The Bride Who Called Off the Wedding

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1: 1

When Otto James casually bought that 0-000,000 diamond necklace for my best friend,

I was still at the counter asking whether there were any deals on our wedding jewelry set.

Same weight of gold.

One set was fine and pretty, with a crafting fee of 0-00,000; the other was rough and dowdy, but the crafting fee was only 0-0,000.

I went back and forth for a long time.

I finally gritted my teeth and was reaching for the more expensive set to pay.

Otto walked over, didn't even lift his eyes, and pointed at the cheap one.

"This one. Better value for the money."

Then he turned around and, without a moment's hesitation, bought the diamond necklace he'd called the least worth its price, fastening it gently around Lois Sullivan's neck.

My hand paused over the payment, an endless bitterness welling up inside me.

The three of us had grown up together.

In Otto's eyes, Lois always deserved the most expensive things. I only deserved the ones with good value for the money.

In elementary school, Lois could sing and dance. She hosted the Children's Day show, so her birthday present was a rhinestone crown.

I had no talent for anything, only for studying, so my birthday present was a box of pencils.

Then later, after college.

Lois became a company executive. I was a back-office clerk.

Her birthday gifts turned into designer couture; mine were a practical robot vacuum, a dishwasher.

And now, with the wedding almost here, even one small thing I loved became a burden dragging down the value for the money.

I blinked and forced the tears back.

I set the jewelry set down gently and gave the clerk a smile.

"Never mind. I don't want either set."

No money, no emotional value.

So this relationship, with its terrible value for the money, I didn't want it either.

...

My voice wasn't loud, but it was enough for everyone around the counter to hear.

Startled looks turned toward me at once.

No wonder.

After all, I'd already spent an hour at that counter over this crafting fee, shameless enough to haggle it down bit by bit.

And now I was just walking away.

The clerk's face stiffened, and even the customers shopping at the next counter looked at me with disapproval.

As the impulse drained away and my clear mind took over again, I felt a flicker of regret.

But when I turned around, Otto had already run off into the distance, eyes full of doting as he took photos of Lois fussing with her new necklace.

I swallowed down the bitterness in my throat, pushed the two sets a little further away, and repeated myself.

"Take them back. I don't want either set."

The clerk came to her senses and hurriedly gathered up the two pieces.

Professional instinct made her try to keep the customer.

"Are you sure you don't want it? This set really suits you."

"You spent so long here deciding, so you must like it."

How could I not like it?

The moment I walked in, I'd had my eye on that set.

When the clerk mentioned the crafting fee, I'd instinctively looked at Otto.

His brows had been knit tight, and all he'd left me with was, whatever you like,

before turning to follow Lois as she wandered off.

Eight years together. I knew him too well.

In an instant, I'd caught the displeasure in his words.

But a wedding only happens once. This was the first time I'd wanted to fight for myself.

I'd stood at that counter for an hour, enduring the impatience of the clerk and the customers around me, and had barely managed to haggle the crafting fee down to $5,000.

Then Otto just drifted over, light and careless, and made the decision for me.

In that moment, I suddenly felt it was all completely pointless.

When I walked out of the jewelry store, the doorway was already empty.

I looked down at my phone and only then saw that Otto had messaged a while ago.

You're too slow. Lo got bored of waiting, so I'm taking her to grab something to eat first.

Sent you the location. Come find us.

Otto had put me out of his mind so naturally.

Completely forgetting that today was the day we'd gone out specifically for me, to buy our wedding supplies.

When we set out that morning, Lois had just appeared out of nowhere.

She'd slid right in between Otto and me, hooking an arm through each of ours.

"Ta-da. Surprised?"

"I heard you two were buying wedding supplies today, so I took the day off just to come help you decide."

I forced the corners of my mouth up, but a bad feeling stirred quietly inside me.

For as long as I could remember, every time it was supposedly about coming along for me, the star of the day somehow always ended up being Lois.

Still, I comforted myself. There's only one bride, and a wedding is a big deal. They'd know where the line was.

As it turned out, I was wrong.

When we ordered wedding candy, Lois said she wanted to buy some to snack on, and Otto pulled me back.

"Let Lo pick first. We can wait, it's fine."

