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The Promise Expired, and I Turned and Left
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
At my wedding, I ran a mystery-gift auction. Guests drew a box by sucking on a lemon and downing a drink. My best friend looked up at me on the stage in my wedding dress, her eyes brimming red. "You'r...
Chương (4)
第1章
1: 1
At my wedding, I ran a mystery-gift auction. Guests drew a box by sucking on a lemon and downing a drink.
My best friend looked up at me on the stage in my wedding dress, her eyes brimming red. "You're getting married today. Let me catch a little of your luck."
Her first draw was a Blue Tears necklace, and she gasped.
"Yvonne Henson, how did you know I've wanted this necklace for so long?"
Her second draw was a limited-edition gown, her third a projector.
Every one of them was sitting in her shopping cart.
I went blank for a second, standing there dazed. These were not the mystery boxes I had prepared.
I looked over at my husband, Gerard Vance. His eyes were fixed on Eileen Cobb, soft with an obvious, doting tenderness.
Eileen hugged the gifts to her chest and squealed that she was going to kiss my cheek, and Gerard stopped her. "Yvonne's my wife today. Keep your hands to yourself."
She smiled slyly and turned to him. "Fine, if I can't kiss her, surely I can kiss you."
Before anyone could react, Eileen planted a loud kiss on his cheek, leaving a bright red mark.
Gerard pushed her away like he found it distasteful, his tone sharp, but I knew he didn't mind. He'd allowed it.
So it turned out I had never been the lead of this wedding.
1
Eileen pulled back and straightened up, the lipstick on her mouth faded now. "Yvonne, I'll kiss you after the ceremony's done. Kissing his face gave me goosebumps. So gross."
She elbowed Gerard, sniping at him. "Honestly, looks like his, if it weren't for Yvonne, nobody would ever want him."
My hand tightened a little around the bouquet. "If it's so disgusting, why kiss him at all? No one was stopping you."
Eileen froze, her mouth opening, but nothing came out.
She looked like she hadn't expected me to ask. Just like before, when I'd quietly endured every line they crossed and never tore through that thin sheet of paper between us.
Gerard frowned, his voice hardening. "Yvonne, why are you being so harsh with her?"
I looked straight at him and said it slowly, one word at a time. "Am I not allowed to feel anything? My husband and my best friend kiss at my own wedding, and I'm supposed to play the fool and pretend nothing happened?"
My voice carried through the microphone across the whole hall, and the guests below started murmuring. "Is this wedding even happening or not?"
Everyone was waiting to watch me humiliate myself. Only my mother, gripping her hands tight, asked,
"Yvonne, do you want to go on? Or come down and rest for a bit. We're still in the mystery-box part. We haven't reached the vows."
I nodded. My mother wanted to tell me that if something was gnawing at me, as long as I ended the wedding before the vows, there was still time.
Everything here I had spent months arranging with care, down to how the flowers sat in one particular spot, where the lights should fall.
End it? I didn't want to.
I drew a deep breath and took the microphone. "The auction continues."
Then I gathered my skirt and walked step by step toward the back, not sparing a glance for the two of them behind me.
Gerard sensed something was wrong and came after me in long strides. "Yvonne, what are you throwing a tantrum for? The vows are about to start."
Eileen trailed behind, her mouth twisting to one side. "Yvonne, I pushed back my flight abroad just for you, just to make it to your wedding."
Gerard's attention snapped to her at once, his voice climbing a few notches without him noticing. "You're leaving the country? Why didn't you tell me?"
It almost made me laugh. Gerard hadn't even realized it himself.
The news that Eileen was going abroad rattled him more than me stalling my own wedding.
I brushed past Eileen and headed for the dressing room.
Then she suddenly tipped to one side, and something slid out of her pocket and dropped to the floor.
I glanced down, and all the blood in me turned cold.
It was a marriage certificate, lying open, and the photo on it showed the two people I knew best in the world.
One was my husband-to-be. The other was the friend I'd had for over a decade.
I bent down slowly and picked it up. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"You two are married?"
I could hear my own voice trembling faintly, and the silence in the air almost choked me. "Say something. Is it true?"
Eileen's eyes went red in an instant. She shook her head hard, but didn't say a word.
I gave a bitter little laugh. "You won't even bother to make up a lie for me?"
Gerard showed no panic at being exposed. If anything, he looked relieved. "Yvonne, since you already know, I won't hide it. Eileen and I really are married."
"Whether the wedding goes on is entirely up to you."
第2章
2: 2
I closed my eyes slowly and raised a hand toward the door. "Get out. Both of you."
Eileen burst into tears at once and made to throw her arms around me. "Yvonne, don't do this. If you want to let it out, then hit me."
I didn't answer. I just shoved them both out in one push, and the door slammed shut.
