Her Vows For Another
I caught her wrist. Her eyes snapped to mine, and in them, I saw a flash of pure, unadulterated irritation.
“Ethan, let go of me,” she hissed, her voice a low whisper. “This is actually important.”
She was trying to be quiet, but the delicate lavalier mic pinned to her dress amplified every syllable. Her words echoed through the silent, expectant venue.
My silence seemed to light a fuse in her. She ripped her hand from my grasp. “What’s with the death stare? I told you, it’s an emergency!” Her whisper rose in pitch, sharp and defensive. “It’s not like the wedding can’t wait fifteen minutes! Do you have to make a scene and embarrass us in front of everyone?”
Then came the final twist of the knife. “You know, I never should have said yes to getting married this soon.”
1
The wedding was halfway through, and she was throwing a fit over a phone call, yet somehow, I was the one turning our wedding into a farce.
She gathered her white dress in her fists and ran, not walked, off the altar and out of the grand ballroom doors.
Her parents, sensing a catastrophe, rushed to smooth things over, their smiles stretched thin. “That girl,” her mother said with a nervous laugh. “It must be something urgent from the hospital, you know how she is with her work.”
“Ethan, honey, we’re so sorry you have to deal with this.”
My hand clenched around the platinum wedding bands in my pocket, the metal digging painful grooves into my palm.
Others might have missed it, but I saw her screen light up before she answered. The caller ID wasn’t the hospital.
It was Leo. Her best friend.
A part of me screamed that I should have called her out right there, demanded to know why she was still tangled up with him on the most important day of our lives. But I couldn’t. I wanted to salvage some shred of dignity for us.
And then, her voice, warm and gentle, drifted back into the ballroom. She’d forgotten to turn off her microphone.
“Leo? Why are you calling now? Are you not feeling well? Do you need me to come to the hospital?”
Her tone was a universe away from the venom she’d just spit at me. It was the voice I hadn’t heard in years, the one that made me fall in love with her.
The entire hall was silent, every guest listening, captivated. A wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd.
The officiant stood frozen on the stage, his professional smile gone slack. I just stood there, a statue in a tuxedo.
I couldn’t make out what Leo said on the other end, but Olivia’s voice became even softer, a tender coo that sliced right through me. “I know,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “Of course, you’re the one I love most.”
A gasp went through the room. Someone finally had the presence of mind to lunge for the sound system and kill the power, but it was too late. Our parents, our relatives, my colleagues, her friends—everyone had heard it.
A sudden cry erupted from the front row. My mother had collapsed in her chair, her face pale.
The scene dissolved into chaos.
I fumbled for my phone, my hands shaking as I dialed 911. My uncles rushed forward, helping me get my mom out of the venue and toward the ambulance.
Through it all, Olivia never came back.
I was the one left standing in the wreckage of our wedding, apologizing to guest after guest as they filed out, their faces a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. Most of them just patted my shoulder, not knowing what to say, and left.
By the time the last guest was gone, Olivia’s parents still hadn’t found her. No one knew where she’d hidden herself to take that damning phone call. They stood before me, their faces etched with shame, her mother nervously twisting the fabric of her new mother-of-the-bride dress. The celebratory crimson color of it felt like a deliberate cruelty, burning my eyes.
“Ethan, there has to be a misunderstanding,” her father pleaded. “You and Liv have been together for so long. You know what she’s like…”
I tore the white rose from my lapel and let it fall to the floor. My voice was hollow, scraped raw with a fatigue that went bone-deep. “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes. I have to get to the hospital to be with my mom. Excuse me.”
After all these years, standing on the precipice of marriage, I was just now realizing that I didn’t know her at all. I didn’t know she would tell her best friend she loved him most. I didn’t know he mattered more to her than I did.
At my own wedding, I had become the punchline to a joke I never even knew was being told.
2
I had just arrived at the hospital and was peering through the small window of my mom’s room when my phone buzzed. It was Olivia, and from the moment I answered, her voice was a barrage of accusations.
“Ethan, are you out of your freaking mind? So I took a phone call, what’s the big deal? Is this seriously how you’re going to act?”
