Then came Lorraine's patient coaxing.
"There, there. Jules said it's not your fault. He's just too sensitive, that's all."
"Wipe those tears. We're going on soon, and didn't you say you wanted photos for your socials?"
It took a while before the other end went quiet.
Then Lorraine's voice came again, clear this time, edged with impatience.
"Okay, enough. Just go apologize in the group already. We're about to get married and you're throwing a fit? It's a happy day, I don't have the energy to keep coddling you."
Then she thought of what I'd said, and gave a little scoff.
"Besides, you really can't go through with it? You'd actually give it up?"
Ten years together. She didn't believe I would ever leave.
I hung up, shifted toward the window, and rolled it down.
I let the wind pour in and tear apart the hairstyle I'd done just for the wedding.
The driver, who'd heard every word, kept starting to speak and stopping himself.
In the end he couldn't hold it in.
"Kid, what kind of girl did you land yourself? Someone like that can still find a husband?"
"Back when I was chasing my wife, I'd have hung the moon for her. Ran out in the pouring rain just to bring her a home-packed lunch."
A lunch made with love.
A faint bitterness spread through my chest.
The thing is, Lorraine used to bring me things like that too.
That year, the snow came down so heavy it buried the campus half a person deep. Even classes were canceled.
My fever hit a hundred and four.
My roommates could only follow some method they found online, swapping out one frozen-stiff towel after another on my forehead.
The second Lorraine heard, she pushed past everyone trying to stop her and ran to the campus clinic three miles away to buy me cold medicine.
She came back holding a bowl of thin porridge.
She'd wrapped it inside her own down jacket, and it was still warm when it reached my hands.
She was the one who ended up with frostbite.
Back then her heart was so plain that even the storm outside could see it.
The driver clicked his tongue when I finished.
"So how'd she turn into this?"
I shook my head in silence.
I didn't know either.
Maybe she changed the moment Chad came back.
The first time she lost it over Chad, she smashed the couple's mugs we'd made with our own hands.
The first time it rained, she left me stranded at the office until midnight and went to pick up Chad instead.
The first time I had surgery, she was at the amusement park riding roller coasters with Chad.
From the day Chad announced he was against marriage, Lorraine acted like she finally had a reason, and she doted on him right out in the open.
Countless first times, countless times I let it slide, all of it piling up, until somehow it became this.
When I left the group, Lorraine sent me a single question mark.
And then nothing.
In her eyes, this was just me throwing a small tantrum in protest.
Give it a little while and I'd come crawling back, head down, admitting I was wrong.
But this time, I really was done.
Under the front desk's quietly puzzled looks, I went back up to the room.
I mussed the styled hair, peeled off the suit.
I collapsed onto the bed, staring at the hotel's snow-white ceiling, still half in a daze.
How had it all come to this so suddenly.
Just last night, on this same bed, I'd been too thrilled to sleep.
When I opened my phone, Chad had just posted something.
【In case certain people get sensitive again, let me send everyone a video to set the record straight. It really is just a mock wedding experience. Rainie and I absolutely did not cross any lines.】
The video attached was footage of the wedding processional.
I opened it like I wanted to torture myself.
I watched Lorraine in her wedding dress, walking gracefully toward Chad through the applause of family and friends.
I watched her vow before the officiant never to part, till death did them part.
And at the end, exchanging rings, fingers laced together.
