Seven days before the wedding, the printing company delivered a heavy box of 520 physical invitations to our house. I pulled out the very first one, and my fingers froze instantly. Printed on the line that clearly said Bride, was the name: Chloe Thorne. Refusing to believe it, I ripped open the second envelope. Then the third. Then the fourth. Exactly 519 invitations, all bearing her name. Only the very last one had a sticky note slapped in the corner. “Exclusively for the Bride-to-be! Don’t be mad! :)” On that single invitation, my name was squeezed into the absolute bottom margin, the font size so incredibly small it looked like a footnote. Chloe was leaning against the doorframe, twirling a red pen, watching me with a sickeningly sweet smile. “See? I told you this printer was fast. Ethan dragged me along to help him proofread the order, and oops! I guess I accidentally typed my own name in the template.” Ethan stepped out of the elevator, hearing her excuse, and offered nothing more than a mild frown. “Stop messing around.” Chloe immediately threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, my bad! I’ll pay for them. I’ll cover the cost for all 520 of them.” She reached over, snatched the very top invitation from the stack, and casually tucked it into the breast pocket of Ethan’s suit jacket. “But I’m keeping this one. You know, just in case it ever actually comes in handy?” Ethan didn’t take it out of his pocket. He looked at me, his tone as casual as if he were discussing a typo on a grocery list. “We don’t have time. Just fix the digital evite and send that out. We don’t need to reprint the physical ones.” We don’t need to reprint them? He knew I spent three grueling months agonizing over the exact paper stock for these 520 invitations. He knew I specifically chose a heavy, textured cotton parchment to honor my late father, who was a master calligrapher. He knew the quote inside, “Giving away my daughter,” was painstakingly traced, letter by letter, from one of my father’s old letters. But Chloe ‘accidentally’ prints her name on 519 of them, and his only response is that we don’t need to reprint them. I picked up the single, solitary invitation that actually bore my name, and slowly, deliberately, ripped it completely in half. Ethan’s face instantly darkened. “Maya, what kind of tantrum is this?” I looked up at him. “Nothing.” “I just realized that out of 520 invitations, it doesn’t matter if I’m missing from one of them.” 1. Chloe bent down, picked up the torn halves of the invitation, and clicked her tongue. “Wow, Maya. That temper is actually kind of scary.” “The paper didn’t do anything to you. Why take it out on the invitation?” Ethan reached out to take the remaining half from my hand. “Stop it.” “We have older relatives coming tomorrow expecting a physical invitation. How do you expect me to explain this mess you just made?” I dodged his hand. “Reprint them.” His brow furrowed into a deep V. “The printer said the absolute fastest turnaround is ten days. The wedding is in seven. What exactly do you expect me to hand out?” Chloe immediately threw her hand in the air. “Just use my version!” “I mean, everyone already knows I’m basically your ultimate bro. No one is actually going to take it seriously, right?” She fanned out a massive stack of the invitations, spreading the heavy cardstock across the coffee table like a deck of cards. On every single one of them, her name sat directly next to Ethan’s. It burned my eyes just looking at it. Ethan’s mother walked out of the kitchen, took one look at the table, and her expression sank. But the person she directed her frustration toward… was me. “Maya, the wedding is literally days away. Don’t ruin the mood over a few pieces of paper.” Ethan’s father set his coffee mug down. “The family and friends have already been notified, and the venue is fully paid for.” “It’s too late to reprint. Just fixing the digital evite is fine.” They said it so effortlessly. So lightly. As if the person whose name was erased wasn’t the bride, but just some mislabeled centerpiece. Suddenly, Chloe pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the massive pile of misprinted invitations. “I’m posting this on Instagram! The caption is gonna be: 519 mistakes, 1 true love.” My voice was like ice. “Delete it.” She blinked her innocent eyes. “Maya, seriously? I can’t even post a joke?” “You call hijacking my wedding invitations a ‘mistake,’ and you expect me to sit here and laugh with you?” Ethan finally lost his patience. “Chloe just has no filter. Do you have to take every single thing she says so literally and turn it into a massive fight?” Chapter 2 I stared at him. “So she prints her name right next to yours on our wedding invitations, and you honestly believe she just ‘has no filter’?” Chloe dragged out a long, mocking laugh. “Her?” “Maya, Ethan and I have known each other for twenty years. You’ve only been with him for seven.” “If we’re getting technical, aren’t you the ‘her’ in this situation?” The living room went dead silent for a fraction of a second. Ethan frowned. “Chloe.” She immediately covered her mouth. “Okay, okay, shutting up now.” But the arrogant, triumphant gleam in her eyes didn’t dim for a single second. I turned around and started shoving every single invitation back into the cardboard box. Ethan slammed his hand down on the lid. “What are you doing?” “Returning them to the printer. To reprint them.” “I told