He Abandoned Our Wedding, I Destroyed His Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Third Dress
Minutes before their third wedding, Chris leaves to nurse Jade's ankle and promises cheesecake Audrey can't eat; she cancels in front of everyone, cuts up the dress, and learns Jade is suing for six million with Chris as her lawyer.
Today was supposed to be my third wedding to Chris Abruzzo.
Ten minutes before the ceremony, he left again.
I was in the bride's room with the planner, going over the seating chart for the third time, with a headache behind my eye.
Chris wasn't with me.
He was across the hall in the groom's suite, kneeling in front of Jade.
She'd arrived in white jeans and heels, taken one step onto the roof terrace, and cried out.
"My ankle! Oh my God, Chris, I heard it pop."
So Chris sat her on a velvet couch, propped her foot on a pillow, and ran downstairs to find ice.
My mother watched the whole thing from the doorway.
She leaned over and fixed my veil so she wouldn't have to look at me.
"Three times, Audrey. He still doesn't put you first."
"I know, Mom."
Everybody there knew how badly I wanted this one to happen.
Only family this time. No friends, no band, no speeches.
Just a rooftop in Brooklyn and a judge and the man I'd been with for five years.
At five to four, the planner touched her earpiece and went pale.
"Where's the groom?"
I picked up my skirt and went out through the garden.
Chris was at the curb with Jade in his arms.
Her right foot was wrapped in a bar towel full of ice.
"Chris."
He saw me and didn't put her down.
"Babe, her ankle looks really bad. I have to get her to urgent care."
"The judge is here."
"We'll reschedule. I swear, next time I won't do this."
Jade pressed her face into his collar.
"I'm so sorry, Audrey. I feel terrible. Go, Chris, I'll get an Uber."
"You can't even stand," he told her.
He shook my hand off his sleeve, gently.
Then he lowered her into the passenger seat of his BMW and buckled her in himself.
The first time, two years ago, Jade fainted at the rehearsal dinner.
The second time, last September, she had a panic attack on the Long Island Expressway and he drove forty minutes to sit with her on the shoulder.
Both times I cried and begged him to explain why it always had to be him.
Both times he hugged me and said I was being jealous of a sick girl.
This time I stood on the sidewalk in my wedding dress and smiled at him.
"It's fine. Her ankle is more important."
Chris stopped with the car door open.
He looked at me like I'd said something in another language.
Then his face cleared, relieved.
"I knew you'd understand. I'll bring you a cheesecake from Junior's tonight. I love you."
He drove off.
The second the car turned the corner, my smile was gone.
I'm lactose intolerant.
Four years ago he brought me a slice of Junior's to cheer me up, and I was sick on the bathroom floor all night.
He sat on the edge of the tub, typed "Audrey: no dairy" into his phone, and swore he'd never forget.
Jade loves Junior's.
I turned around and walked back up the stairs to the roof.
Twenty-two people were sitting in white folding chairs.
My parents. My aunt. Chris's mother and father, who had driven in from Staten Island with a tray of cannoli.
Chris's mother half stood up.
"Is he coming, honey?"
"No," I said. "And neither am I."
I took the microphone off the judge's little stand.
"Thank you all for coming. The wedding's canceled. Please take the flowers home, they cost a fortune."
Somebody laughed, shocked.
Chris's father put his face in his hands.
The florist had left her shears on the cake table.
I picked them up, found the seam at my hip, and cut.
The dress was ivory silk. I had worn it three times.
I cut up the side and across the train and through the lace sleeves, until it hung off me in strips over the slip underneath.
Nobody said a word.
My mother's eyes were wet, but she was nodding.
When I finally put the shears down, the planner held out a robe without being asked.
One by one the guests left, hugging me on their way past.
Chris's mother held my face in both hands at the elevator.
"I'm going to kill him," she said. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm going to kill him."
In the end, only my parents were left.
"Come home to Boston with us," my father said.
He'd said it every Christmas for five years.
I sat down in a folding chair and looked at the two of them.
The founding partners of Whitford Lane, the biggest litigation firm in Boston.
They were the reason I went to law school.
They wanted me home and at the firm the day I graduated.
Then I met Chris and followed him to New York.
He grew up over his father's hardware store on Staten Island.
The first time he met a rich classmate's parents, he didn't speak to me for a week.
So I told him my parents were retired schoolteachers in Worcester.
For five years, my parents had come to every holiday playing that part, because I asked them to.
In those five years I made senior associate at our firm before he did.
The "power couple" bonuses everybody joked about were mostly mine.
I kept meaning to tell him.
Now there was no point.
"Okay," I said. "I'll come."
My mother made a small sound and grabbed my hand.
"We'll book the train. You don't have to stay here alone anymore."
I put them in a car to their hotel and went back to our apartment in Brooklyn Heights.
It was dark and silent.
I boiled pasta, still in the robe, and ate it standing at the counter.
Then I opened my phone.
Jade had posted a story twenty minutes ago.
A rooftop bar in the Meatpacking District, music thumping, colored lights.
Jade was dancing in four-inch heels, both feet, spinning under Chris's arm.
He was laughing, a drink in his other hand.
The caption said, "Ice works miracles."
I screen-recorded it twice and saved it in three places.
At midnight I heard his key in the lock.
Chris came in with a white Junior's box and set it on the counter like a peace offering.
"Strawberry. Your favorite."
I took off my engagement ring and put it on top of the box.
He stared at it, then laughed.
"Come on, Aud. You'll be back by Tuesday. Where are you going to go? You don't have anybody but me."
I picked up my bag.
My phone buzzed in my hand. It was my father.
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry, it's late. A squash club just hired us. A woman's suing them for six million dollars over a torn ankle."
He paused.
"Her name is Jade Carlisle. And her lawyer is Chris."
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