“You’re still living out of boxes. You clearly haven’t moved on.”
She arched one eyebrow at me.
She was obviously waiting for me to take the bait.
So I showed her exactly why I had no interest in getting Richard back.
She was obviously waiting for me to take the bait.
I pulled out my phone.
“I found something interesting in the old house when I picked up my last boxes. You should see it.”
I scrolled to the photos I’d taken of the notebook.
Then I showed them to her.
She frowned as she peered at the screen.
Then her face went blood-red.
“You should see it.”
“This is fake!” She pointed at me. “And this proves you’re every bit as jealous and bitter as Richard said you were. You couldn’t handle being left, so you Photoshopped this to make you look like a martyr.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” I snapped.
She let out a cold laugh.
“You’re pathetic.”
Then she turned and walked away.
“This is fake!”
She looked back once.
In that glance, I saw the uncertainty on her face.
I closed the door.
***
Days later, I walked into the church.
Every head seemed to turn toward me at once.
Then the whispers started.
I saw the uncertainty on her face.
I lifted my chin and kept walking.
It was easy to look confident because I knew something nobody else in that church was privy to.
Except the bride.
Richard stood at the altar.
The moment his eyes found me, his smirk stretched wide.
He leaned toward his best man.
I lifted my chin and kept walking.
“I told you she’d come,” Richard said loudly. “She’s pathetic. Still hopes that I’ll come back to her.”
A woman in the second row shifted in her seat and looked away.
I slid into the third row, folded my hands in my lap, and smiled.
That smile clearly wasn’t the reaction he expected.
His grin flickered, just for a second, before he forced it back into place.
“I told you she’d come,”
Evelyn was seated near the front.
She caught my eye with a worried, questioning look.
I gave her the smallest nod, a silent promise that everything was fine.
She had begged me for weeks not to walk into what she called a trap.
Little did she know, I’d set a trap of my own.
An older man beside me leaned over.
I’d set a trap of my own.
“You’re very brave, coming here,” he whispered.
“Braver than you know,” I answered quietly.
He blinked, unsure what to make of me.
Richard laughed loudly with the groomsmen, playing the confident groom for the crowd.
***
The organ swelled, and the doors at the back opened once more.
Clara appeared in a breathtaking white gown, radiant and composed.
“You’re very brave, coming here,”
Richard puffed up with pride, certain his moment of glory had arrived.
Clara walked slowly down the aisle.
Her eyes stayed fixed straight ahead, never once landing on the man waiting for her.
She passed my row without turning her head.
I let out a slow breath.
Clara reached the altar and took her place across from Richard.
He beamed at her, oblivious to the storm she was about to unleash on him.
Clara walked slowly down the aisle.
“You look gorgeous,” he told her. “I always knew you’d be my perfect wife.”
Clara’s smile was gentle, almost kind.
“You have no idea what I’ve been planning,” she said.
He laughed, thinking it was a joke.
“That’s my girl. Always full of surprises.”
The priest opened his book and cleared his throat.
“I always knew you’d be my perfect wife.”
