How To Ruin Your Ex's Wedding: A Romantic Comedy

by Denise Wells

  I walk forward a few steps again so she can see the part that drags behind.

  “Not a problem. We prepare for things such as this.” Liza’s voice is soothing as she speaks, making me feel a little better. “Go sit on the edge of that bench there. We’ll prop the dress in the middle, and I’ll sew it up.”

  “You’ll sew it?” Angela confirms.

  “Yep. It won’t be perfect, but it will get her down the aisle.”

  I nod, tears abating, and settle myself on the bench. Crystal and Angela help to set the ripped part up for Liza to sew. Who, in the meantime, is barking into her headset, “Bridal gown snafu, get us an extra fifteen minutes . . . What do you mean? . . . Well, have you looked? . . . Then do that!”

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “Nothing for you to worry about, I promise. We have everything under control.” She turns to Crystal. “Maybe you could go get a few glasses of champagne to enjoy while you wait. They have some in the kitchen.” She points Crystal in the right direction and turns her attention back to my dress. The thread she’s using is clear, almost invisible, and unless you know where to look, I don’t think the tear will be noticeable at all.

  I breathe a huge sigh of relief just as Crystal returns with the champagne, but still take a large sip of mine. Liza is almost finished sewing the dress. We are only running a few minutes late. Hunter will understand once I explain about the dress.

  Everything is going to be okay.

  28

  Pax

  Five minutes past four o’clock.

  I mentally propel the ferry forward at a faster pace. Because the speed it’s going is practically reverse, it’s so slow. I text Gregor again, asking him to call me or text me, even though I don’t have cell service in the middle of the sound and these shorter distance ferries don’t offer Wi-Fi.

  It makes me feel better, like I’m doing something. Then I resume pacing the deck and mentally propelling the vessel.

  Four ten p.m.

  I try to remember everything involved in a wedding ceremony. The guys walk up to the front, then they seat the family. The bride walks down the aisle . . .

  I see two women on a nearby bench and approach them.

  “Excuse me, I know this is a weird question, but what are the parts to a wedding ceremony? You know, like, in order?”

  “What kind of ceremony?” the one on the right asks.

  “What do you mean?” I ask back.

  “Is it a Catholic ceremony with a service? Is it Jewish? Non-traditional? Simple with a Justice of the Peace?”

  “I don’t know,” I yell. Then lower my voice to a more respectable level. “I’m not sure. Probably a normal ceremony with not a lot of special stuff thrown in.”

  The one on the left laughs. “Can I ask why you want to know this? Are you about to perform one and you forgot?” She looks around as though trying to find the service.

  “No, I’m just trying to figure out how much time I have if it hasn’t started yet.”

  “Are you late for your own wedding?” the one on the right asks. “You know they’ll wait for you, right?” Both women laugh.

  “I need to stop a wedding. And I want to make sure I’m not too late,” I say, trying to temper my exasperation.

  “Ohmigod, that’s so romantic,” the one on the left says. I’m kind of baffled as to why women think this is so romantic. It’s basically an asshole move. Interrupting a sacred event that has nothing to do with you. Completely blindsiding the woman you want to be with you instead of the other guy. Then, if all goes well, force them to waste a fuck-ton of money that’s bound to be non-refundable since you—I—waited until the do-or-die moment to take action. And run the risk of becoming a social pariah when the event has over six hundred people in attendance, like this one does.

  “Okay,” the one on the right starts. “The family gets seated first.”

  “Right,” the one on the left says. “Then the guys walk up to the front, then the bridesmaids.”

  They tag team the processional and ceremony order until reaching the part where they walk back down the aisle, hand in hand, as man and wife.

  “Great,” I say. “Thank you.” I turn to leave, then pivot back for one more question. “How long does all that usually take?”

  They look at each other. “Twenty minutes,” the one on the right says, at the same time the one on the left says, “At least half an hour, if not longer.”

  “Thank you!” I walk to the other end of the ferry. The end that will reach the dock first.

  There’s got to still be time. There just has to be.

  Four seventeen p.m.

  We are nearing the island and finally I have service, I dial Gregor again. This time, he answers.

  “Dude, I was just about to call you. Where are you?”

  “Am I too late?”

  “No, it’s hasn’t even started yet.”

  “Oh, thank god. Why?”

  “I don’t know, they haven’t told us anything. They walked the family down, and then the quartet just keeps playing music, just not the ‘walk down the aisle’ kind. The guys aren’t even standing up front yet.”

  “Okay, good. This is gonna work, G. I can feel it!”

  “Sending you positive vibes, brother. I gotta get back in. I’ll put my phone on silent and try to text you if anything else happens. Damn guy has me up in the front with his family. I don’t want to be disrespectful, you know?”

  “Gregor, it doesn’t matter how you act. You’ll never have to see those people again. I am stopping this wedding.”

  “Okay, man.” He laughs. “Whatever you say. See you soon.”

  I disconnect the call and watch greedily as the island grows closer.

  Four twenty-one p.m.

  I’m the first one off the ferry and sprinting to the taxi stands.

  No taxis.

