1 My fiancée never seemed to catch my words, yet she responded flawlessly to my best friend’s slightest cues. She blamed poor hearing, insisting people stand close and speak up. But with Will, she never asked for repeats. Two taps on the table and she slid him coffee. A glance at the window and she rose to shut it. Yet when I sat beside her and called her name twice, she turned blankly. Did you say something? Speak up, I can’t hear you. I swallowed hard, telling myself she was worn out from wedding plans. That illusion shattered during our photoshoot, when Jenny pulled Will into the frame. Let’s get one of the three of us, she said. Rare we’re all dressed like this. After the shutter clicked, the photographer handed me the preview. In the shot, Jenny’s right hand hung loose, her pinky hooked around Will’s. The smile she gave the camera was relaxed, effortless—nothing like the strained look I’d seen for three years. I lowered my bouquet slowly. Watching her gesture softly to Will a few feet away, I stayed silent. There was no point. She wouldn’t hear me. The photographer laid out thirty proofs on the table. Jenny's gaze skipped right over me and landed squarely on Will. "Which one do you think is best, Will?" Will didn't speak. He simply reached out and tapped the corner of that three-person group shot with his index finger. Jenny immediately turned to the studio staff. "Blow this one up. Make it the secondary poster for the welcome table." The staff member froze, shooting me a highly uncomfortable look. Right on cue, Will took a half-step back, his tone smooth and considerate. "It's probably not appropriate to put the groomsman on the wedding poster, is it?" Jenny casually took his trench coat off the back of the chair and draped it over her own arm. "Why wouldn't it be? You've been with us every step of the way. You deserve to be in the picture." She finally turned back to look at me, as if waiting for my stamp of approval. I gave a small smile. "Print it. Put it right in the most prominent spot." After all, there wouldn't be a groom standing next to it on that day anyway. She nodded in satisfaction and reached out, trying to brush a stray hair behind my ear. I tilted my head away, pretending to look down and adjust the hem of my suit jacket, letting her hand catch empty air. Jenny didn't press the issue because Will just tapped the side of his empty water glass. Two soft clinks. She spun around, walked straight to the lounge bar, filled a glass with warm water, and handed it over. The moment his fingers wrapped around the glass, Will looked up at her. His lips parted slightly, silently mouthing the word "thanks." Jenny read the exact curve of his lips without missing a beat. But when I had just told her to put the poster in the most prominent spot, she hadn't even tilted her ear toward me. I pulled out my phone and opened the venue booking app. I was the sole contact person who had signed for all the hotel blocks, catering, and accommodations. Quietly, I went down the list, canceling the room reservations for the five tables of my out-of-state relatives, one by one. By the time the refunds processed, Jenny was busy adjusting the angle of the straw in Will's water glass. A confirmation pop-up appeared on my screen. I pressed "Yes." Later, in the showroom of the wedding favor company, the manager brought out the premium tea gift sets I had finalized last month. Artisanal chamomile and Earl Grey. The older folks in her family had been drinking it for two decades. Will picked up the complimentary matcha cookie that came in the box, wrinkled his nose slightly, and pushed it away an inch. Jenny's eyes locked onto that micro-movement instantly. She turned to the manager. "Swap all the favors to those drip-bag coffee pouches from that hipster roastery. Will recommended them before, the quality is great." I raised my voice. "The older relatives don't drink black coffee." Jenny pointed to her right ear and shook her head with a sigh. "If you lower your voice, I can actually catch it. When you shout like that, it's just static to me. Whatever, just put the order through, manager." The manager walked over with the amended invoice, asking me to sign and pay the final balance. The total had jumped from five hundred dollars to over two thousand. Will stood by the display boxes, his fingers absentmindedly playing with a silk wrapping ribbon. The ribbon got tangled around his wrist. He didn't try to pull it off, only furrowing his brow slightly. Jenny walked right over, meticulously unwinding the silk ribbon from his wrist loop by loop. On the day we got our marriage license, I had crouched outside City Hall to tie my dress shoes. The aglet got stuck in the eyelet, and I struggled