Married At 9AM, Divorced At 10AM Chapter 03

Married At 9AM, Divorced At 10AM Chapter 03

I remembered lying on the rooftop of our apartment building, counting stars.

I asked him, “What if my parents absolutely refuse to let me marry you?”

He joked, “They’re just worried their daughter will suffer with a broke guy like me. If it comes to that, I’ll find a rich woman to take care of me, and then I can take care of us. Okay?”

We both burst out laughing.

Those days were hard, but I thought we were the two people who loved each other more than anyone else in the world.

I opened our shared bank account. The balance was $3,276.50.

This was his so-called “life savings” after three years of his romantic gestures.

Neither of us had help from our families.

After rent and debt payments each month, there was almost nothing left.

But the debt would shrink little by little, and the savings would slowly grow.

I always believed that.

Even with just a few thousand dollars in the account, I thought of it as the foundation we were building together.

Even if paying off the debt felt painfully slow, like watching paint dry, I could still see how serious he was from that handwritten budget plan on the wall.

I had been waiting.

Waiting for next month’s bills to feel one step closer to zero.

Waiting for the debt to be gone so we could get that cheap marriage license.

Waiting to move into a place that was truly ours.

I was always willing to wait.

As long as he said, “It’ll get better,” I was ready to give him everything I had.

But now, he was telling me that this cheap license would only stay in my hands for one day.

—

While waiting for him to come home, I typed into the search bar: [If your boyfriend finds a rich woman to support you both, would you forgive him?]

I scrolled through forums. Almost everyone said yes.

I almost convinced myself it was okay.

But by two in the morning, he still wasn’t home.

I was about to turn off my phone and sleep when Megan sent me a video.

“Hey girl, are you awake? Did your man win the lottery? What kind of party is he at?”

My hands were shaking as I opened it.

Jake sat in a booth at some bar, holding a glass and laughing like he owned the place.

The audio was muffled, but I still heard someone next to him ask, “Hey Jake, didn’t you just get married today? Shouldn’t you be with your wife? Why aren’t you home yet?”

He said something back, then downed his drink.

The video was short and shaky.

I watched it twenty times. Finally, I saw the bottle, Macallan 18. Three thousand dollars a bottle.

He couldn’t afford that.

Even after seeing him call someone else “babe” at The Willows, something inside me still broke at that moment.

Maybe he was being supported by a rich woman.

But it was never about us.