Chapter 2

As I stepped off the stage, Cliff's mother caught my arm.

"Cordelia, let me apologize on Cliff's behalf. Carly's parents aren't here, and if something had really happened to her, Cliff would have carried it for the rest of his life."

"You've always been the sensible one. Give him another chance, all right?"

Sensible again.

On her eighteenth birthday, when Carly's boyfriend broke up with her, Cliff spent the whole night drinking with her.

When I graduated with my master's, he promised to come pick me up.

When Carly's dog went missing, he helped her look for it until midnight.

On the day of our engagement banquet, Carly quarreled with a coworker and hid in the bathroom crying.

He left the elders from both families behind to go get her.

Every single time, everyone told me to be sensible.

As if being sensible wasn't about consideration, but a get-out-of-jail-free card that could be used again and again.

Since I would never cry out in pain anyway.

I pulled my hand free. "Ma'am, I've already been very sensible today."

"I didn't make a scene at the hospital, and I didn't force him to leave Carly."

"I gave them my blessing."

"From now on, he can be with whoever he wants."

"It has nothing to do with me."

Back in the lounge, I took off my wedding dress.

I had pushed the wedding back two months just to wait for this dress.

Cliff had laughed at me then, saying I cared too much about the formalities.

I told him it only happens once in a lifetime, so of course I cared.

He held me and said, "Okay. Whatever you want."

Now that once-in-a-lifetime wedding had come, and he hadn't shown up.

I changed into my own clothes and left the dress there.

At 4:07 in the afternoon, Cliff finally arrived.

The hotel manager told me later that when he pushed open the doors to the hall, all that was left inside were the flowers no one had cleared away yet.

In the center of the stage sat the ring I had left behind.

He stared at it for a long time before turning to look for someone. "Where is she?"

No one answered.

When the call came, I had just finished processing the last refund.

"Cordelia, where are you?"

"On my way home."

"Come back. Let's talk."

"Everything that needed to be said has been said."

He held down his anger. "You just cancel it, like that? What about the face of both families, the company's clients, the hundred-plus guests? Did you think about the consequences?"

The first thing out of his mouth after he arrived wasn't "I'm sorry."

He was blaming me for not going on cleaning up his mess.

I cut him off. "When you left, did you think about that?"

"Carly really was in danger at the time."

"Didn't the doctor say she was out of danger by 11:40?"

He clearly paused. "How do you know that?"

"You just told me so yourself."

The line went completely silent.

I kept going. "You didn't get there until four. That's more than four hours in between. What were you waiting for?"

"She kept holding on to me and wouldn't sleep. I was afraid something would happen to her again."

"So you chose to stay."

It wasn't Carly forcing him.

It wasn't the doctor stopping him.

He simply decided my side didn't matter.

His voice finally softened. "The wedding can be held again. The hotel, the guests, every loss—I'll handle it. If you love that dress, I'll order another one."

"Can the pearl my mother sewed onto the cuff be remade too?"

Before my mother died, her hands shook too badly to hold a needle.

It took her an entire afternoon to get that pearl sewn on.

The day before the wedding, I even pointed out the crooked thread to him.

He knew perfectly well it was the most precious thing on the whole dress.

The light turned red, and I stopped the car.

A tear fell onto the back of my hand.

I wiped it away.

"Cliff, the wedding can't be held again."

"That day is over. Once it's gone, it's gone."