with it for a minute. She had stood ten feet away, loudly rushing me, complaining she couldn't hear why I was dawdling and telling me to hurry up and stop embarrassing her. The manager was still waiting for my signature. I placed the pen back on the glass table, took a step back, and looked at Jenny with a polite smile. "You ordered it. You sign for it." She frowned, but didn't want to make a scene in front of Will. She snatched the pen, signed her name, and swiped her own credit card. Two thousand four hundred dollars. While she was distracted asking Will about packaging colors, I logged into the catering portal and wiped out the entire open bar and beverage order for all forty tables. Jenny walked back over holding the coffee samples Will had approved, looking to be in high spirits. "Rowan, what do you want for dinner?" Her voice was three times louder than when she was speaking to me earlier. Because Will was watching, she needed to put on the performance of a sweet, attentive fiancée. "Whatever." My volume was perfectly normal. Predictably, she didn't hear it. She turned right back to Will. "Sushi bar for dinner?" Will nodded, drawing a small circle in the air with his finger. She laughed. "Got it, the rotary sushi place." I followed behind them and locked my phone screen. The cancellation receipt for the wedding drinks had already hit my inbox. 2 By the time the movers dropped the last three boxes off at our new apartment, Will was already sitting on the living room sofa flipping through an architectural digest. He claimed he was there to help figure out which entrance the groomsmen should use to make the procession flow better. The TV was on, playing the afternoon news. Will raised a hand to cover his right ear, his eyebrow twitching just a fraction of an inch. Jenny leaned out of the kitchen, crossed the room in two strides, and muted the television. I stood in the hallway holding a heavy box of books and asked her. "Do you want the bedroom shelves installed on the left or the right?" She had her back to me, busy pouring lukewarm water for Will. I asked again, raising my voice significantly. She didn't turn around. Will stood up with his glass and strolled toward the master bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bridal bed, glanced up at the vintage brass wall sconce above the headboard, and murmured softly. "This light is a bit dim." His voice was much quieter than my shout had been. Jenny followed him right in, stepped onto a stool, and unscrewed the sconce in three quick motions. That was the exact light fixture I had spent a week hunting down on an antique auction site. I walked into the bedroom. "Why are you taking it down?" Jenny watched Will's lips before relaying his thoughts. "The lighting is harsh on the eyes. We should get something brighter." Will immediately chimed in. "I was just thinking out loud. Don't replace it on my account." Jenny handed the heavy brass fixture to me. "It's fine, Will's eyes are sensitive anyway. Rowan, just go hunt down another one online. You like browsing those sites." I didn't say a word. I turned around and shoved the sconce into a cardboard box by the door. Later that afternoon, the boutique delivered our wedding attire. Will tried on the cropped suit trousers meant for the groomsmen. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, his gaze drifted down to his calf. There was a faded, inch-long scar on the outer side of his right leg, perfectly exposed by the hemline. He looked down and tapped the scar with his fingertip. He didn't speak. Standing nearby, Jenny followed his finger and stared at his leg. She frowned. Will turned and grabbed my tuxedo from the rack. It was a heavy, custom-tailored suit with intricate stitching along the long coat tails. It had taken two months to hand-sew. He held it up against his body. "The length on this would cover it perfectly." Jenny looked at me, her tone as casual as if she were discussing the weather. "Will has a scar on his leg. Shorts and cropped pants won't look good on him. Rowan, just wear the backup suit, let him wear this one." She paused, then pulled out her phone and wired me three thousand dollars on the spot. "Take this as compensation. You can order another custom one later." The frostbite scars on my calves were three times the size of that thin white line on Will's leg. During my sophomore year, I spent two months freezing my legs off handing out flyers in the snow to afford her first pair of high-end hearing aids. My skin had blistered and peeled. She had sat in the clinic hugging my knees and crying, swearing that when we got married, she would buy me the longest, most expensive tuxedo money could buy. I kept my mouth shut and accepted the