I leaned against it, breathing hard, and made a call. "Come over here."
Then I had someone bring a spare tuxedo to the dressing room and hang it up. It wasn't Gerard's size.
The makeup artist wheeled her kit back in to fix my face, and the photographer lifted his camera to shoot the wedding footage.
It was all exactly the scene I'd pictured. Happy and busy.
Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.
Into the quiet came the small, broken sound of talking from the next room.
Once I could make it out, I knew it was Eileen and Gerard.
Eileen sniffled softly. "It's all my fault for carrying the marriage certificate on me today. Otherwise Yvonne would never have found out."
"You didn't do it on purpose. If it weren't for that baby, none of this would be happening."
Eileen's crying grew louder. "So you blame me too, don't you. Let's go get divorced today. I already booked the abortion for this afternoon. It should never have existed in the first place."
I couldn't make out a single word after that. A ringing filled my ears, like a thin film had come down between me and the world, and every sound outside was stopped on the other side of it.
The other two exchanged glances. The makeup artist's hand hovered with the brush, neither up nor down, not sure whether she should go on.
The photographer coughed lightly. "Miss Henson, we'll step out for now. We'll come back in a bit."
I only offered a pale explanation. "There's no need to feel awkward. He isn't the groom today."
No one believed it. They only thought I was clinging to what was left of my pride.
The room fell silent again. I covered my face and cried quietly, and my hand drifted without thinking to my lower belly. There had been a baby here once too.
The night my stomach hurt so much, I slumped in a chair and called Gerard. "Come home, please. My stomach hurts so bad."
He answered, distracted. "Eileen took in a stray cat. I'll get it settled and come right back."
Half an hour later, his call still hadn't come. I forced myself up and drove to the hospital.
On the way I only felt the wetness below, something running out of me. I only learned later that it was my unformed child.
The baby was lost before three months. Ever since, the thing has stayed lodged in my heart like a needle driven in deep.
I looked up at the mirror. The bride who should have been radiant now had her makeup cried into ruin, the skin around her eyes smudged into a dark blur.
I wiped the tears off my face and, with shaking hands, tried to fix my makeup.
But the harder I wanted to get something done, the worse my hands shook.
How on earth had it all come to this.
Back then, when Gerard brought up Eileen, he only thought of her as a spoiled child, his voice full of pity.
"Yvonne, keep your distance from her. That princess act of hers wears everyone around her to death."
But later, in the things he said, the disgust and distaste of the beginning gave way, until a few lines of genuine praise slipped in.
"Yvonne, you really ought to learn from Eileen. She turns down what she doesn't like without a second thought."
Later still, the two of them grew even closer to each other than to me, and Gerard worked Eileen into everything he said.
"Eileen loves roast chicken. Make a little extra, Yvonne."
"Eileen's light is broken. I'm going over to fix it. Don't wait up for dinner."
Even when Eileen and I talked, she kept steering the topic back to Gerard.
If we saw a nice watch while we were out shopping, she'd tell me to buy it and have Gerard try it on. It would look great on him, she was sure.
Now and then she'd say a line or two. "Yvonne, you found yourself a good man. When will I ever meet one like that."
At first it only made me happy. The two of them, once like fire and water, could finally sit at the same table and eat a meal in peace.
Only now do I see how wrong it was.
第3章
3: 3
The thought broke off as the door opened from outside. Eileen came in, eyes red-rimmed, tears she hadn't quite wiped away still on her face.
She walked slowly up to me and picked up the concealer as if nothing had happened, meaning to cover the shadows under my eyes. I turned my head away.
"Don't act like everything's fine. I can't."
She set the concealer palette down gently and took my hand.
"Yvonne, I'm sorry. But today is your wedding. You should walk out beautiful, the way we used to dream about when we were little."
For a second Eileen standing there blurred into the girl she'd been. We'd grown up together. We'd even promised we would get married together.
We said that on our wedding day we'd do each other's makeup, and make each other more beautiful than any goddess.
I let out a small laugh. I could almost still see two little girls playing with makeup brushes,
She turned me into a red-bottomed baboon, and I turned her into a thick-lipped, pointy-mouthed goldfish.
Then we collapsed onto the couch, laughing and shoving each other, not stopping.
That happiness back then was real. This betrayal now is real too.
I smiled at myself. "When we were kids we promised we'd never fall for each other's boyfriends. Did you keep that promise?"
Her fire went out in an instant. She had nothing to say.
"When did it start?"
Eileen shook her head, mouth pressed shut. "I don't want to say it. I don't want to hurt you, Yvonne."
I screamed at her. "What could hurt more than my best friend sleeping with my husband?"
As I said it, the tears spilled over again.
