57 Marriage Proposals

My mother, Mariana Heimann, has terminal cancer. She wants me to get married before she dies.

It takes 57 days of me pleading with my boyfriend, Hayden Weatherford, before he finally agrees to marry me.

On the day we agreed to register our marriage, he's a no-show even after the city hall staff have clocked off from work.

At the same time, Hayden's childhood friend, Scarlett Needham, shows off a photo of her and Hayden holding up their marriage certificate. It's captioned, "Time sure flies. In another week, we'll have been married for two months."

It dawns on me that Hayden and Scarlett were married on the day I first begged him to marry me.

I receive a message from Hayden on my phone. He apologizes, "Scarlett's family members were forcing her into marriage, Lucy. I couldn't stand by and watch her suffer, pressured into marrying a stranger. We'll get divorced in a week, after which you and I can get married."

…

One week later, I send Hayden a message as he waits for me in front of the city hall, dressed in a suit. "We'll never meet again, Hayden."

I gazed at my mother's icy body lying in the morgue, my tears flowing ceaselessly down my face.

My mother, Mariana Heimann, had raised me alone and never asked for anything in return. On the contrary, I had never done anything for her.

I could not even fulfill her only wish before she passed.

Knowing that my mother was dying, I begged Hayden Weatherford—the man with whom I'd been mutually in love for seven years—to marry me. I wanted my mom to rest assured that even after she was gone, someone would take care of me.

I begged him for a total of 57 days, but Hayden always failed to give me a proper answer.

On the first day, his childhood friend Scarlett Needham's mother fell sick, so he had to rush over to visit her.

On the second day, he was helping Scarlett move some furniture, so the talk about marriage had to be postponed to another day.

…

On the 57th day, Scarlett was going on a trip, so he had to drop her off at the airport.

If not for Scarlett posting an intimate photo of them holding up a marriage certificate today, Hayden would have continued playing me for a fool.

I made up all sorts of excuses on his behalf, but I never would've guessed that he had already been married to someone else.

I knelt by my mom's bedside until the sky had gone dark. That was when my phone started ringing.

It was Hayden on the other end, his tone as caring as usual, as he mentioned, "It's already dark outside. Why are you still not home? Send me your location and I'll drive over to pick you up."

I was going to reply, but then my words stuck in my throat.

Usually, I would definitely pretend to be unhappy to hear him cheer me up with sweet nothings, then wait joyfully for him to show up.

But at that moment, I could no longer bring myself to flirt with him.

Hayden's voice became tense. "Where exactly are you, Lucy?"

"At the hospital," I replied.

Hayden paused for an instant before remembering that I had been keeping my mom company at the hospital recently.

"You… Wait for me. I'll head over to take care of Mrs. Atwell with you," he said before hanging up the phone.

I suppressed the grief in my heart and got to work handling my mom's funeral affairs.

Five minutes later, I received a message from Hayden.

"Scarlett has gotten into a conflict with her family members, Lucy. I'm going to help her deal with it first, but I'll definitely visit Mrs. Atwell some other day!"

I didn't feel any shock.

Over the past two years, the words he had said the most often were, "Some other day, for sure".

He hadn't turned up at our anniversary, promising to make up for it some other day.

He promised to visit Mom some other day.

He agreed to get married only to end up asking to postpone the marriage to some other day.

I had always been tolerant of him, but he only ended up hurting my feelings more and more.

From now on, though, I was no longer going to give him the chance to say "some other day".

After all, Mom won't be able to meet him "some other day" anymore, so he was never going to get the chance to say that to me anymore either.

I continued to stay by Mom's cold corpse in the hospital that night and didn't return home.

Hayden kept sending me text messages all night long, and there were countless missed calls on my phone, but I ignored him completely.

…

Early the next morning, I went to the company to write up my resignation letter.

Hayden had founded the company, and I was just some no-name designer working there.

I encouraged him to establish the company back when he didn't have a single penny to his name, and I stayed by his side the entire time.

However, now that the company was flourishing, I was no longer useful and had become practically invisible.

Even if I were to leave one day, Hayden wouldn't realize that anything was off.

As I was standing next to the printer, he suddenly appeared and tapped me on the shoulder.

At that moment, I was holding the resignation letter in my hand with an impassive expression.

"Are you done photocopying documents?" he asked gently.

"Yes," I replied simply.

Hayden didn't seem to notice my cold expression, which was so different from my usual attitude. He cleared his throat and said, "Please drop by my office, Lucy."

As I turned to walk toward Hayden's office, whispers from my colleagues reached my ears.

"I heard that Hayden is already a family man."

"That's what I thought! It's no wonder that Lucy and Hayden are dating behind everyone's backs and being evasive about their relationship. It turns out they're having an affair."

"Lucy even used to swear that she hated women who interfered with others' relationships. What a hypocrite."

My parents' happy marriage had been ruined by a mistress, which resulted in my mom and me being abandoned and having to suffer lives filled with hardship.

And now, because of Hayden, I had actually been painted as the mistress getting in the way of someone else's relationship.

Just then, Hayden stood from his swivel chair and pulled me into his arms. "We haven't made out here in such a long time, babe."