When they were measuring me for the wedding dress, Lois mentioned, as if in passing, that she'd like a gown made too.

The tailor I'd paid a fortune to hire was suddenly busy measuring her instead.

Now it was already afternoon.

Less than a third of the plan we'd set was done.

When I got to the coffee shop, Lois had her arm looped around Otto's neck, laughing and playing.

Her eyes lit up when she saw me.

"Margie, come tell him off!"

"This brat gifted his daddy a necklace and now has the nerve to say I have to go warm his bed tonight."

"I'm telling you, I'm not just your childhood friend now, I'm your future mother-in-law, got it? If anyone's warming beds, it's you."

Otto was laughing, begging for mercy over and over.

"Okay, okay, I'll warm it, I'll warm it."

"Your Highness, how about I gift you another bag? The monogram one you had your eye on last time. Please, just let go."

"Hee. That's more like it."

I didn't say anything about the way they were clearly playing past the line. I just stared quietly at the drinks on the table.

In front of them were caramel cream lattes, topped with cream and pudding.

Set at my seat was the cheapest classic drink, an iced coffee.

I suddenly found it a little funny.

So it turned out that even the drink they got for me had to be good value for the money.

As I laughed, everything in front of me blurred.

Otto and Lois finally sensed something was wrong and went quiet, stopping what they were doing.

The words I'd been holding in my mouth for so long finally came out.

"I just came to tell you two something. The wedding's off."

"You two wanted to have your fun, didn't you? Now you can go have all the fun you want."

2: 2

With that, I didn't wait to see how they'd react. I just turned and walked out.

By the time I stepped through the door of the coffee shop, not one of them had come after me.

At the corner, through the shop's clear window, I caught it out of the corner of my eye.

The two of them exchanged a glance, then broke into easy, careless smiles.

I didn't have to guess what they were saying.

Lois would look at Otto with that helpless expression of hers.

"Margie really is something. We ignore her for five minutes and she throws a fit just to be noticed."

Otto would keep scrolling on his phone, indifferent.

"Just leave her. She's really pushing it now, using the wedding as a threat."

"Let's see if she actually has the nerve not to marry me."

And then Lois would collapse laughing into Otto's arms.

"Oh, stop it, you're terrible. Don't call her out like that. Go smooth things over once in a while, let her save face."

That scene had played out countless times, for as long as I could remember.

Every time I got upset about being overlooked, about being treated differently, all they saw was me making a scene for attention.

Except the attention part was the lie. Calling off the wedding was real.

Late that night, Otto came home.

I lay curled against the far edge of the bed, hugging a pillow.

He knocked on the bedroom door and set a cup of milk tea gently on the nightstand.

I glanced at it. It was the one they'd been drinking that afternoon.

For a second, something in me stirred.

I gripped the fabric in my hands, and I couldn't help the small, foolish hope that rose in me.

Was Otto here to apologize?

Had he finally seen how unfair all of this had been to me?

But Otto only stood by the bed for a long time.

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

"Margie."

"What?"

"From now on, if you want something, can you just say so?"

I froze.

Otto let out a long sigh.

"Lo could see it too. You're sulking because we only got you an iced coffee."

"But this isn't okay. Lo took time off work just to go shopping with you, and then you walk out and start talking about calling off the wedding. You had her anxious the whole day."

The heat was set to 82, the goose-down comforter soft over me.

And still I felt like I'd been dropped into ice.

Otto looked so certain, blaming me.

For one dizzy moment I almost wondered if maybe these really were small things, if I was making too much of nothing.

But I knew, clearly, that wasn't it.

I sat up and looked at him quietly.

"Otto, do you honestly think it's right to make your own fiance use the cheap stuff and then turn around and buy someone else luxury goods?"

Otto blinked, then understanding dawned on his face.

"So this is about the wedding jewelry."

He relaxed and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He reached for me. I moved out of reach.

His brows drew together again, the way you'd look at a child who doesn't know any better.

"I already told you, the other set wasn't worth the money."

"Something you only wear once for the wedding. Why pay a markup on it?"

I let out a cold laugh.

"So buying Lois a diamond, something that loses most of its value the second you walk out the door, that's worth the money?"

It was like I'd struck a nerve.

Otto shot to his feet and snapped back before he could think.

