Chapter 2

Marian and Edwin were both in the wedding business.

There'd always been a certain rivalry between them, and once, over my future wedding, the two of them actually got into a fight, because each wanted to plan it.

It got so bad they couldn't stand the sight of each other.

I was stuck in the middle, torn. Saying yes to one meant hurting the other.

So I spent three years on it. I even brokered the connection between their two families, put their businesses on the same side, and turned them into a united front.

Just like that, they had solid footing in the industry.

But I never thought that one day I'd be the outsider.

Together they planned everyone else's happiness. Sometimes they were happy, and sometimes, when a client gave them grief, they'd hold each other and cry.

"I think the most important thing between a couple is knowing each other's likes and dislikes."

So the two of them knew what clothes the other liked to wear, what food, what allergies each had, even where the other's moles were, which spots on the face were sensitive. They knew each other that deeply.

But Edwin slowly forgot. What did I like to eat? What was my favorite color? Even that I liked an outdoor lawn ceremony more than a hotel-style wedding.

Even though I'd quit my job and had all the time in the world, Edwin used "being busy" as an excuse to pull Marian along, and the two of them planned the whole wedding themselves.

I trailed behind them like a stranger, with no presence at all.

Even the workers around us didn't know that the wedding was actually mine.

The hall filled with a burst of shrieking.

Marian stood in front of the cake, a fork in her hand, an innocent look on her face. "I was just hungry. I only wanted one bite."

I walked over, ice-cold all through. "That's the cake for my wedding tomorrow! The one the two of us were supposed to cut together..."

"Do you have any idea what I went through for this cake? I went and learned how to..."

Three full nights without sleep, that was what it took to make it.

Edwin cut me off before I could finish. "It's just a cake. Is it really that big a deal? Marian only wanted a bite. She didn't do it on purpose."

"Besides, she's so exhausted her blood sugar dropped. And who was all that for, if not you?"

"And cutting the cake together, that's out of style, it's so dated! Lucky the cake broke, honestly. Otherwise it would've dragged the whole wedding down a notch."

Down a notch?

I took half a step back, my eyes going red.

Edwin loved sweets. He used to say that at his wedding, there absolutely had to be a tall three-tier cake.

Made by my own hands, ideally, and then the two of us would cut it together.

It would mean that from then on we'd stay sweet, always, and never part.

Back then, Edwin's face would go red as he described exactly what kind of cake he wanted.

For him, that was practically half a proposal.

Because of that one line.

Tristram had told me to leave, said the U.S. was a better place for me to grow, that here at home I'd already taken this project as far as it could go, and that losing my job was only a matter of time.

Was I really going to end up a housewife?

And once I was a housewife, would he still treat me that well?

Because of that one line, that single line, I stayed.

I promised Tristram.

"Anyone in this world can change. But Edwin will never do me wrong."

Just as he'd predicted, the project ran its course, and I put in my resignation with dignity before the layoffs could reach me.

I thought the timing was perfect, right before the wedding. I could use it to build a wedding that was ours.

But now I had all this free time, drifting around in front of them, and at my own wedding I couldn't get a single word in.