I Canceled Our Wedding the Day Before, He Was at His Ex’s Somewhere in the Alps Chapter 07
I didn’t see the meltdown in the apartment with my own eyes. But Sophie gave me a play-by-play.
Well, technically, her boyfriend secretly started a video call. He was one of the groomsmen. After finding out about the Cancun wedding, he had wanted to blow up at Caleb on the spot.
Sophie stopped him. She said, “Not yet. Let Emma watch them tear each other apart.”
So I sat on the wicker chair on my parents’ balcony.
In front of me was a bowl of oatmeal with honey and cinnamon my mom had just made. On my phone screen was Caleb’s pale, destroyed face.
I thought I would cry. But weirdly, I didn’t.
I watched him break down holding the ring, watched everyone turn on Jessica, watched Caleb’s relatives squirm, and all I felt was a calm that came too late.
Like a knife that had been hanging over my head for seven years had finally fallen. It hurt. But it was over.
Sophie was cursing up a storm on the other end of the phone. “Good! Serves him right! Jessica actually thought she could replace you? Is she insane?”
“And Caleb, acting all heartbroken now? Where was this energy before?”
I took a bite of oatmeal and said quietly, “Sophie, I’m not sad.”
Sophie went quiet. “Really?”
“Really.” I looked out the window.
My parents’ neighborhood was old. Downstairs, an old man walked his little dog. A kid ran past with a backpack. The wind carried the faint scent of honeysuckle.
I said, “I just feel like I finally have an answer after seven years. I used to wonder if he just didn’t know how to love. If he was just cold by nature. If work was just too busy.”
“Now I know. He’s not incapable of love. He just didn’t love me that much.”
When I said that, my chest stung like a needle prick, but just that. One prick. Not the suffocating pain I used to feel.
On the video call, Caleb had rushed back to his parents’ house.
Over there, everything had been lively, decorations on the door, candy boxes full of wedding chocolates on the tables. His mother wore a red dress and was complaining to relatives.
“This Emma, honestly. The groom’s been gone so long and she’s still not ready. It’s fine for a bride to take her time, but there are limits. It’s not like our family had no other options.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Caleb’s car stopped at the door.
His mother’s eyes lit up. She hurried out to meet him. “Caleb, where’s Emma? Why are you back alone?”
Caleb acted like he didn’t hear her. He pushed past her and walked upstairs.
His mother chased after him. “I’m asking you a question. Where is the bride?”
Caleb stopped. His voice was hoarse. “She’s gone.”
His mother blinked. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
“Emma left. She knows everything.”
Everyone in the living room turned to look. His mother’s face changed. “Knows what?”
Caleb closed his eyes. “About me and Jessica getting married in Cancun.”
The whole house exploded.
“What?”
“Caleb already had a wedding with Jessica?”
“Then what was Emma supposed to be today?”
“Isn’t this just humiliating for that poor girl?”
His mother panicked. She quickly tried to explain. “That’s not what you think. Jessica and Caleb just made a childhood promise. They didn’t sign anything legal. It doesn’t count.”
“It doesn’t count?” Caleb’s uncle slammed the table. “If a wedding doesn’t count, what does?”
“You had Jessica call you Mom. You didn’t say it didn’t count then. You had her come along to the wedding pickup today. You didn’t say it didn’t count then.”
Mrs. Thornton’s face flushed red, then went pale. She had always cared so much about appearances.
Today, she had invited all their relatives and friends, plus some of Caleb’s business partners.
Everyone was looking at her with strange looks. She finally realized that the perfect image she had carefully built was shattered.
Soon, the people who had gone to the ceremony venue came back. Every single one of them had a sour look on their face.
Someone muttered, “Emma was still being generous to the Thornton family. If it were me, I would have put that news article on the big screen at the hotel. That girl went above and beyond.”
When Mrs. Thornton heard that, the color drained from her face.
Then Jessica came back too. Her eyes were red, like she was the one who had been wronged.
She walked over to Caleb’s mother and said quietly, “Mrs. Thornton, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. Please don’t be angry with Caleb.”
Mrs. Thornton wanted to keep up appearances. But looking at the diamond ring on Jessica’s hand, and thinking about what the relatives had just said, all her anger finally found its focus.
She shoved Jessica away. “Don’t call me that!”
Jessica froze.
Mrs. Thornton pointed at her, her voice sharp. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t insisted on some stupid wedding in Cancun, Emma wouldn’t have left!”
“Our family wouldn’t have been humiliated like this today! You’ve brought a curse on us!”
Tears fell down Jessica’s face. “That’s not what you said before. You said you always thought of me as your daughter-in-law. You said Emma couldn’t compare to me in any way.”
“You also said that as long as Caleb eventually signed the papers with Emma, it didn’t matter if he had a wedding with me. You said she’d never actually leave.”
His mother’s face went completely white.
The living room went quiet again. Everyone understood now. The absurd wedding in Cancun. Caleb’s mother knew about it all along.
Caleb looked like those words had pierced right through him. His hand tightened around the ring, his knuckles white.
“She really left. Mom, she doesn’t want me anymore.”
His mother stared at him.
Caleb laughed, but his eyes were red. “None of you thought she would leave. I didn’t either. So I kept taking her for granted. But she really left.”
He looked down at the ring in his palm, his voice breaking. “She gave the ring back. She doesn’t want me anymore.”
The video cut out.
Sophie texted me: [So satisfying. But Emma, are you really not going to talk to him and make things clear?]
I looked at my phone for a long time. Then I texted back: [No point.]
Seven years of feelings. It wasn’t that I had nothing left to say. It was that I had already said everything I needed to say, across countless disappointments.
He didn’t listen. So I stopped talking.