The Wedding Ring That Never Made It to My Finger Chapter 03

The Wedding Ring That Never Made It to My Finger Chapter 03

Once my mother was admitted, I went home to pack a bag.

The wedding decorations were still plastered across the walls — every ribbon, every banner, obscene now.

I couldn’t reach the high ones, so Ethan had lifted me up while I hung them.

The bedding we’d picked out together was still smoothed across the mattress.

Everything we’d built — years of it, piece by careful piece — was rubble now.

I was unzipping my suitcase when Ethan walked in.

He headed straight for the bedroom, like he was bracing for another one of my meltdowns.

“The house is yours. You don’t have to go anywhere — I’ll be the one to leave.”

“Keep the money too — all of it. Think of it as what I owe you.”

“Just leave Nina alone. She’s been through enough.”

That last line cracked something open in me.

“She’s been through enough? What about me, Ethan?”

“I was there when you had nothing. I stayed through all of it. And the second you made something of yourself, you threw me away.”

I loved him for eight years.

We shared a studio with a leaking ceiling and split bowls of instant noodles because we couldn’t afford two.

I spent my twenties — the years when I should’ve been living — without a single nice dress to my name.

Everyone said I was stupid for staying. My parents. Even Nina.

And in the end, all that devotion just made me an easy mark.

Ethan went still when he looked at me — really looked.

He pulled me into his arms and held me the way he always used to, like that would fix it.

“I told you, Clara. It’s your call.”

“If you still want to do this, I’ll give you another wedding. A better one.”

“But Nina — she’s been hurting. Every time you put your arms around me, I could see it in her eyes. It killed me.”

“You’ve got to love me out in the open — she’s been hiding in the dark this whole time.”

He said it all so easily, like it wasn’t gutting me alive.

The truth was, I’d noticed things before.

When the three of us went out, I could never quite keep up with their conversations.

When Nina wore heels, he always had a Band-Aid ready before she even asked.

When we both got sick on the roller coaster, he walked right past me to rub her back.

And every time, Nina would laugh it off.

“See? A guy who’s good to you is good to the people you love, too.”

“Seriously, Clara, don’t let this one go. Lock him down.”

And each time, I caught the flicker of disappointment in Ethan’s eyes.

I didn’t understand it then. Now I did.

“What do you even see in her, Ethan?”

A broken laugh tore out of me, tears and all.

“She told me about your record night. Eight times. That’s what she said.”

“So which is it — is she that easy, or are you just that desperate?”

The door swung open before the words had even left my mouth.

Nina stood in the doorway, looking gutted, like I was the one who’d wronged her.

“How could you say something like that about me?”

She was holding a box of pineapple tarts — my favorite, the kind you had to stand in line for an hour to get.

“I told you it was an accident. Why do you have to be so cruel?”

Tears spilled down her cheeks, one after another, right on cue.

A week ago, this would have worked. I would have folded, pulled her in, told her it was fine.

But I just sat on the edge of the bed, bone-tired, and watched her perform.

Ethan mistook my numbness for cruelty.

He brushed the tears from Nina’s face with his thumb, then turned on me.

“Fine. You want to know how desperate? I’ll tell you.”

“The day your dad died — remember that? You called me sobbing, and I was crying right along with you.”

“That wasn’t me grieving with you. That was Nina — on top of me — and I couldn’t keep quiet.”

“Ethan!”

Nina lunged forward and clamped her hand over his mouth.