The Wedding Was Never Mine

Chapter 3

On the day I went to try on my wedding dress, the sales associate brought out the gown I had ordered three months earlier and carefully unfolded it.

Its mermaid train swept across the floor, its waist cinched to perfection. Every detail had been adjusted bit by bit to suit the wedding Adrian and I had planned.

I had chosen the pearl flower at the waist myself. I told the designer it reminded me of the shell Adrian and I had found on the beach during our first date.

I had even asked for our initials to be embroidered into the subtle pattern along the skirt.

"Miss Carter, would you like to try it on?" the sales associate asked with a smile.

Before I could answer, Serena walked over and lightly brushed her fingers across the lace.

"It's beautiful," she said.

My mother immediately said, "Since Serena likes it, let Serena try it on first."

"This dress belongs to Maisie." Adrian frowned.

"Oh, sisters don't need to draw such clear lines between everything." My mother waved a hand with a smile. "Maisie, Serena is thinner than you. It'll definitely look better on her. Let her try it on first, all right?"

I looked at the dress.

I had waited three months for it and altered it three times. Every stitch and every thread carried something I had been looking forward to for so long.

But after learning the truth, those details only hurt more.

"Fine," I heard myself say.

Serena went into the fitting room.

When she came out, everyone crowded around her.

"She looks like a goddess."

"This is what a bride is supposed to look like."

My mother's eyes turned red, while my father held up his phone to record her.

Adrian stood nearby, his gaze fixed on Serena. His Adam's apple bobbed.

There was love in his eyes, along with the joy of finding something he had once lost.

In five years, I didn't think he had ever looked at me that way.

Then he suddenly said, "Take in the waist a little more."

The sales associate paused, then immediately noted down the adjustment.

Serena blushed. "How can you even tell?"

"When you wore that champagne-colored dress last time, the waist looked perfect when it was taken in a little," he replied naturally, as though he had said it many times before.

I stood three steps away, my nails digging into my palm.

But then he walked toward me.

He crouched in front of me and looked up, just as he had done every time he had comforted me in the past.

"Maisie, I know this has been unfair to you."

He took my hand, his fingertips gently stroking my ring finger, where our engagement ring rested.

"Once this is over, I'll give you an even grander wedding. One that belongs only to you."

He lowered his head and kissed my forehead.

I looked at him. There was guilt in his eyes, but there was tenderness too.

Adrian was far too good at making people feel loved.

Even when he was lying, he made it seem real.

For a moment, I almost asked him, "Adrian, do you love me?"

But before the words could leave my mouth, his gaze had already shifted from my face and returned to the fitting room.

I lowered my eyes and swallowed the question.

I sat on a sofa in the corner, scrolling through the photos on my phone.

There were pictures of the roasted chestnuts he had bought for me in the middle of the night, and photos of his bloodshot eyes as he sat by my bed when I was ill.

The day we chose wedding candy, I held up two boxes and asked him, "Milk candies or fruit drops?"

"Either is fine."

The next day, the wedding planner called to confirm that Mr. Hayes had asked for every piece of candy to be changed to fruit drops.

When I asked him why, he said, "I heard Serena had bad teeth as a child. She can't eat milk candies."

I stood there with the phone in my hand for a long time.

He remembered that her teeth had been bad.

Yet he didn't remember that milk candies were my favorite.

There had always been a third person in all those sweet memories.

I had made him my whole world.

To him, I had only been a temporary stand-in while he waited for Serena to return.

Now, this relationship was over.

And it was time for me to leave.