Her voice was sharp, grating. “First you give me that look at the altar, then you just kick all the guests out? Are we getting married or not?”
“And don’t you forget, you were the one who begged me to marry you! You picked the date, I went along with the stupid engagement photos, and now you pull this? What is your problem?”
“If this is how you handle things, how are we ever supposed to make it work? A fight every other day?”
She didn’t offer a single word of explanation for telling another man she loved him most at our wedding. Not even a half-hearted lie to placate me. She didn’t even ask why the guests had left. She just launched her attack, because in her world, the fault could only ever be mine.
She was never wrong.
“Are you deaf? Or did you forget how to speak? I’m asking you, are we still getting married or not?”
I pressed the phone to my ear, her shrill voice making my head pound. I walked down the sterile hospital corridor to a window at the end of the hall before I finally spoke.
“Did you ask your parents why the guests all left?”
Her impatience crackled over the line. “I was about to ask you! Where did you send my parents? They’re gone too.”
I nodded to myself, the cold realization settling in my stomach. Of course.
I could hear her parents’ voices in the background now, and Olivia let out an exasperated sigh. “Ugh, you’re useless. I can’t get a straight answer out of you.”
“This was supposed to be a happy day, and you’ve completely ruined it!”
Before I could even try to explain, she hung up on me.
It was probably for the best. Let her parents tell her. At least they wouldn’t be met with a three-minute tirade for every sentence they uttered.
My mom had just fainted from the shock and anger. After some fluids and a day of observation, the hospital discharged her. I wasn’t expecting Olivia to show up at the hospital room door the next morning, holding a bag of takeout.
“I brought breakfast for Mom.”
My own mother snorted from her bed. “The wedding’s off, we never signed the papers. I’m not fortunate enough to be your mother.”
“Mom, please don’t say that!” Olivia’s eyes welled up, her gaze shifting to me, pleading. “Ethan, I’m so sorry about yesterday. It wasn’t on purpose. I can explain.”
I said nothing, just took the bag from her and handed it to my mom. We were going to have to talk this out, and I wasn’t going to let my mom go hungry while we did.
I led Olivia out into the hallway. She grabbed my sleeve, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “It was Leo. He called me from the wedding.”
“He has severe clinical depression, Ethan. And he doesn’t have any family or friends here in Ridgewood. I can’t just ignore him.”
“The last time, and the time before that, he almost… he tried to kill himself in his bathroom. With a razor. If I hadn’t gotten there in time, he’d be dead.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and sincere. “I think the wedding… it made him feel insecure, abandoned. I was scared he was going to hurt himself, so I just said what he needed to hear to calm him down.”
“That’s why I said those things. It was just to soothe him. Please, don’t take it to heart. I can explain to all our friends and family, I swear.”
Explain what? That my fiancée is so adept at soothing another man’s fragile emotions that she’ll verbally assault me at our own wedding to do it? That I’m the clown in this twisted emotional circus?
It was all so… undignified.
She clutched my sleeve tighter, her sincerity feeling terrifyingly real. It was as if she could will the whole event away, as if there had been no fight, no public humiliation, no catastrophic phone call. As if we were still the same loving couple we were supposed to be.
I didn't respond. A tear slid down her cheek and landed on the back of my hand, the warmth of it startling me.
“I was just so angry yesterday, I said things I didn’t mean! Ethan, I was wrong, I won’t ever get that upset with you again…”
“I promise, I’ll never do that again. Just forgive me this one time, please.”
“Give it a couple of days,” she whispered, her voice thick. “We’ll go down to the courthouse, make it official. And then we’ll throw another wedding, a bigger one, and we’ll explain everything. Everyone will understand.”
Her words were earnest, her remorse palpable. She sounded like she truly meant it.
But all I knew was that a crack had formed, a deep, jagged line through the foundation of everything we had built. A broken mirror can’t be made whole again. Staring at our shattered reflection, I had no idea how we were supposed to live a lifetime with this.
3
After I put my mom on the train back to her B&B, Olivia insisted on going to the supermarket.
“I noticed you barely touched your food at lunch. I’ll make that pasta dish you love.”