money transfer. The tailor led Will behind the curtain to change. Jenny watched him walk into the fitting room, not turning her eyes away until the heavy velvet curtain fell shut. Then she turned with a smile and patted my shoulder. "You're so understanding." I smiled back. I unlocked my phone and refunded my parents' train tickets. Then my aunt's, my uncle's, and my cousin's. Six tickets in total, canceled one by one. A notification chimed loudly from my phone confirming the hotel refunds had hit my bank account. Jenny didn't hear a thing. Will stepped out from behind the curtain wearing my custom tuxedo. The tails draped perfectly, the stitching catching the overhead light like crushed gold. Jenny stared at him, her eyes brimming with pure admiration. "You look amazing." She had never said those words to me. I took a screenshot of the canceled train tickets and saved it to an album. I titled the album: Two days until the wedding. 3 The sound system in the hotel ballroom was cranked to maximum volume. Jenny stood frozen halfway down the runway, pressing a palm tightly against her right ear. The officiant politely asked her to wait for the groom's entrance. She shook her head. "It's too loud. I can't stand here." Will rose from the front row of the guest seating, walked right up to her, and pulled a pair of silicone earplugs from his pocket. He didn't say a word. He just lowered his head slightly. Jenny naturally stood on her tiptoes, leaning in to let him insert the earplugs for her. They looked at each other and shared a quiet smile. The officiant hit play on the entrance march. I started walking from the beginning of the red carpet. Wearing her earplugs, Jenny kept her eyes glued to the hem of Will's trousers. He was standing very close to the carpet, and her gaze tracked the tip of his shoes, terrified he might trip over something. I stopped directly in front of her. "Jenny." She didn't react. I raised my voice. "Jenny." She still didn't look up. Will finally reached out and nudged her elbow. She snapped out of her daze, glanced up at me, and with a delayed reaction, held out her hand. Her fingers brushed against mine, but her eyes were already drifting past my shoulder, fixated on the teleprompter behind the officiant. I pulled my hand back. "We can skip this part of the rehearsal." Assuming I was just complaining about the stuffy room, Jenny let out a breath of relief. "Sure, we'll just wing it tomorrow." I retreated to a chair on the sidelines, opened my work app, and sent my final handover documents to Greg in HR. My official departure date was set for tomorrow. After the rehearsal, we went up to the VIP suite to verify the jewelry. The wedding planner handed over the velvet ring box. I opened it to inspect the contents. Two bare diamonds, one large, one small. I had flown to five different cities to find the perfect stones. Will leaned over to look, hovering his left ring finger over the box to gauge the size. Jenny picked up the smaller secondary ring, grabbed Will's hand without a second thought, and tried to slide it onto his ring finger. "Let's see if it fits." Her tone was as careless as if she were testing a cheap pair of winter gloves. The ring got stuck at the second knuckle. Will's knuckles were on the thicker side. The metal band wouldn't go up, and it wouldn't go down. The base of his finger quickly began to turn a bruised purple. Jenny completely panicked. She had Will soak his hand in ice water, pumped liquid soap over his knuckles, and scrubbed frantically for five minutes. It didn't budge. The purple tint grew darker. Jenny practically screamed at the hotel staff to call maintenance. A mechanic rushed in with a toolbox and pulled out a pair of micro-pliers. The grating sound of metal grinding against metal echoed in the suite for agonizing seconds. The band snapped cleanly in half. Jenny cradled Will's hand, desperately checking his skin for scratches, all while throwing words over her shoulder at me. "What kind of cheap closure design is this? The band is way too narrow. If you hadn't insisted on buying this rigid cut, Will wouldn't have gotten stuck." "Whatever, it's broken. Just grab a plain silver band for tomorrow so we don't look like idiots in front of my family." I had spent four months comparing clarity and cuts for that diamond. When I first showed it to her, she had held my hands and declared it was the anchor of our marriage, something that must remain flawless. I took the remaining primary diamond out of the box and dropped it into my briefcase. At nine o'clock that night, I called a luxury jewelry buyer. He verified the GIA certificate numbers over the phone and offered me ten thousand dollars in cash. I took the deal. Then I logged into our joint banking portal and transferred every cent of my personal savings I had fronted for the wedding back into my private account. The shared balance hit zero. As I confirmed the transfer, Jenny was meticulously applying a waterproof bandage to Will's bruised knuckle. She smoothed down every edge flawlessly, terrified he might get water on it. I locked my phone and stared at the two broken halves of metal lying on the carpet. It was good material. It just wasn't worth anything anymore. 