When Love Falls, It Shatters Crimson
Three days earlier, I finally asked him about it. He quickly turned his phone face-down, saying work was a mess and he had to leave town. I only saw his tired face and hurried to help him pack, ignoring the hidden phone and the smoke.
As I thought back, Stella drank half the bottle, staring blankly at our wedding portrait on the wall. A tear rolled down her cheek. Dread filled me, but before I could speak, her phone buzzed. After ignoring it repeatedly, she grabbed her purse. "Work called—I have to go," she slurred. "Aim the bouquet at me tomorrow!" She left in a rush, tear-streaked.
But I saw the caller ID: my fiancé, Matthew.
1
The last shred of hope I was clinging to dissolved when a push notification lit up my phone.
It was a video, shot from a hidden angle. In a dimly lit alley, a man held a woman locked in a fierce embrace. The man was tall and impeccably dressed in a suit; the woman, stunning in a slinky crimson dress. They looked like a scene from a movie, a perfect match.
But it was the watch on his wrist that made my world stop. The diamond-encrusted face glinted, revealing the letters M & C etched around a cheesy little heart.
My fifth-anniversary gift to Matthew.
M for Matthew. C for Clara.
And the woman he was kissing… dangling from her purse was a small, hand-knitted rabbit with a single red rose tucked behind its ear.
I had made that for Stella. I’d clipped it onto her bag myself, just an hour ago.
The comment section was a frenzy, a celebration of the "insane chemistry" between the "hot, mysterious couple."
Ten thousand comments, and every single one was a fresh twist of the knife in my heart.
Twelve years ago, at seventeen, I’d said with a goofy grin, "Stella is the best person in the world to me."
When my parents tried to force me to change my college major, threatening to stop me from studying art, she was the one who helped me run away in the middle of the night.
From that day on, she shouldered everything: rent, utilities, our living expenses, and my tuition. She worked at a downtown bar, singing and hustling to keep us afloat. When I wanted to drop out and get a job to ease her burden, she lit into me, screaming at me for the first and only time.
Even then, the harshest words she ever said were aimed at herself.
"Clara, do you want to end up like me? With people whispering 'slut' behind your back for the rest of your life?"
Stella was two years older, but her family had bled her dry, so she never made it to college. She made her living singing in smoky bars.
"Don't you worry," she'd said, her chin held high. "I can take care of you."
I remembered her expression, her voice, as clearly as if it were yesterday.
A wave of nausea churned in my stomach.
How did we get here? How did we end up like this?
2
Eight years of love, twelve years of friendship—all turned to ash in a single moment.
For a man? Was he worth it?
Stella, who never bought herself so much as a new bracelet, who used the same cracked phone for two years, had bought me the latest model the day it came out without a second thought. And when I finally started making real money as an illustrator, I didn't get a mortgage; I bought her a car, paid in full.
We were the kind of friends who would give each other our last dollar. We’d empty our own pockets to see the other happy.
If she and Matthew had just told me they had feelings for each other, I would have stepped aside. I would have let them go.
But why play me for a fool? Was the thrill of the secret worth destroying me?
I wiped my tears and opened Stella's social media profile.
Back when I was a struggling art student, she was already a local celebrity, a singer with a devoted following. Every time she posted a video, she'd demand I like and comment, and she'd pin my comment to the top to drive traffic to my portfolio.
The moment I became an established illustrator with a steady stream of commercial work, she stopped.
"Linking yourself to a bar singer is bad for your brand," she'd told me. "It'll cost you clients."
But now, everything was different.
Her last post was from a performance three days ago. The video was shaky, but in the frame, besides Stella on stage, you could clearly see a man’s forearm in a crisp white shirt.
I didn't need to zoom in. I knew it was Matthew’s.
Three days ago. The day he told me he had to work late because of a problem at the office. How strange that "working late" meant spending the entire night at a bar, listening to her sing.
September 11th. Matthew was "working late" again. In the background of Stella's video, his reflection was clearly visible in a TV screen. They were in a hotel room. And he was still wearing the watch I gave him.