  Okay. Try to catch my breath. No problem. I’ll order a Lyft.

  I pull up the app. Closest one is ten minutes away. Uber is thirteen minutes. Too long. Way too long.

  Fuck.

  I look around and see one of those stands where you can rent a motorized scooter through an app to ride around the island.

  Perfect.

  Four twenty-five p.m.

  App is finally downloaded, payment secure, and I am pulling my scooter out of the rack and racing at full speed toward the Cascadian House.

  Four twenty-six p.m.

  I’m certain those little rascals for senior citizens move faster than these fucking scooters. I lean forward, hoping that will help the momentum.

  Check the time. Four twenty-seven. Okay. Ten minutes ago, they hadn’t even started the ceremony. So, even if everything began the second G and I hung up, it shouldn’t be over yet.

  I can do this. I have to be able to do this. There is no way I’ve gone through everything I have today just to have my plan fail. This is the moment in the movie when things fall magically into place, where the hero makes it in time and gets his girl.

  I love Tabatha. We are meant to be together. The universe knows it. I will get there in time. She will agree with me. We will be together.

  I swear the little scooter picks up speed just then.

  Four thirty-one p.m.

  I crash the scooter into the patch of grass in the middle of the circular drive of the Cascadian House and take off at a full sprint toward the front lobby, pausing only to ask the front desk which floor they are on.

  “Eight,” she says cheerfully. “I think you’re a little late though.”

  I skid to a stop. “What do you mean?” I ask, panting.

  “It started at four o’clock,” she says.

  I stopped for that? She doesn’t know. Jeez, Pax.

  I sprint toward the elevator bay, then remember my experience with Tabs when it stalled on us. I look toward the elevator. Then the stairs. Back at the elevator.

  Pick one.

  Deciding, I hit the stairs running, taking them two at a time.
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  29

  Tabatha

  Liza finishes sewing the bottom of the gown. You can hardly tell the rip is there, even if you look for it. At close inspection, you can see some of the flower halves are off-center, but other than that, it’s perfect. And it only took her thirty minutes to do.

  “Is Hunter upset?” I ask Liza as Crystal re-fluffs my train behind me, then gathers it again to walk down the hall to the ballroom.

  “Upset?” She turns her mouth into her headset and brings her hand up to cover the other side. “Update, now!”

  She holds her arm out to stop us at about twenty feet before the ballroom doors. “Uh-huh . . . Right . . . Where is it?”

  I look at her questioningly. She doesn’t meet my eye.

  “What’s wrong?” Crystal asks me, her voice low.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper back.

  Liza lowers her hand from the headset and looks down at the ground, her expression grim.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Let’s just give it a second,” she says. Then, after a minute, she continues, “Maybe we should sit down.” She gestures to another bench, this one directly across from the ballroom doors.

  “Why? Won’t that wrinkle my dress?” I ask.

  “Probably,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say, drawing the word out.

  She clears her throat. “Hunter has a note he’d like you to read before the ceremony.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet,” I say.

  “One of my assistants has it and is bringing it to us now.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll just stay standing.”

  Liza nods in response, still not meeting my gaze.

  Something’s wrong.

  I can hear someone coming up the marble stairs at a rapid pace, even from here at the other end of the hall, the footsteps are echoing off the stone. I turn and see a young girl racing toward us. She has a cream-colored envelope in her hand, which she passes to Liza once she reaches us.

  Liza turns and hands it to me.

  My name is scrolled across the front in Hunter’s very tiny, very precise, handwriting.

  I nudge the flap open with my index finger and pull the note out.

  Liza turns away, giving me privacy.

  Crystal crowds in to read over my shoulder.

  Tabatha,

  On what should have been our wedding day, I regret to inform you that I will not be in attendance. The changes to your persona are too numerous and too extreme for me to overlook. I will not spend my life second-guessing which version of you will greet me on a daily basis. Rest assured, I will absorb the expense of the day as originally planned. Since I executed the preparations on my own anyway, that shouldn’t be a problem for you. As an aside, the roses from last night were organized prior to the rehearsal dinner. I failed to cancel them in time. They were not an apology, as you falsely assumed. Tell the guests whatever you would like. I will reach out personally to anyone whose impression of the events I see fit to correct.

  Best,

  Hunter

  He will not be in attendance. To our wedding. Not in attendance. How can that be?

  What am I feeling?

  “Whoa,” Crystal whispers.

  “What does it say?” Angela asks.

  My arm falls to my side, the note floating from my grip to the floor. Angela picks it up to read it herself.

  “I’m so sorry, Tabatha,” Liza says.

  “You knew?” I ask her.

  “I knew he was gone. I didn’t know about the note until just now.”

  I’m in shock.

  “You fixed my dress knowing he was gone?”

  She nods, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve never had this happen before.”

  “Neither have I!” I cry.

  Angela pulls me into her arms and hugs me. “I’m so sorry, Tabby.”

  He left me.

  Hunter left me.

  “He left me,” I whisper.