I was surprised she’d even noticed. I was about to tell her not to bother, that she didn’t need to go to any trouble, but she seemed so genuinely enthusiastic that I couldn’t bring myself to refuse.
The evening was almost peaceful. For the first time since the wedding-that-wasn’t, the tension between us seemed to recede, leaving a fragile quiet in its place. As we sat down to eat, the atmosphere felt… almost normal.
“Open it,” she said, a mysterious smile playing on her lips as she slid a small, elegantly wrapped box across the table.
Inside lay a pair of exquisite silver cufflinks.
“I saw these a while back and thought they’d be perfect with that new suit of yours. I was going to give them to you yesterday,” she said softly. “But things got… complicated. Better late than never, I guess.”
I stared down at the cufflinks for a long time before I finally managed to speak. “They’re beautiful, Liv. Thank you.”
A gift of cufflinks. A symbol of holding on to each other, of growing old together. It was a beautiful sentiment.
I loved them.
We started dating as freshmen in college. That was seven years ago. A lifetime. Maybe yesterday really was just a horrible, one-off disaster. Maybe she really did want to build a life with me.
The two wedding bands were still in my jacket pocket, a heavy, constant reminder. I thought, for a fleeting moment, that now might be the right time to take them out.
But her phone rang before I could move.
The caller ID flashed on her screen. Leo.
Her face changed instantly. “Hello? Leo? Are you okay? Don’t do anything stupid! I’m coming over right now!”
“I’m sorry, Ethan,” she said, her voice tight with panic. “Something’s wrong. I have to go.”
I could faintly hear the sound of glass shattering through the phone, followed by the muffled, guttural sobs of a man.
Olivia shot up from her chair and bolted for the door. On her way out, she snatched the insulated container of pasta she had packed up before we sat down to eat.
I looked at the plates on the table, the food now lukewarm. And I noticed, for the first time, that every single strand of pasta was flecked with chopped cilantro. She knew I hated cilantro.
The meal was never for me. She had just used my kitchen to cook for him.
I pulled the two rings from my pocket and threw them into the junk drawer in the dining room, along with the box containing the cufflinks. Every time I looked at them, all I could see was the chaos of the wedding, the frantic, desperate look on her face as she ran to another man.
It was torture. Better to have them out of sight.
Two people who once clung to each other in the dark, and I couldn't even pinpoint the moment we started drifting apart.
I tried to pick the cilantro out of my portion, but the flavor had seeped into everything. After a few bites, a wave of nausea washed over me. I scraped both our plates into the trash can.
It was never meant for me anyway. I didn’t feel a single pang of guilt watching it disappear into the garbage.
Later that night, my phone rang again. It was Olivia’s mom, her voice frantic. “Ethan, honey, is Liv with you?”
“I’ve been calling her for an hour and she’s not picking up. If she’s there, just let me know so I can stop worrying.”
“She’s not here, Mrs. Hayes.”
A sharp intake of breath on the other end. “But it’s so late! If she’s not with you, where could she be?”
Her voice dropped, filled with a weary resignation. “That foolish girl. I gave her such a talking-to yesterday. She’s probably ignoring my calls to spite me. Ethan, would you please do me a favor and call her? She always listens to you. She’ll pick up if it’s you.”
She always listens to me?
A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Hayes,” I said, my voice flatter than I intended. “She’s probably just at a friend’s house. I’ll give her a call.”
Of course, in Ridgewood, she only had one friend she’d be with at this hour. Leo.
Olivia answered on the second ring, her voice already laced with annoyance. “I already told you I was going to check on Leo. Why are you blowing up my phone? I have dozens of missed calls. Don’t you have anything better to do than check up on me all day?”
“Do you not have a job? Or hobbies? Why don’t you just scroll through your phone or something?”
“Your mom asked me to—”
Her voice shot up several decibels. “Ethan! You went and tattled to my mother?”
“She’s an old woman! You’re stressing her out over this stupid little thing. I can’t believe you’d be so pathetic!”
I had no energy left to argue. I just felt… tired. A deep, soul-crushing exhaustion.
The line went quiet for a moment. Then I heard Olivia gasp. “Leo, don’t.”
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