September 1st. Stella was out of town for a week, helping a friend open a new bar. Matthew was on a "business trip" for five of those days. He came back with a bandage on his forehead and scraped knuckles. He said he’d gotten into a fight defending some girl from a drunk.
And today. Matthew was "working late." Again.
I started crying, then laughing, then crying again. The past and the present crashed together in my mind, a chaotic mess of memories and lies. For a moment, I wished I was delusional, that I had imagined it all, because anything was better than this reality.
We were supposed to get married tomorrow.
My wedding dress was hanging in the closet. The hair and makeup artists were scheduled to arrive in eight hours. My bouquet was sitting on my vanity. I had practiced the bouquet toss eight hundred times, determined to make sure Stella would be the one to catch it.
Everything was ruined.
They say that after a complete breakdown, you become unnaturally calm, almost numb. I opened my laptop and started drafting an email to cancel the wedding. My eyes drifted back to my phone.
Should I call them? Confront them? Listen to them stumble through a string of pathetic excuses before finally admitting their disgusting betrayal, only to turn it all around and blame me?
Just then, my screen lit up with a notification. A charge on our shared credit card.
I clicked on it. It was from a hotel.
The room, priced at 0-0,888 a night, was one of their "fantasy suites." Matthew and I had only been there once, the night he proposed.
He really knew how to spend my money.
Any thought I had of ending this with dignity vanished, consumed by a white-hot rage.
I’m the kind of person who gets even.
3
I slammed the delete key and walked to my art studio.
If they were so in love, then fine. I’d give them the wedding they deserved.
A stack of unused invitation sleeves sat in the corner. I found a simple template online, typed in the names of our guests, and printed a new, thick stack. It was much faster than the ones I’d hand-painted, one by one.
As I slipped the new inserts into the fancy sleeves, I saw their names on the paper, and a sharp pain twisted my stomach again.
For me, it had been love at first sight with Matthew. He was on stage, the new student representative, dressed in a crisp white shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. He spoke with a calm, steady voice, an aura of cool detachment that made you want to be the one to break through it.
The line of people trying to win him over stretched from the lecture hall to the campus gates. I was just another face in the crowd, the quiet art major who was always too busy with projects to "accidentally" run into him.
But Stella knew. The day after she figured out I had a crush on him, she cornered him in an alleyway near campus as he was heading home.
She had a lollipop stick hanging from the corner of her mouth, her voice pure swagger.
"My girl here wants to get to know you," she said, jerking a thumb in my direction. "Give her your number."
Matthew’s gaze landed on me, and he sighed, a flicker of amusement in his eyes.
My hand trembled as I scanned his code. As I put my phone away, he turned his arm toward Stella.
"What about you?"
Stella just shoved me forward and strolled away. "Don't have a phone," she called over her shoulder.
And later... when did they exchange numbers?
I sealed the last invitation, clutching my stomach as I curled into a ball by the desk.
Every memory of Matthew and Stella together replayed in my head. The way he would turn his head to laugh at her jokes, the way he’d play along with her antics, how he’d challenge her to drinking contests and then drive her home.
I was so naive. I thought he was just being nice to my best friend because he loved me.
Once the pain subsided, I grabbed my wedding dress and took a cab to the hotel.
This wedding was supposed to be my dream, a fantasy I had spent a year and a half designing and supervising every detail of. Matthew wasn’t interested in any of it, and I never asked him to be. I only wanted his opinion on the invitations and the party favors.
Now, I had to tear that dream down with my own hands and face the brutal truth.
I had all the photos of us taken down, leaving only the two bare names at the entrance.
Matthew & Clara.
I whispered his name, and the suffocating weight in my chest began to lift.
More than Matthew, I hated Stella. She was the one who pushed me to follow my art, the one who was with me through every struggle. She was more than a friend; she was my family.
And the deepest cuts always come from family.
I spent the entire night on the top floor of the hotel, just sitting. When specks of light began to dance across the floor, I pulled back the curtains and realized the sun was rising. In the ballroom next to mine, another couple's family was bustling about, their faces beaming with joy as they prepared for the big day.
