The Wedding He Stole From Me

The holiday weekend. I stood in my wedding gown, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

The door opened. Godfrey Delgado wheeled himself in.

I smiled and started toward him, but a single raised hand stopped me where I stood.

“There's something I need to tell you.”

I was still wrapped in the joy of almost being his wife. He kept talking.

“I can go through with the wedding, but I can't make it legal.”

My smile froze.

“Wh……what do you mean?”

He was quiet for a long time.

“Your best friend and I got our marriage license on Valentine's Day. I'm in love with her.”

My voice went shrill. I stared at him, unblinking.

“Do you even hear yourself? Today is our wedding!”

He glanced down at his legs and forced a bitter smile.

“I know. I tried to love you.”

“But every time I look at you, all I can think about is that I lost this leg saving you. I'm permanently disabled because of you. Whatever love I had turned into resentment.”

“April Pruitt is different. When I'm with her, I feel like a normal person.”

My hands hung at my sides, fingers white-knuckled in the fabric of my skirt.

Tears pooled in my eyes. I refused to let them fall.

Outside the door, the wedding march was playing. It had never sounded so cruel.

……

My voice shook. I forced myself to smile.

“Godfrey, today is our wedding. Please stop joking around.”

I reached for him.

He rolled the wheelchair back a step, putting distance between us.

“I'm not joking.”

“April is pregnant. Six weeks. I have to take responsibility.”

He pressed his lips together, then went on.

“You know she never had a family growing up. I have to give her one.”

The tears I'd been holding back spilled down my face.

Because he had promised to give me one, too.

We were childhood sweethearts. We grew up together.

When I was twelve, my parents died in a car accident.

I couldn't take it. I locked myself in my room.

Three full days. No food, no water.

Through the door I could hear the relatives arguing over who would take me in.

Every one of them wanted custody, wanted my parents' money. Not one of them asked what I wanted.

I was pressing a razor blade into my wrist when fifteen-year-old Godfrey climbed in through the third-floor balcony.

The window frame sliced his fingers open. Blood dripped onto my bedroom floor, but he didn't stop to deal with it.

He grabbed the first-aid kit and rushed to me, pressing down hard on the wound.

The moment I saw him, all the grief I'd been choking back broke loose.

“I don't have a home anymore.”

He pulled me into his arms.

“Yes you do. Wherever I am, that's your home. I'll give you a home, I promise.”

Now he was giving that home to someone else.

I opened my mouth to speak, but someone knocked on the dressing-room door.

Godfrey wheeled over and opened it.

April walked in wearing a wedding gown.

He took her hand and brought her to stand in front of me.

When I saw the dress on her, I couldn't hold it together. My voice cracked.

“That gown?”

His throat moved.

“The one I designed myself.”

Every last ounce of strength drained out of me.

He had designed that gown when he was eighteen.

On the award stage that year, he told the audience it would one day be worn by the woman he loved most.

I had always believed that woman was me.

When this wedding came, he hadn't given me the gown.

I told myself he must have had his reasons.

It never crossed my mind that this entire wedding had never been meant for me at all.

I stared at that dress and couldn't say a word.