One Last Time Before My Wedding
Ryu · Ongoing · 7.9k Words
Introduction
In just one hour, I would be walking down the aisle in my wedding dress toward my future husband.
"Marry me. Come now.
Sender: Landon"
My childhood sweetheart had suddenly sent me a message. Just one sentence and a location pinned on a map.
I didn't even have time to change. I rushed to the location still wearing my wedding dress.
But when I arrived, what greeted me wasn't a wedding venue, but the unbridled, mocking laughter of Landon and his buddies.
"And here I thought she had some self-respect! She actually rented a wedding dress just to throw herself at Landon?"
"Hilarious. Landon’s been playing her this whole time, and she still has zero backbone. How pathetic!"
"All Landon has to do is whistle, and she comes running, wagging her tail like a dog!"
Chapter 1
Today was my wedding day.
In just one hour, I would be walking down the aisle in my wedding dress toward my future husband.
"Marry me. Come now.
Sender: Landon"
My childhood sweetheart had suddenly sent me a message. Just one sentence and a location pinned on a map.
I didn't even have time to change. I rushed to the location still wearing my wedding dress.
But when I arrived, what greeted me wasn't a wedding venue, but the unbridled, mocking laughter of Landon and his buddies.
"And here I thought she had some self-respect! She actually rented a wedding dress just to throw herself at Landon?"
"Hilarious. Landon’s been playing her this whole time, and she still has zero backbone. How pathetic!"
"All Landon has to do is whistle, and she comes running, wagging her tail like a dog!"
Chapter 1
When I arrived breathless at the pier indicated by the coordinates, there were no flowers or a priest waiting for me—only a group of sleazy-looking thugs.
I recognized them; they were Landon's deadbeat friends!
When they got a clear look at what I was wearing, the crowd exploded.
"Holy shit! It was just a prank text, and she actually showed up wearing a wedding dress?!"
A thug with dyed blond hair let out a piercing howl of laughter, shoving his phone right in my face.
Malicious words pelted me one after another—
"And here I thought she had some self-respect! She actually rented a wedding dress just to throw herself at Landon?"
"Hilarious. Landon’s been playing her this whole time, and she still has zero backbone. How pathetic!"
"All Landon has to do is whistle, and she comes running, wagging her tail like a dog!"
Splash—
The blond purposefully shook his beer can, sloshing the foamy yellow liquid directly onto my pristine white gown.
"Ah—are you out of your minds?!" Seeing my ruined dress, I finally snapped, shouting at them with a mix of fear and sheer fury.
Instead of getting angry, the punks only laughed harder.
The crowd parted, and Landon finally appeared.
He was wearing that faded, old leather jacket of his. He looked me up and down, his eyes brimming with contempt and ridicule.
"Elena, are you out of your mind?" Landon sneered, blowing out a ring of smoke. "It’s Christmas. The guys and I were just looking for some kicks. I sent a joke text, and you actually went and dug up a wedding gown to run here?"
"How desperate for a man are you? You want to marry me that badly?"
I used to love this bad-boy routine of his. I used to think it was so handsome.
But now, every part of him just looked repulsive.
I took a deep breath.
"Rest assured! I am getting married, and I won't ever bother you again."
"I only came here to make things crystal clear before my wedding!"
He used to hold me and promise to protect me forever. Yet, he only treated me as a toy to play with, and he even cheated on me with Sienna. The moment he cheated, I decided I would never take him back!
"Landon, why is it so noisy out here?"
Before Landon could respond, Sienna stepped off a dilapidated yacht.
Wearing a silk slip dress, she walked over and nestled intimately against Landon’s chest. She turned her head, frowned at me, her face a picture of innocence mixed with impatience.
"Elena, is it really that fun clinging to Landon shamelessly every single day?"
"Landon is my boyfriend now. Why bother making up some lie about getting married just to make him jealous? Everyone knows the only reason you’re wearing that dress is because you’re dreaming of marrying Landon."
"Please stop pestering him and harassing us. Leave yourself a shred of dignity, okay?"
Hearing Sienna's words, the frown on Landon's face vanished. He looked at me with his usual arrogant superiority.
"Heh! Who else could you possibly marry, Elena? Who besides me would ever want someone as pathetic as you?"
The jeers and catcalls from Landon’s buddies were deafening.
Looking at his face—now completely written with disgust—I couldn't help but remember my fourteenth birthday.
Landon had run across half the city in the pouring rain just to buy my favorite strawberry cake.
He had sprinted up to me, out of breath, and carefully dried the rain from my hair with his dry cuff. Blushing, he had solemnly declared, "Elena, you are the best girl in the world. I will never let anyone bully you, and I will never let you shed a single tear."
And now?
The very person leading the charge to trample me into the mud and treat me as a walking punchline was the same boy who had once sworn to protect me for the rest of his life.
My heart grew completely cold. I stood up straight and cast a glacial look over this crowd of revelers, landing specifically on Landon. Word by word, I said:
"I am getting married, Landon. I will never bother you again."
After saying that, I turned around without a moment's hesitation, prepared to leave this place and go back to being a bride.
"Think you can just leave? You fail to force a proposal, and now you’re playing the high-and-mighty card by lying about a wedding?"
The blond thug, seeing the show was ending, viciously lunged forward. He stomped heavily on my veil, which was dragging across the rough wooden planks.
Riiiip—
The expensive veil was violently torn away. I completely lost my balance and crashed hard onto the boardwalk.
My palms scraped violently against the wood, peeling away a layer of skin as blood seeped out.
Because of the sharp pain, my grip slipped on the customized diamond ring box I had been clutching so tightly—the ring I was meant to exchange at the altar. It tumbled across the boards, coming to a stop right at the tip of the blond's muddy shoe.
The blond paused for a moment. He reached down, picked up the box, and snapped it open.
As they laid eyes on the massive, dazzling, pigeon-egg-sized diamond ring inside, the mocking expressions on the thugs' faces were instantly swallowed by raw greed.
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