After My Groom Abandoned Me for a Dying Woman

I spent the afternoon getting ready like a girl on a first date.

The dress was navy silk, cut just below the knee. I bought it on a Tuesday, on my lunch break, because I saw it in a window and thought of Ryland's face. One year ago tonight, he'd asked me to marry him on the rooftop of Aurelio's, the wind catching my hair, the city lit up below us like something we'd already won. I'd booked the same table. Same time. Same wine.

I even wrote him a letter.

It was folded on the entry table, four pages in my best handwriting. I'd told him things I couldn't say out loud anymore. That I felt him slipping. That some nights I lay next to him and felt the bed stretch a thousand miles wide. That I still believed in us. That I needed him to believe too.

I checked my lipstick in the hallway mirror at six. At six-thirty, I sat on the edge of the couch so I wouldn't wrinkle the dress. At seven-fifteen, I heard his key in the lock.

He came in already looking down at his phone.

"Hey," he said. Not looking up.

"Hi."

He glanced at me then. Did a small double-take. For a second, something flickered in his face — the old Ryland, the one who used to come up behind me in the kitchen and bury his nose in my hair. He smiled, soft and tired.

"You look beautiful."

"Thank you." I stood up. Smoothed the dress. "Reservation's at eight. We should go."

His smile faltered.

"Bell."

One syllable. That was all it took. My stomach dropped two floors before he said anything else.

"What."

He set his keys down. Slow. Like the keys were heavier than they were.

"I can't tonight."

I didn't move. Didn't blink. I just stood there in the navy silk and waited for the rest of it.

"Cadence has chemo in the morning," he said. "She's — Bell, she's terrified. She called me from the bathroom floor. She couldn't stop shaking. I told her I'd stay with her tonight. Just tonight."

I looked at the letter on the entry table. Four pages. My best handwriting.

"It's our anniversary, Ryland."

I said it quietly. The way you say things when there's no air left in the room.

He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye.

"One dinner, Bellamy." His voice took on that gentle, reasonable tone — the one he used on me more and more lately, like I was a child who didn't understand the news. "One dinner. We'll have a hundred more. She might not have many more anniversaries of anything."

There it was. The sentence he kept in his pocket like a coin.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. If I opened my mouth, something ugly was going to come out, and I had spent eight years not being ugly to him.

He took my silence as understanding. He always did.

He crossed the room and kissed the top of my head. He smelled like someone else's perfume — something floral and clinical, hospital corridors and lily.

"I love you," he said. "Thank you for being who you are."

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut. The apartment held its breath. I stood there in the middle of the living room in a dress I'd bought for a man who'd already left the room a long time ago.

I walked to the kitchen. I sat at the table. I did not take the dress off. I did not eat. I did not cry. I sat there and watched the candle I'd lit burn all the way down to a puddle, and when the wick drowned itself, I sat in the dark.

At some point — I don't know when — I got up and got my laptop.

The screen lit my face blue. I typed three words into the search bar. My fingers were steadier than I expected.

*Divorce attorneys Seattle.*

The results loaded. Smiling faces in suits. Promises of discretion. Free consultations. I read every name. I didn't click a single one. I just stared at the screen until the words stopped meaning anything and became shapes.

Then I closed the laptop.

I stayed at the kitchen table until the windows turned gray.

---

A week later, Paige called me before I'd even had coffee.

"Don't open Instagram," she said.

I opened Instagram.

The video was already at three million views. Ryland, sitting in a vinyl hospital chair. Cadence in a soft pink beanie, IV taped to the back of her hand. He was holding that hand against his cheek. Her eyes were closed. His were wet.

*Some people are worth fighting for.*

I scrolled down to the comments before I could stop myself.

*Where is his wife??*

*Heartless.*

*Imagine being married to a man like this and still being jealous of a dying girl. Selfish.*

*Cadence deserves him. The wife clearly doesn't.*

My phone started buzzing in my hand. DMs. Tagged posts. A photo of me from a charity event last spring, my face circled in red, the word *VILLAIN* across my forehead.

I sat very still on the edge of the bed.

Then, one by one, I opened each app. Deactivated. Deleted. Instagram. Twitter. TikTok. Facebook. I watched the little confirmation boxes pop up — *Are you sure?* — and I tapped *yes*, *yes*, *yes*, until my phone went quiet in my palm.

The silence after was the loudest thing I'd heard in weeks.

I set the phone face-down on the nightstand. I looked at the navy dress, still hanging on the closet door where I'd put it the morning after our anniversary.

I hadn't been able to make myself take it down.