"How could you even compare yourself to her!"

The air went dead silent.

I stared at him, stunned.

His throat bobbed, dry.

After a long moment, he tried to patch it over.

"What I mean is, Lois is a manager. She's in and out of meetings all the time. Luxury like that suits her better."

"You're just a clerk. You wouldn't have any use for it"

Otto was still racking his brain for excuses, but I couldn't take in a single word.

That one line he'd let slip, "How could you even compare yourself to her," kept echoing in my head.

So that was it. That was it.

In the heart of the fianc I was supposed to marry, I ranked far, far below someone else.

The back of my hand went suddenly cold.

Without noticing, I'd started crying, my whole face wet with it.

My heart ached like it was being torn apart, my nails carving red lines into my palms.

I forced my head up.

"Don't say any more, Otto. Let's break up."

"When I said the wedding was off, I meant it."

3: 3

The front door slammed shut in the entryway.

Otto left me with a single line:

"You're too worked up right now. I'm not going to argue with you."

I didn't ask where he was going.

Because on my phone, Lois's post had already popped up, right on cue.

*Ooh, look who came to keep Daddy warm.*

In the photo, Otto was wrapped in a thick blanket, holding Lois close against him.

Otto had always hated the heat.

Eight years together, and even on the nights my period left me shivering, he'd never once held me while I slept.

I switched the phone off and tossed it aside.

I lay back down and curled myself into a ball.

The foot that slipped out from under the blanket went cold in the draft.

Somewhere between sleeping and waking, it was as though I'd gone back to the winter Otto and I first met.

The year I was ten, my mother died of an illness.

My father, busy with his business, sent me back to my grandparents in the countryside.

Back then I was still drowning in the grief of losing her, glum all day, head always down, not the kind of child anyone warmed to.

A few of the mean kids fixed on me.

In the dead of winter, they rigged a bucket of water on the door frame and dumped it all over me.

They circled me, spinning around, jeering.

"Dirty outsider, get out of our class."

"Ha, she looks so ugly now. What if we rip her coat off her?"

I hugged myself, helpless, crouched on the ground and shaking.

At my lowest, Otto dropped out of nowhere like a hero and drove them off.

Even as a kid he was a head taller than everyone.

With the light behind him, when he crouched down and pulled me to my feet, that tall shape carved itself deep into my heart.

He said, "If anyone bullies you from now on, come find me. I'm in the class right next to yours."

He said, "Oh your mom passed away? Don't be sad. You can come to my house, and I'll give you half of mine."

He said, "You don't really have friends in class? It's fine, I'll hang out with you. Having me as a friend is enough!"

A boy's heart, so earnest and so warm.

With Otto beside me, I slowly climbed out from under the shadow of my mother's death, slowly stood up straight at school and lifted my head again.

Until the next year, when Lois transferred to our school too.

That day after class, I went to find him to walk home together, like always.

He nervously pulled me off to the side.

"Margie, there's a new girl who transferred into our class. She's so pretty."

"I want to be her friend."

It was the first time I'd ever seen that look on Otto's face.

Nervous, shy, unsure. Nothing I'd ever seen in the way he was with me.

Only later did I learn that look on Otto's face had a name. Being smitten.

And the feeling in me, bitter and tingling, like biting into bitter melon,

that was called a secret crush.

After that, the carton of milk that used to come with the breakfast Otto brought me every morning went missing, and showed up on Lois's desk instead.

The snacks the teacher gave him for improving his grades went to Lois first now; I only got two pieces of candy.

In time, I got used to being the one he passed over.

And yet, later, of all people, it was me Otto confessed to

When I jolted awake from the dream, it was only four in the morning.

I tossed and turned and couldn't fall back asleep, so I just got up and started packing.

The flight home was booked for a week from that morning.

I hadn't told the relatives yet. I genuinely didn't know how to say it.

Lucky for me, most of what Otto had given me were practical, good-value things.

None of the flashy little trinkets girls usually love, which made the packing a lot easier.

By eight in the morning, everything was packed.

Lois had posted again.

Otto, who never cooked, in an apron, carefully ladling porridge for her.

I liked the post.

Then I turned and directed the movers to carry everything out, piece by piece.

A little while later, every trace of me had vanished from the apartment.

