She picked up, irritation bleeding through her voice.
"Fine! I know! It's not canceled! I'll smooth things over with him! Don't worry!"
She hung up and turned to me.
"Wilfred, my mom says the wedding has to go ahead tomorrow as planned."
"I don't want to upset her, so let's keep everything the way it is. But can you be the one who runs?"
"My mom adores you. If you're the runaway groom, she won't blame me. And I can explain it to her later, tell her I only got the license with Graham because I was upset."
My eyes went wide. I couldn't believe these words had come from the woman I'd loved for years.
But then I remembered—she was already Graham's wife.
And once I accepted that, nothing she said or did could surprise me anymore.
I was leaving anyway. Might as well grant her this one last thing.
"Fine."
Maybe it was how readily I agreed that finally snapped Carrie out of her tunnel vision.
She noticed, at last, that the shattered frame on the floor held our wedding portrait.
She noticed the blood smeared across the top of my foot.
Her eyes reddened instantly, and she rushed back into the bedroom to grab a first-aid kit.
The moment she was gone, Graham lifted his chin, his expression dripping with provocation.
"Wilfred, you really are pathetic. You knew I was already Carrie's husband, and you still tried to go through with a wedding?"
"So what if her mother doesn't like me? She can object all she wants. She still had to watch Carrie marry me."
"Tomorrow's ceremony? That'll be mine. And Carrie will only ever be my woman."
"You? You'll just be the homewrecker everyone spits on."
"And don't kid yourself into thinking she'll divorce me in three years and come running to you, because..."
He leaned in close, his grin insufferably smug.
"The baby in her belly is the product of our night together."
I dropped my gaze, hiding the tears that surged up without warning.
So it was true. Carrie had betrayed me.
And she'd treated me like a fool, stringing me along for another three years.
I did the math. The baby would have been conceived the night she never came home.
That was the first time she'd ever forgotten my birthday. She said she was out entertaining clients.
The next morning, she came back full of apologies.
And then she told me we should get married.
She said she wanted to give me a fairy-tale wedding.
I'd waited eight years to hear those words.