you, there isn’t enough time!” “Then cancel the wedding.” Ethan’s mother’s voice instantly spiked an octave. “Maya! Do you have any idea what you’re saying?!” I nodded. “I do.” Ethan glared at me, the temperature in his eyes dropping below freezing. “Over a typo on an invitation, you’re going to cancel our wedding?” I lowered my voice, correcting him. “It’s not a typo.” “It is 519 physical reminders.” Reminders that in this relationship, there will always, eternally, be someone who gets to cut the line and stand in front of me. Chloe finally stopped smiling. Ethan grabbed my wrist with a crushing grip and dragged me into his home office. The second the door clicked shut, he lowered his voice into a furious whisper. “Maya, do not make a massive, humiliating scene out of this.” “We already signed the marriage license. The ceremony is literally just the final formality.” I looked down at my wrist, already turning red under his fingers. “Then we get a divorce.” Ethan’s fingers violently tightened. A sudden knock echoed from the hallway. Chloe’s voice drifted through the wood. “Ethan? Your parents want to know if we’re still mailing these out.” “Also, do my parents still get one?” Ethan didn’t answer. Chloe just pushed the door open herself, leaning halfway into the room. She was still holding the invitation with her name on it, tapping her manicured nail directly over the Bride section. “Maya, don’t be so stubborn.” “Everyone has been breaking their backs for six months to put this together. You just saying ‘cancel’ is incredibly hurtful to everyone involved.” I looked at her. “When you intentionally erased my name, were you worried about being hurtful?” Chloe shrugged nonchalantly. “Didn’t I already say I’d pay for them?” “It’s just 520 pieces of paper. Name your price.” After she said it, she let out a bright, casual laugh, as if she had just remembered a funny detail. “But honestly, that paper can’t be that expensive, right? It’s just textured cardstock. It’s not like it’s some ancient artifact.” I stared at her, my voice dead and hollow. “That was the exact paper stock my father used in his studio.” Chloe’s expression faltered for a second, but she quickly recovered her smile. “Well, no wonder it looks so dated.” Ethan’s voice was dark. “Chloe, get out.” Chloe stuck her tongue out playfully. “Alright, alright. I’ll leave the married couple to negotiate.” As she reached the door, she stopped and threw one last sentence over her shoulder. “But Maya, a little advice? I wouldn’t use the ‘D-word’ to threaten him.” “Ethan absolutely hates being backed into a corner.” “Back in college, his ex-girlfriend tried to give him an ultimatum about talking to me. He packed his bags that night and crashed on my couch for a month.” Ethan’s face was livid. “Are you done talking?” She smiled and slipped out of the room. We were the only two left in the office. Ethan let go of my wrist, his tone softening slightly compared to his earlier fury. “She doesn’t know when to shut up. I’ll make her apologize.” “But the wedding cannot be canceled.” I asked him: “Why not?” “My parents’ reputation, our corporate partners, our extended families—are you just going to completely disregard all of them?” I see. Everyone else’s dignity and reputation mattered. Only mine didn’t. He picked up one of the invitations off the desk and opened it. Inside, printed in elegant script, was the phrase my father had written: “Giving away my daughter, praying she finds a strong branch to rest upon.” Ethan lowered his voice, weaponizing the memory against me. “If your dad was still here, he wouldn’t want you to back out right before you walk down the aisle.” Chapter 3 It felt like a jagged fist had violently crushed my heart. Before my father passed away, his absolute biggest fear was leaving me alone. That year in the hospital room, he held Ethan’s hand, telling him that I was quiet, that I never fought back when I was wronged, and he begged Ethan to protect me. Ethan promised him, tears in his eyes. And now, he was using my dead father’s memory to force me to swallow my humiliation. A burst of laughter echoed from the hallway outside. I opened the office door. Chloe was sitting cross-legged on the rug, FaceTiming a group of Ethan’s groomsmen. She was holding the invitation with her name on it directly over her heart. “You see this?! I am exactly 519 invitations away from legally marrying Ethan Sterling!” The guys on the screen immediately started hyping her up. “If the bride bails, you just sub in!” “Chloe’s been waiting twenty years in the friendzone, she finally got her shot!” Chloe laughed so hard she fell backward onto the rug. I walked over, picked up her phone, and ended the call. Her face instantly dropped. “What the hell are you doing?” I picked up the massive stack of misprinted invitations and began ripping them in half, one by one. Heavy cardstock fluttered to the floor like dead leaves. Chloe shrieked. “Are you insane?!” Ethan sprinted out of the office. “Maya!” I ripped the absolute final invitation. My fingertips were completely numb. “I am not sending these out.” Ethan’s mother was shaking with rage. “You are acting completely irrational!” Chloe looked at Ethan, her eyes brimming with fake tears. “I’m so sorry. I genuinely had no idea she would be this obsessive over it.” Ethan looked at her, and then looked down at the floor covered in shredded red paper. Finally, he looked at me, his voice freezing cold. “Go back to your old apartment today and cool off.” “The wedding is proceeding as scheduled.” I looked up at him. “If the bride isn’t there, how exactly is the wedding proceeding?” He stared me down, enunciating every syllable. “You’ll be there.” “You couldn’t bear to humiliate me in front of that many people.” 