The instant I stepped out of that place, the company sent through my job transfer paperwork.

The truth was, I'd stopped being an ordinary back-office clerk a long time ago.

After the transfer, I closed out a major project, and I was now the company's Director of Operations.

Otto just never knew.

Every time I wanted to share something about work with him, he'd cut me off without mercy.

"What work problems could a clerk possibly have? Don't waste my time with pointless office gossip."

Then he'd turn right around and talk shop with Lois, one project after another, both of them lit up about it.

A notification popped up on my laptop.

*Your transfer request has been approved. Please report to the Southport branch by the 8th of next month.*

4: 4

Southport, two thousand kilometers from here.

But Dad and my grandparents were all there.

When I hit confirm, something in my chest finally eased.

Over the next few days, I made the calls one by one and canceled everything for the wedding.

Otto never sent me a single message, and he never came home.

He was always like this.

After a fight, he'd leave me alone to stew until I came to him first and apologized.

Only this time, he'd be waiting forever.

The morning my flight was set to leave, I got a call.

Ms. Brady, good morning. The wedding gown you ordered has been delivered to your door. Please come sign for it as soon as possible.

I was so anxious I bolted out of the hotel.

The gown had been made from the design my mother left behind. It couldn't be returned.

The lead time was supposed to be a month. I hadn't expected it early.

But when I grabbed a cab and rushed back to that apartment,

the delivery that should have been at the door was gone, leaving only a pile of wrapping paper.

A bad feeling rose in me.

I pushed the door open. Otto was zipping up the back of Lois's dress.

Lois was smiling, pleased with herself.

What do you think, Otto? Pretty clever with my hands, aren't I?

Take off those two bows at the waist, trim down the hem a little, and it fits just right.

I stood frozen in the doorway.

Not until a scrap of cut fabric drifted down in front of my eyes did I finally come back to myself.

My eyes flooded red, and I couldn't stop myself from shouting,

What are you two doing!

The air went quiet for two seconds.

Maybe he hadn't expected me to come back so suddenly.

Otto pulled the startled Lois behind him, his voice dropping.

Why are you yelling? You scared Lo.

Forgot to mention it. Lo has a photo shoot next week and wanted to borrow your gown.

You'll only wear this thing once anyway. Let Lo use it first, get the most out of it.

I stared hard at the two of them.

Why didn't you tell me first?

Otto looked like he couldn't care less.

You know now.

Behind him, Lois seemed to find her nerve and quietly pulled a face at me.

I looked at all of it, unable to believe my eyes.

Behind Otto's self-righteous face, I couldn't help remembering how it used to be.

Back then, whenever I missed my mother, I'd hide myself away and take out the designs she left behind, going over them again and again.

Every time, Otto was the only one who could find me.

He'd point at that gown.

Don't be sad. Someday I'll have all these dresses made for you, so you can walk toward happiness wearing your mother's love.

And now, just to make Lois fit,

my mother's love had been cut to pieces.

Snap

The string in my mind called reason broke clean through.

I threw myself at Lois like I'd lost my mind.

Take it off. Take it off

Take off the dress my mother left me!

Lois was frightened by the sight of me, dodging and screaming.

Otto, pull her off me!

A huge force came from behind me.

The next second I was yanked back and slammed hard to the floor.

Margery, what do you think you're doing!

Otto kept Lois firmly shielded behind him.

Looking at him, for a moment I saw the boy from more than ten years ago, the way he'd looked when he protected me.

Only this time, his edge was turned on me.

It's just a dress. You and Lo have more than ten years between you. Do you really have to be like this?

I sat where I'd fallen, not moving.

Lois watched, and her eyes flicked.

Otto, didn't you say Margie was talking about canceling the engagement a few days ago?

Looks like she was just saying it. She can't wait to marry you, or why would she be this worked up?

At her words, Otto let out a cold snort.

He wrapped an arm around Lois and stepped past me in a few long strides.

Enough. Lo wears the dress first. It won't hold anything up.

Keep making a scene, and the wedding's off.

With the sound of the door closing, I was alone in the apartment again.

After a long while, I opened my phone.

I typed a line into both families' group chats and hit send.

For everyone's information: my wedding to Otto is officially canceled.