, so she put it on speaker, and I caught most of it.

She hadn't shown up on time. She'd held up work. Her boss and the client were both furious.

I felt terrible and told her to go ahead and leave.

She just smiled at me.

“It's fine. I can deal with it. Right now, you're what matters.”

She stayed the whole time, kept me calm, and only left after the paramedics arrived.

In the five minutes after I called Jude, everything came flooding back at once.

Three months ago, I'd been dying to have seasonal crab. Jude said he didn't like food with shells. He told me to go with Frieda, and he'd pick up the tab.

Yet today, he'd gone out for crab with Ethel.

He couldn't stand having his plans disrupted, so I'd gone to my wedding dress fitting alone.

But he'd promised to take me. Then one phone call from Ethel, and he left me standing there.

And the charger.

Once, I'd only tried using it, and he gave me the silent treatment for a week.

Now Ethel was plugging her little fan into it.

I kept thinking about that girl's eyes when she said, “Right now, you're what matters.”

When the police came, she volunteered her contact information and said she was willing to be a witness.

Before she left, she took off her jacket and draped it over my legs.

I lay in the ambulance with my wound throbbing while the paramedics took my blood pressure, stopped the bleeding, asked about my medical history. Every single one of them was gentle.

For ten years, I'd been waiting for Jude to break one of his rules for me.

Waiting for him to make an exception just once. To pick up my call in the middle of something. To rearrange his schedule for me. To put me, firmly and unmistakably, at the very top of his priorities.

I'd obeyed his rules, accommodated his moods, loved him carefully for ten years.

And right now, the only person willing to put me first, to ache over whether I was hurting, to choose me above everything else—was a stranger I'd never met before.

That was when I understood. He didn't love me.

And I shouldn't keep begging to be loved.

Lying in my hospital bed, I drafted a message in the family group chat with both our parents, deleted and retyped it over and over, and finally hit send.

I'd barely closed my eyes before the wound got infected and my fever spiked to nearly 104.

Frieda stayed by my side, running back and forth, and my temperature didn't come down until the middle of the night.

Looking at how worn she already was from a project at work, I hired a caretaker and told her to go home and rest.

Early the next morning, the sound of muffled crying woke me.

I opened my eyes, groggy, my whole body aching and weak.

Through blurred vision I could see Glenda Lawrence standing in the doorway of my room, wiping her tears. She was staring at Jude, her face a mix of disappointment and fury, the look of a mother who wanted to shake sense into her son.

“Jude, how can you be this clueless?”

“Marina's hurt this badly, and you still had the nerve to go take care of your secretary?!”

“Tell me the truth. Did you actually do something to betray her?”

“She's been with you for ten years. I know her temperament inside and out. If she weren't truly done with you, she would never have brought up breaking up at a time like this!”

Jude frowned.

“Mom, you don't know the situation. Yesterday, I couldn't just leave Ethel there……”

Glenda was trembling with anger, her voice rising sharply.

“But you could leave Marina? Jude, you're exactly like your father!”

The words landed. Glenda turned, caught my gaze, and immediately gathered a smile as she walked quickly into the room.

When she saw the bandages on my leg, her eyes went red again.