I looked down at my own shadow. I was used to being abandoned, used to being alone. It wasn't so bad.
At nine o'clock, the wedding motorcade pulled up to the hotel entrance. The other bride, surrounded by a crowd of loved ones, walked through the doors toward her future.
My eyes drifted to where the cars had come from, and then I saw him, tucked away in a corner.
Matthew.
He was chain-smoking in the shadows, one cigarette after another, until a hand snatched the last one from his lips.
Stella ground the cigarette out with the heel of her shoe and, without a word, slapped him hard across the face.
"Matthew," she hissed, "don't make me lose all respect for you."
4
Like a guilty child, Matthew grabbed her arm. "Don't go," he pleaded. "Just stay a little longer."
They embraced, holding each other so tightly it was as if they were trying to merge into one person, to melt into each other's bones.
Watching them, I felt like the villain, the one who had cruelly kept them apart.
A laugh escaped my lips.
I had been so considerate, stripping the wedding down to the bare essentials to save him from the stress. All he had to do was show up, say his vows, and exchange rings. I never imagined he’d use the free time I gave him for a final, passionate rendezvous with another woman.
I waited until they disappeared inside the venue.
Then, I walked downstairs.
Just as I’d instructed, a large trash bin was placed by the entrance. Beside it was a box of the new invitations, every instance of "Clara" replaced with "Stella." I knew them. They’d be hiding backstage, whispering sweet nothings, too wrapped up in their drama to notice anything else.
For the first time all day, a genuine sense of relief washed over me. Vengeance, it turned out, was the best therapy.
The staff followed my orders perfectly. As guests arrived, their original invitations were collected, tossed into the bin, and replaced with the new ones from the box.
A confused murmur rippled through the wedding hall. Matthew’s face was a mask of thunder. He knew something was wrong, but not what. He just didn't want to be here.
Don't worry, I thought. I'm going to make this a day you'll never forget.
The hour struck.
The lights went down.
And I walked onto the stage, dressed in my pure white wedding gown, and took the officiant's microphone.
As Matthew and Stella watched in dawning horror, I spoke, my voice ringing through the silent hall. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wedding of Matthew and Stella."
A single spotlight hit Stella. She looked up, a bitter smile playing on her lips, as if she'd been expecting this all along.
"Clara..." she began.
Matthew snapped out of his shock and lunged for the microphone. "Clara! That’s not funny! This joke has gone far enough!"
I simply picked up a second mic. "Let's take a look at their incredible love story, shall we?"
Stella grabbed my wrist, her eyes begging me. "Clara, you can't—"
On the massive screen behind us, the picture from the alley flashed into view—their passionate kiss, followed by the unedited video of their desperate embrace from just moments ago.
Matthew froze, his face draining of all color. Then, his shock morphed into rage. "That's photoshopped! Those are fakes!"
I laughed coldly. "So let’s all give them a round of applause—the whore and the liar. May they last forever!"
Matthew tried to salvage the situation, turning to the stunned guests. "Everyone, I am so sorry. My fiancée… she's been under a lot of creative pressure lately. She's not herself."
His grip on my wrist loosened. I shoved the microphone into Stella's hands, my voice a low whisper only she could hear. "Stella, we're done."
This was my last act of mercy—not blasting this all over the internet and destroying what was left of her life. As for Matthew... I’d made sure to invite his CEO and his wife. His career was over.
Stella’s eyes were a swirling mix of emotions. "Clara, I'm sorry," she whispered.
Then, her tightly clenched fist opened.
A single piece of paper fluttered from her hand, drifting on the air and landing at the feet of a guest in the front row.
She raised the microphone to her lips, her gaze locked on Matthew.
"You want to know what that is, Matthew?" her voice boomed. "That's the receipt for my abortion!"
Matthew looked as if he'd been struck by lightning, stumbling back a step.
I had started to leave, but now I paused, a curious spectator to my own tragedy. Let’s see how this plays out. Faced with public humiliation, would Matthew choose his reputation or his one true love? This was better than any soap opera.
His eyes darted to me, desperate. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. He shook his head violently. "You're lying! When did we ever sleep together?"
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