When I Walked Away

At our wedding, my wife's assistant "accidentally" uploaded the wrong photo. The big screen was supposed to display our wedding portraits.

Instead, it was a picture of my wife and him in full wedding attire. Their fingers were laced together, their eyes locked in a soft, intimate gaze, looking every bit like a blissfully happy couple.

The entire venue erupted in shocked whispers. The assistant froze in shock, acting like he had no idea why he was in the photo. He started panicking, asking if we should just postpone the ceremony. My wife, however, stayed surprisingly calm.

She whispered her solution, “Everyone’s here. Postponing now would be humiliating and, honestly, a bad omen. Beside, most people here don’t even know what the groom looks like. Why don’t we just let him stand in for you?”

Our friends were dumbfounded. They all thought I’d explode in anger and jealousy after hearing something so outrageous. Instead, I nodded, saying it was actually a great idea.

Seeing how composed I remained, my wife looked pleased with herself. She told me that since we were legally married anyway, she’d make it up to me later with another ceremony. However, she seemed to have forgotten one thing: she had just signed the divorce papers.

“How can you switch grooms in the middle of a wedding? What’s Graham supposed to do? He’ll probably be heartbroken again.”

A friend couldn’t resist glancing at me. I could tell he was only trying to stir the pot, waiting to see me blow up.

Honestly, if this were before, I probably would’ve raged with jealousy and thought Lucy Leavitt’s suggestion was absolutely insane. Yet now, to everyone’s surprise—including my own—I was calm.

After all, situations like this had happened too many times, and I’d long gone numb. Ever since Zack Graff became Lucy’s assistant, she had done countless things for him that left me stunned.

When we went to the movies, she insisted on bringing him along. She claimed he was scared of the dark, then left me alone and went to sit with him. When I fell sick and urgently needed money, she told me to “tough it out” to build resistance, yet she turned around and bought a limited-edition figure for Zack because he liked it.

When we scheduled our wedding photos, she found an excuse to send me away. Then she snuck off to take wedding portraits with Zack instead. When I caught her, she wasn’t even embarrassed. She simply laughed it off.

“Zack doesn’t have a girlfriend. He just wanted wedding photos. What’s wrong with giving him some? It’s not like I’m actually marrying him.”

Now, today, they really were getting married, and I was completely disappointed in her.

“I’m just handling an emergency for the ceremony. It’s not like it’s a real marriage,” Lucy spoke as if nothing mattered. “Right, Graham?”

“You’re right.”

I nodded, took off the groom’s boutonniere, handed it to her, and ignored the awkward looks around us. Then, I turned and