"I knew Gerard was hiding something from me, so I gave him one chance. And even you would betray me."
Eileen reflexively pulled a tissue from her purse and reached up to wipe the tears from the corner of my eye.
There was a piece of candy hidden in her palm, and she pushed it into my mouth. "Remember how we used to say something sweet fixes anything sad?"
I held the candy in my mouth. It was so bitter. I turned my head and spat it into the trash.
The next second Gerard barged in, a wet patch spreading across the collar of his shirt. I didn't want to think about how it got there.
He tugged at the tie I'd knotted crooked and off-center, his voice going a few degrees colder. "Eileen already gave up the wedding for you. What else do you have to complain about?"
Eileen took a few small steps to his side, undid the tie, and worked it into a Windsor knot. The ease of it made my eyes sting.
I choked for a few seconds. "I'm only asking when the two of you started."
Gerard put his arm around Eileen's shoulders and looked straight at me. There was guilt in his eyes, but more than that, the regret of not being able to give Eileen her wedding.
"The night you were away on business, you had me go pick up Eileen from the bar because she was drunk."
"That's when the baby was conceived."
I curled my fingers. My fingertips were cold to the bone.
Eileen had been cheated on by her ex around that time and had gone drinking at a bar. I wasn't there, so all I could do was call Gerard to go bring her home.
No wonder the two of them had gotten so close during that stretch. No wonder links for baby and infant products had started showing up on Gerard's phone.
At first I only thought Gerard had done something to wrong me, that maybe he had someone on the side. It never crossed my mind it would be Eileen.
Good thing I'd covered both angles and left myself a way out.
This groom, Gerard, I don't want him anymore.
第4章
4: 4
Gerard and I were still arguing when Eileen suddenly dropped to her knees, her voice thick with tears.
"Yvonne, I'll get the divorce, okay? I'll go take care of the baby right now, I'll leave the country and never come back."
"Both of you, stop fighting."
Gerard hauled her up off the floor, his face full of tenderness. "Why are you kneeling to her? She's the one who owes you. You've already given up enough."
"Yvonne, are you satisfied now? She's a pregnant woman, she's exhausted, and she still has to put up with your moods on top of it. You're not a child anymore."
I let out a cold laugh. "The two of you slept around behind my back, and now you flip it on me and act like I'm the one in the wrong. It's disgusting."
"Gerard, you don't have to marry me. Take her and get out."
His eyes went wide, and he stared at me in disbelief. "That's impossible. All our relatives are sitting right out there. If you call it off now, how are they supposed to look at us?"
The shouting drew my parents in from outside. My mother looked at me, her face grave. "Yvonne, is the wedding still going ahead? If you don't want it, your father and I will go out right now and announce it's canceled."
I shook my head. My voice was steady. "It goes ahead."
Once my parents left, Gerard smiled. "Yvonne, still as stubborn as ever. You say you won't marry me, but in the end you're going through with the wedding anyway."
He looked down at Eileen, weeping in his arms, and something like tenderness crept into his eyes. "The child Eileen is carrying deserves a name. After the wedding, I'll go abroad with her for the delivery."
"When we come back, you can be the child's godmother. Everything can go on just like before."
I stared at the man in front of me and felt like I was looking at a stranger.
Right after I lost the baby, he'd run up and down all day cooking nourishing meals to help me recover.
He'd never cooked before, and every day his hands had fresh marks on them, burns from the pan or splashes of hot oil.
But now all that was left in his eyes was careful calculation and self-interest. He was nothing like the man he'd been.
The heavy air pressed down until I could barely breathe. Just then Eileen clutched her stomach and cried out, "Gerard, my stomach hurts so much!"
"I think I'm losing the baby."
Gerard's face went white with panic. He shoved me aside and scooped Eileen up. "Yvonne, we'll push the wedding back. I'll be back in an hour, on time, I promise. Eileen's stomach comes first."
Then he strode out with her in his arms and left without looking back.
As they left, I caught the apology and guilt in Eileen's eyes. Her lips moved, and she mouthed the words without a sound.
"I'm sorry, Yvonne. My baby needs a father."
It's fine. My wedding doesn't need Gerard.
I opened the other back door and said to the person there, "The suit's hanging over there."
Bryce Farley looked at me, his expression serious. "You won't regret marrying me?"
"No regrets."
Ten minutes later, I walked into the hall on Bryce's arm. No one asked why the groom had changed. No one asked whether I'd hired an actor.
Under a sky full of falling petals, I heard the officiant reading the vows, and looking at the man before me, I finally said the words.
"I do."
On the other side of the city, in the hospital, Gerard's phone buzzed with a trending headline.
【The Hensons and the Farleys, a Happy Union — Two Giants Join Forces】
And something in his chest turned uneasy.