4 Before heading out, Jenny changed into a dark navy silk blouse and spritzed her favorite perfume. "The girls are throwing me a wild bachelorette night, so I might be back late." She walked up to me and, in a rare display of affection, stood on her tiptoes to press a kiss to my cheek. "Tomorrow, you'll finally be my husband." She smiled and walked out the door. The second the lock clicked shut, I pulled a stack of heavy-duty black trash bags from under the couch. My toothbrush cup from the vanity. My face wash from the shower. The potted mint plant I grew on the balcony. Six jackets, three button-downs, and a scarf from the closet. My passport, my college degree, my banking security tokens from the desk drawer. Everything went into the bags. The apartment was massive, yet the space I occupied was pathetically small. Three years of my life fit into two and a half trash bags. At ten o'clock, I carried the bags downstairs. Across the street from our complex was a cozy Italian bistro, its warm yellow light spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I was about to turn toward the dumpsters when my peripheral vision caught a familiar silhouette in the glass. Jenny was sitting at a window booth. Sitting across from her was Will. Just the two of them, a bottle of wine, and no sign of any "girls." Will raised a finger and pointed to the corner of his own mouth. Jenny grabbed a linen napkin from the table, leaned completely across the booth, and gently wiped a smudge of sauce from his lip. She didn't pull her hand back immediately. Her fingers lingered by his cheek as she murmured something. Will smiled, lowered his head, and lightly pressed his forehead against the back of her hand. I stood on the opposite sidewalk and watched them for ten full seconds. Then I pulled out my phone and dialed Jenny's number. She pulled her hand back, hesitating for several rings before finally pressing accept. "Hey? Rowan?" The background noise on the call was perfectly quiet. "The girls are doing karaoke and it's so loud in here, I can hardly hear you! What's up?" I didn't say anything. "Whatever it is, tell me tomorrow. Go to sleep early!" The call disconnected. I threw the trash bags into the dumpster and turned back toward the apartment. On the coffee table, a massive Lego castle was still lit up from the inside. Three thousand seven hundred pieces. We had spent two months building it together. When she attached the highest spire, she had told me this represented our future home. I reached out and shoved the castle off the table, watching it shatter into pieces in the trash can. At two in the morning, Jenny finally came home. She reeked of alcohol, and there was a faint, undeniable hickey near her collarbone. She didn't come into the master bedroom. She tip-toed down the hall into the guest room and quietly shut the door. Two minutes later, my phone screen lit up. "You're going to be the most handsome groom tomorrow. Get some rest. I love you." I stared at that text for a very long time. At three in the morning. I stood in the center of the living room with a single duffel bag slung over my shoulder. Spread out on the coffee table was the cropped backup tuxedo she had forced me to wear. It was folded sharply. Resting right on the collar was a tarnished silver quarter. Heads up. It was the exact quarter I got in change when she bought me frostbite ointment during that freezing winter in college. That was the day she swore she would never let me suffer or be wronged again. Our entire relationship had started with this quarter, and now, I was giving it back to her. Paid in full. We were done. I stared at the closed door of the guest room. I spoke in a low, even voice, enunciating every syllable slowly into the dead quiet of the apartment. "Jenny, your groom doesn't want you anymore." I walked to the entryway and bent down to tie my shoes. When I stood up, I raised my voice one last time and shouted toward that closed door. "Jenny." My voice echoed down the hallway. Met with absolute silence. I let out a soft laugh, pushed the front door open, and walked out into the night. From today on, I would never have to shout to be heard again.
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