3 That night, I didn’t go back to my old apartment. I sat in the guest bedroom of our pristine, massive new house until the sun came up. I methodically went through my phone, silently exiting every single wedding planning group chat. At 8:00 AM, I drove to my father’s old calligraphy and printing studio. It had been closed for a long time. The edges of the sign above the door were rusting. I unlocked the heavy metal security gate, dust billowing out as I pushed it up. Before he died, my father had hand-carved a wooden printing block for my future wedding. The characters “Giving away my daughter” were etched deeply into the wood. I had originally planned to bring the very first, perfectly printed invitation here before the wedding, and place it in front of his memorial portrait. But I didn’t have a first invitation anymore. So I pulled the heavy wooden block out of storage and began meticulously cleaning it with a soft cloth. Footsteps echoed from the front entrance. Ethan and Chloe walked into the studio, one right after the other. He saw me, and his brow furrowed immediately. “What are you doing hiding here?” “There’s a million things to do for the wedding and you aren’t answering your phone.” Chloe walked in holding a massive iced coffee, craning her neck to look around. “So this is the studio your dad used to run?” She strolled over to the main workbench and casually picked up a heavy, vintage stone seal. “This is so aesthetic. Super vintage. A photo of this would look amazing on my grid.” I slammed my hand down over hers. “Don’t touch that.” Chloe froze, startled. “I’m literally just looking at it.” “I said, don’t touch it.” She rolled her eyes and dropped the stone seal back onto the desk. But a second later, her eyes landed on the wooden wedding block. “Oh, this looks fun.” She grabbed a heavy ink roller, jammed it into a tray of crimson ink, and aggressively rolled it across the carved wood. “Maya, let me print a brand new version for you.” I lunged forward to grab it out of her hand. “Chloe, put it down!” She jerked her arm back, violently flinging the heavy, saturated roller. Thick, wet crimson ink splattered directly onto a stack of my father’s old, handwritten letters resting on the desk. The ink instantly bled through the fragile, decades-old paper, completely obliterating his elegant, careful handwriting into a muddy, red smear. My brain literally flatlined. A deafening, high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Chloe panicked for a fraction of a second, but immediately stiffened her neck, refusing to back down. “It’s just some old scrap paper! I’ll pay you for it!” I slapped the roller out of her hand, sending it crashing to the floor. “You couldn’t afford it if you sold your soul.” Chloe’s eyes instantly welled with tears. “Ethan! Look at her!” Ethan took three rapid steps forward. But the person he reached out to steady… was her. He looked down at her hand, checking for a mark. “Did she hurt you?” I stood in front of the desk, staring at the ruined, unsalvageable letters my father had left me. The absolute, staggering absurdity of the situation finally hit me. “She literally just destroyed the last things I have of my father.” Chapter 4 Ethan looked at me, his tone glacial. “Chloe didn’t do it on purpose.” “Was it absolutely necessary to get physical with her?” I pointed a shaking finger at the letters. “Those were the last things my dad left me.” Chloe muttered defensively, shrinking behind Ethan. “I honestly didn’t know they were important.” “Plus, you screamed at me. You startled me, that’s why my hand jerked.” Ethan frowned. “Just wipe the ink off. Stop causing a scene.” Wipe it off? Industrial crimson ink had saturated completely through fragile, vintage paper. How the hell do you just ‘wipe it off’? I reached for a box of tissues, my fingers trembling so violently I could barely grasp them. Suddenly, Chloe grabbed the edge of the wooden block. “Fine, I’ll wash the stupid block for you, is that enough?!” She aggressively yanked the heavy wood block. It slipped from her grip and tumbled off the desk. I lunged forward to catch it. My foot caught a puddle of spilled ink on the floor, and I crashed violently onto the concrete. The heavy, solid wood block smashed directly onto the back of my hand. The sharp, carved corners sliced deep into my skin. Blood instantly welled up and began pouring down my hand. Ethan’s face changed instantly. He took a step toward me. But Chloe started crying first. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” “She lunged at me! I thought she was going to attack me!” Ethan’s footstep halted. He looked down at my profusely bleeding hand, his voice dropping to a low, authoritative demand. “Apologize to Chloe first.” I braced my good hand against the workbench and slowly dragged myself up off the floor. “What did you just say?” “She is absolutely terrified right now.” “Maya, stop pushing everyone who cares about you away just because you want to play the victim.” I stared at him. And suddenly, I didn’t want to say another word. Not a single word.
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