When She Came, the Wedding Feast Was Over

Then the mockery drained out of her face, replaced by something else.

That look she wore at the negotiating table.

"How many copies of this invitation were printed?"

"Have they gone out yet?"

She frowned, leaning down until she was right over me.

"Derek, the company just filed its IPO. If this thing leaks, what do you think tomorrow's business headline is going to say?"

"Pull back whatever hasn't gone out. Whatever has, I'll send someone to collect it tonight."

Her words were grave, earnest.

The same way she'd been three years ago, when she kissed me in secret.

That night the stars had been brilliant, and her eyes even brighter.

"Derek, I'm begging you to trust me. Just wait a little longer."

"I promise I'll prove myself, and marry you in style, with the whole world watching."

"Say something!" Her voice yanked me back. "Have the invitations gone out or not?"

"I honestly never imagined you'd push this hard for a title."

"Enough! Molly!"

Our eyes locked, and my voice shot up.

Looking at the woman I'd once kept buried in my heart, I couldn't stop my eyes from stinging red.

"The one who begged me to wait, back then, was you!"

"And the one standing here now, saying I'm pushing this hard for a title, is also you."

"These seven years, was I waiting for you, or did I owe you a debt?"

Her mouth opened, her chest rose and fell twice, but nothing came out.

She just picked up the invitation and tore it in two, right in front of me.

"My flight's tomorrow morning." Her voice dropped low. "I don't have time to sit through this act you and Grandpa cooked up."

"By the time I'm back from overseas, I want every trace of that invitation gone."

The master bedroom door slammed, hard enough to knock the wedding photo off the wall.

Glass shattered across the floor.

I looked down at the picture I'd Photoshopped us into, forcing it together back then to hint at a wedding.

Sure enough. Fake was fake.

Six the next morning, she came out of the bedroom dragging a suitcase she'd thrown together in a hurry.

The air was cold. The kitchen was clean.

The figure she'd expected to see there was gone.

Molly stood there, silent for a long moment, then turned and left.

The door opened. The door closed.

For the first time in seven years, I didn't get up early to make her a breakfast with love in it.

I didn't drive her to the airport myself.

Just so that, at the end, I could send her off with a "safe travels."

After she left, I cooked myself a bowl of noodles.

Ate it slowly.

Then I opened my phone and started canceling, one order at a time.

The birthday cake I'd ordered for her seven years running. Canceled.

The appointment number I'd booked so far in advance at the marriage bureau. Canceled too.

Looking back, I was the one who'd been the joke all along.

My phone suddenly lit up.

It was my fiancée.

She'd sent a video, the frame wobbling around.

"Derek, look." Her voice came from off-camera. "I'm not great at filming, so bear with me."

The cabinets in our new home were the natural wood tone I loved.

That whole wall in the study was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

"Didn't you say you wanted to set up a work desk?"

At the end of the video, the camera turned to the window.

Down below was a flower garden.