He Canceled Our Wedding 18 TIMES for His Bestie Chapter 01

He Canceled Our Wedding 18 TIMES for His Bestie Chapter 01

For the eighteenth time, Griffin Montgomery called off our wedding because I was half a beat late when we exchanged vows.

He looked at me with that familiar disappointment. “You know I’m a perfectionist. Why can’t you just follow the goddamn ceremony flow?”

“If you can’t keep up next time, maybe let your bestie marry me instead.”

Mirabelle Kensington was the undisputed “queen of timing” around our circle, and Griffin used her as his measuring stick for me.

If I walked out of the office building one minute later than her, he’d peel away with Mirabelle in the passenger seat.

On Valentine’s Day, if I stepped into the restaurant even half a pace behind her, he’d offer my candlelit dinner to her instead.

If I reached the airport twenty seconds later than her for our holiday vacation, he’d refund my ticket and board the plane with Mirabelle.

He’d even canceled our wedding seventeen times, and Mirabelle had walked through the rehearsal in my place seventeen times.

To make the eighteenth stick, I’d installed countdown clocks all over the banquet hall and rehearsed alone for over two hundred nights.

But ten seconds before the oath was due to begin, Mirabelle cut in and blurted out “I do”.

Griffin ignored me and the synchronized chime of over a hundred clocks around the room. For the eighteenth time, he canceled the wedding.

The truth hit me like a slap of cold air: it was never my timing that was wrong. It was the bride.

Fine. If he wanted perfection so badly, I’d give it to him.

Griffin took Mirabelle’s hand again. “Watch closely. We’ll show you one more time how it’s done.”

I smiled, then slipped the wedding bands onto their fingers as if I were handing them props.

…

“Don’t bother. I hope you two have a happy marriage.”

Silence dropped over the hall like a curtain.

Then Griffin’s voice cut through. “That line isn’t in the script. It doesn’t count.”

He shot me a flat glance, annoyed that I’d ad-libbed on my own.

I froze for half a second, my eyes stinging.

He still thought I was playing along in his little game. My words, my feelings, and my opinions were just glitches he could delete at will.

And it wasn’t just that line.

He’d objected to me choosing tulips for our wedding florals and replaced them with white roses, which was Mirabelle’s favorite.

He’d cut my childhood friends from the guest list and invited Mirabelle’s coworkers as bridesmaids.

Even the heirloom wedding gown, passed down through three generations of my family, had been replaced with the dress Mirabelle had picked out.

Every time I objected, he’d say Mirabelle’s choices were simply a better match for his wedding vision.

He chose perfection. So my preferences got thrown under the bus.

And yet he’d bend that same perfection the second Mirabelle slipped up.

Seeing me frozen, Mirabelle laughed and smoothed things over.

“Don’t be so rigid. Sandra meant well. And honestly? I think adding a ‘happy marriage’ wish makes the ceremony even more perfect, don’t you?”

I was about to tell her there was no point because once Griffin made up his mind, he never looked back.

But the next second, he folded under her gaze.

“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Keep it.”

My fingers curled into my palm.

It felt like a tiny sting lodged right in my chest.

I’d fought back before, over hundreds of disappointments.

But Griffin had never once compromised for me.

The ugliest fight was over my mother’s bracelet, which was the only heirloom my mother left me.

I’d insisted on wearing it so my parents’ spirits could, in some way, witness my happiness.

However, no amount of reasoning or arguing could budge him an inch.

Even when I pretended to back down, only to wear it at the start of the ceremony, he canceled the wedding five times in a row to enforce his precious rule.

And now, with just one sentence from Mirabelle, the door that had never opened for me swung wide.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t break his principles. I just wasn’t the exception.

While I was still dazed, Griffin had already pulled Mirabelle into a stage kiss, nailing the choreography.

The crowd erupted.

Someone heckled, laughing, “Come on, man, we all know you’re crazy about Mirabelle. Do you really need to throw a wedding every few months just to make us third wheels?”

“We’ve seen this switch-up act way too many times, so next time, try a different show!”

Griffin didn’t answer, but the smile in his eyes said it all.

He let the off-script chaos slide.

And he let me become the clown swapped out eighteen times in the same tired play.

I looked around. Every single guest was from Griffin’s or Mirabelle’s circle.

My own close relatives didn’t show up because they’d long since been worn thin by eighteen rounds of embarrassment and humiliation.

No wonder no one even recognized me as the bride.

But Griffin didn’t realize that even the most dedicated clown gets tired one day.

Tired of the costume, of the routine, of being the punchline. And ready to take her final bow, and walk off his perfect stage for good.