Left Behind on My Wedding Day

On the day of the surgery, I followed the nurse down the hallway.

Right next door was the obstetrics department, where a new mother cradling her baby was wheeled out of the operating room. A crowd of family and friends eagerly gathered around, fussing over the mother and child.

A pang of bittersweet longing welled up in my chest as I instinctively touched my abdomen.

The nurse, thinking I was nervous, suggested, "Why don’t you play on your phone for a bit? It might help you relax."

I stared blankly at my phone, my fingers unconsciously scrolling through my social media feed.

That was when I came across it—a carefully curated photo collage Anne had posted, complete with a geotag.

Her caption read: "Spending my final days with the one I love most."

In one of the photos, their hands were tightly clasped together.

I had already resolved to let go of this relationship on the day of the wedding, but tears still fell onto my phone screen.

Evan had always been busy with work, constantly traveling for business, and the wedding date had been postponed over and over. I’d dreamed countless times about this wedding and the honeymoon trip that would follow and waited thousands of days for it to come.

And this was the pitiful end to it all.

I wiped my tears and reached to clean the droplets off my phone screen, accidentally tapping "like" on the post.

Almost instantly, a message popped up, "Claire, the honeymoon was supposed to be with you. But you had to throw a tantrum. What was I supposed to do? Leave the hotel bookings unused?"

Evan, clearly furious, called me immediately.

Just as the phone rang, the nurse called my number.

Hearing the background noise, he quickly realized where I was.

"Claire, are you sick? Is it serious? Should I come back?"

Anne’s voice chimed in from the background, urging him, "She must’ve seen my post and is faking illness to ruin our trip. Evan, don’t let her fool you! Her condition can’t possibly be worse than mine."

Evan hesitated for a moment before agreeing with her. "You were strong enough to slap me on the wedding day. How could you suddenly be sick enough to end up in the hospital?"

His voice turned cold with anger.

"Claire, stop with these petty tricks. Don’t think for a second you can fool me!"