  “I know, I’m so sorry, babe,” Crystal says, hugging me from the other side, sandwiching me between them. They lead me to lean against the wall between two large potted plants. I hang my head and try to get a grip on the emotions I’m feeling.

  I wait to feel heartbreak, but it doesn’t come.

  I’m not sad.

  I feel, I don’t know, almost lighter maybe? Is that relief? Am I relieved Hunter called it off? I think I am. As long as he did it, I don’t have to. It’s the coward’s way out, that I know. But it allows me to continue to avoid it. I feel like a fifty-pound weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I could float through the rest of the day with no problem.

  “I’ll give you a minute,” Liza says, heading for the ballroom and pulling the door open slowly. I want to tell her that it’s okay. That I’m okay.

  “Stop!” Heavy footsteps echo down the hall.

  I look up, not able to see beyond the plant. Pax races into view, stopping himself with the handle of the closing door, his body swinging just past it, feet skidding on the floor.

  “Pax?”

  He turns to face me. “Tabs, oh thank god, don’t go in there, please.” He walks toward me, breathing heavily. “Shit. Give me a second to catch my breath.” He hunches over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. “Pax?” I ask again.

  He holds one finger up. “Eight flights of stairs,” he wheezes.

  I look at Crystal. She shrugs, then takes Angela’s hand and the two step away to give us privacy. Pax straightens and comes to stand in front of me, taking each of my hands in his.

  “I’ve been thinking about us,” he starts.

  “Us?”

  He nods, then looks me up and down. “Wow. You are stunning. This dress . . . your hair . . . honest to god, Tabs, you take my breath away.”

  The walls around my heart, constructed to protect me from Pax, begin to crumble.

  “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  “He—”

  “Hell, Tabs, I don’t think I deserve you either, but I woke up this morning knowing that I had to give it one more shot. I had to see if I could convince you not to marry this guy. I want us to try again. You and me, we belong together. I know that deep in my soul. We fit, Tabs. And before, with the divorce, that never should have happened. We were just young and stupid.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him.

  “Okay, I was young and stupid.” I smile. He continues, “I should have tried harder to talk to you, to find out what you were feeling, and I should have admitted I let myself get manipulated. And I don’t know if it was seeing you again, when you’re planning a wedding to someone else, that stirred up long buried emotions and something clicked. But it did, so here I am, asking you to take a chance with me. I think if you open your mind and let the past go for just a minute, you’ll realize that you and me, we’re right. We’re good.”

  I remain silent, waiting to see if he’ll continue.

  “Here, wait, I made a list.” He pats his front pants pockets, then digs in the interior pockets of his suit coat before pulling out a folded piece of paper that looks a lot like a torn piece from a tourism flyer and hands it to me.

  I open it.

  Reasons Tabs and I are a great match.

  1. The sex is fucking fantastic.

  2. We get along.

  2. Compatibility

  2. Sexual compatibility

  2. We know each other (really know deep down, not just stupid shit like favorite song or color).

  3. I love her and promise to spend the rest of my life bringing a smile to her face every day.

  I laugh. I can’t help it. He crossed out compatibility. And that we get along. Very honest of him. I raise my eyes to meet his. “Out of curiosity, why did you cross out sexual compatibility?”

  “Oh, because it’s basically the same as the sex being fucking fantastic and I didn’t want the bulk of the list to be just about sex. Because we aren’t just about sex, Tabs. We are about so much more, and
even if you don’t believe me now, just give me a chance to prove it to you, please?”

  His eyes wide and pleading, handsome face so hopeful.

  Still, I wait a moment before saying anything.

  “He isn’t coming,” I say softly.

  “Who isn’t coming? What do you mean?”

  “Hunter isn’t coming. He called it off.” I point to the note on the floor, where Angela returned it after reading. Pax looks down in disgust.

  “He wrote you a note to tell you he wasn’t coming? To call off your wedding?” he asks, confirming what I just told him.

  I nod.

  “My god, Tabs. Are you okay?” He palms my cheek, his expression full of concern.

  I laugh again. “You spend all this effort telling me why he’s wrong for me, including making a list, then you ask me if I’m okay that he dumped me?”

  Pax runs a hand down the front of his face, his other hand still holding on to mine. “Yeah, I guess that is kind of fucked up. But, yes. I want you to be happy. I just don’t think it’s going to happen with him.”

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t either,” I tell him.

  His eyes light. “You don’t?”

  I shake my head. “I had my doubts anyway. Then something happened that I thought changed everything, and it turned out I was wrong. But I knew for sure when I read the note he sent.”

  I hold his gaze before I share this next part with him, wanting him to see it in my eyes and on my face, so that he knows for certain. “I didn’t feel sad after I read the note. My first emotion was relief. After that, it was hurt pride because he left me and not the other way around. I’ve known for a while that it wasn’t going to work, that I didn’t feel about him the way I should.”

  “Why were you going through with it then?” Pax asks.

  I let out a deep breath and look away for a moment. “Good question.” I meet his eyes. “It wouldn’t have lasted long if we had gone through with it. I know that. But I think a part of me figured I had to follow through with my commitment to him. Even though I knew I wasn’t in love with him.”