Chapter 3: Cancel the Wedding

4

I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t let my girl endure this outcome.

I tried contacting several more lawyers, even went to the courthouse to consult, but everyone told us the same thing: at most, we could file a civil lawsuit.

I spent hours on hold, dialing every legal aid number I could find, but every answer was the same. My wife’s mental state deteriorated. She couldn’t sleep, and when she did, she woke from nightmares, trembling in my arms.

She cried, telling me how exhausting it was to live in this world. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw painful memories.

The therapist told us to keep her busy, to find things that gave her a sense of accomplishment—never let her be idle, or her mind would spiral.

The psychiatrist’s office was warm and smelled faintly of lavender. She gave us pamphlets and strategies: gardening, painting, even yoga classes at the community center. I bought coloring books, puzzles, anything to keep her hands and mind occupied.

Our wedding date drew closer. Whenever she was sad, she threw herself into wedding preparations, hoping to forget her pain by staying busy.

We spent evenings picking out invitations, tasting cakes, even arguing about whether to serve barbecue or Italian at the reception. There were moments when she laughed, moments when I thought maybe we could move past this.

For a while, she could forget, happily picking flowers, booking the reception, even designing the wedding entrance herself.

I’d find her at the kitchen table late at night, sketching centerpieces or scrolling through Pinterest, a hopeful look on her face that broke my heart.

But life isn’t a fairy tale. Life always pushes good people to the edge.

As the wedding approached, my in-laws suddenly called us home.

Their house still smelled like old wood and coffee, the kind of suburban comfort I used to find reassuring. Not today.

As soon as my mother-in-law saw me, she handed me a big envelope.

I opened it. It was full of cash.

She said, "This is the $7,000 your family gave us before. I’m returning it today, and adding $4,000 as my compensation."

I didn’t understand.

My wife gripped my arm, her knuckles white. Her parents looked everywhere but at her, their faces grim.

She sighed and said she hoped we could call off the wedding.

The words hung in the air, colder than the air conditioning humming in the background. My wife stared at her mother, eyes wide and unbelieving.

My wife was stunned. She had spent so much energy on the wedding, and now it was just to be canceled.

My father-in-law suddenly took out his phone and placed it on the table.

I looked at the screen. It was their neighborhood Facebook group chat. A neighbor had posted a video—the video of my wife in the bridal shop, being stripped and beaten.

The video was grainy, shaky—someone filming from behind a rack of dresses. I could hear my wife’s voice, begging them not to record. The comments beneath were worse than the video itself.

In the video, my wife kept covering herself and begging people not to record, but these people, just for their own amusement, ignored her pleas and filmed her most humiliating moment.

This person not only posted the video, but also wrote: "At the bridal shop on Maple Heights Road, a homewrecker and her boyfriend came to take wedding photos, got stripped by the wife, even the kid was angry and hit the homewrecker."

The whole narrative was twisted, turning my wife into a villain. The post was blowing up with likes and laughing emojis, people sharing their own versions of what happened.

My wife and I were dumbfounded. The truth was nothing like what the neighbor claimed.

But with this twisted story, the video seemed to make sense.

She even added a crying emoji and wrote, "Even a young child knows to protect his mom. This woman is such a tramp. Spread this around, expose her, it’s everyone’s responsibility."

The group chat exploded.

Everyone cursed and insulted my wife.

I saw names I recognized—her childhood neighbors, the folks who hosted block parties in July. They all joined in, adding fuel to the fire.

People just follow the crowd, losing all independent thought.

It was like a neighborhood witch hunt, but with memes and GIFs instead of pitchforks.

I scrolled through the chat, but saw no reply from my in-laws.

I asked my mother-in-law, "Why didn’t you clarify?"

She said, "I can’t clarify. Luckily you were wearing bridal makeup that day, so the neighbors didn’t recognize you. As long as I don’t say anything, they won’t know it’s my daughter."

The room felt colder. My wife’s face fell, her shoulders collapsing as if she’d aged ten years in a second.

I wanted to yell, to flip the table, to make them see her pain—but the words stuck, heavy as stones in my throat.