Stained Bridal Whites

Getting back together with Andrew meant one thing: he became impossibly clingy. He reported everything—what he ate, what he drank, who he saw—in painstaking detail. One day, he called, his tone testing the waters. “Rick’s hitting a spa with a few girls, wants me to come along.” “Oh,” I said. “Have fun.” The line went dead. Twenty minutes later, he was at my door, blocking the entrance, his voice a raw whisper. “You’re just going to let me go off with other women?” I took a step back under his intense gaze. “Isn’t this the ‘boundaries’ you always wanted?” My words hung in the air, and he froze.

1 “Are you done? If you’re done, you can leave. I really don’t mind.” And just in case he misunderstood, I added, ever so helpfully, “Don’t worry, I’ll play my part perfectly for your parents tomorrow.” Andrew’s face darkened instantly. “Anya, you’re really one of a kind.” He slammed the door on his way out. The commotion had completely shattered my sleepiness. I curled back under the covers and scrolled through my phone. At two in the morning, a few photos arrived from an unknown number. A young woman, wearing nothing but a bikini, her pale body straddling Andrew. Steam ghosted around them. His arm was wrapped casually around her waist, a single, thin piece of fabric the only thing separating them. A message followed: Hey Anya, the water’s a little scary, so Andrew’s holding on to me. You’re so lucky to have such a caring husband ;) I stared at the screen, considering my options. Should I get up and play the role of the scorned wife? It was too late. My driver was off for the night, and getting a cab would be a nightmare. Well… how about drafting a long, scathing essay tearing Andrew apart? The weather was too cold; my fingers would probably freeze. Maybe I could just copy and paste an old one from our chat history to get it over with. As I scrolled back through our old fights, I actually drifted off to sleep. No wonder Andrew never read them. Stripped of emotion, the words were just a long, rambling mess. Turns out, they make for a pretty good sleep aid. The next day was New Year’s, and we went to the Knight family estate. I was chatting with the elders when the doorbell rang sharply. When the door opened, the girl from the photo stood there, looking shy and hesitant. She was clutching a pair of men’s briefs. “These… were left at my place yesterday.” The style was bold and youthful. There was only one man in this house they could possibly belong to. The scene was nauseatingly familiar. The year we got engaged, another girl had shown up just like this. I had lost my mind, lunging at her, yanking her hair, ready to drag her to the floor. Andrew had shoved me aside, taken the girl, and left without a backward glance, leaving me in a heap on the ground. That night, the estate was in chaos. No one had a happy new year. The elders always said you shouldn’t start the new year on a bad note. Sure enough, that was the year Andrew and I fought the most viciously. The living room was silent now. Everyone seemed to be waiting for my reaction. I immediately put on a smile and smoothed things over. “Oh, this is my cousin! She grew up abroad. We were celebrating together last night.” Andrew’s father breathed a sigh of relief, but his mother’s eyes were still filled with suspicion. “Really?” “Yes, of course.” I pulled the girl inside and shut the door, extinguishing the last flicker of hope in Andrew’s eyes.

2 On the drive back, I pulled the briefs from my pocket and tossed them at Andrew. He stammered out an explanation. “It’s not what you think. She’s Rick’s sister. I was drunk, nothing happened…” I tore open an antiseptic wipe and meticulously cleaned my hands. “You can drop me off here. I’m meeting Zoe for a game of poker.” Andrew’s throat worked. He softened his voice. “I can pick you up when you’re done?” “No need,” I said, pushing the car door open. “You do you.” I didn’t want to know what those briefs had been through. I was just worried they might have picked up something… unclean. At Zoe’s place, I took a long, hot shower and changed into a fresh set of clothes she’d laid out for me. Only then did the tight, suffocating feeling in my chest finally begin to fade. Zoe watched Andrew’s car drive away, then raised an eyebrow at me. “So, what’s the damage? How many did you take down? Why didn’t you call for backup?” I sank into her sofa. “There was no fight. Scaring off a man is one thing, but scaring off the money? Not an option.” That New Year’s, the Knight estate had been a warzone. Several of the elders had been so upset they’d ended up in the hospital. I had been left lying on the cold, hard floor until Zoe finally arrived and bundled my mud-caked self into her sports car. As she turned the key in the ignition, she couldn’t resist a jab. “Living out your childhood dream at the Knight estate? Making mud pies?” The moment I opened my mouth, tears spilled out. “Zoe, how did it get like this?” She panicked, fumbling to wipe my tears away, but she had no answers. No one could have predicted that Andrew and I would end up in such a toxic mess. We were childhood sweethearts, after all, friends since we were in diapers. I’d worked myself to the bone, getting up before the sun and studying late into the night, just to get into the same university as him. The day my acceptance letter came, my mother marveled, “If I’d known you’d kill yourself studying for Andrew, I wouldn’t have wasted all that money on tutors.” Everyone assumed that Anya and Andrew Knight were meant to be. But just as we finally grew up, just as we no longer had to share a single hot dog from a street cart, he let go of my hand. He hated his family for controlling his future, for forcing him to give up his dream of being a musician to inherit the family business. That hatred reached its peak when I agreed to our engagement. Back then, I was too blinded by my own happiness, too thrilled at the thought of finally marrying the man I loved, to notice that the love had vanished from his eyes. After the engagement, he was never home. I’d wake up to a phone full of “concerned” messages from well-meaning friends. Andrew had dropped a fortune on some model. Andrew was on a yacht, draped in women. Andrew had thrown himself a mock wedding somewhere exotic… The messages were like a persistent mold, growing in the damp corners of my life, impossible to scrub away. I’d had my share of hysterical confrontations, of screaming matches that became public spectacles. All it ever earned me was more of Andrew’s contempt. “Can’t you have some damn boundaries? You don’t like it? Fine, go tell my mother to call off the engagement!” Zoe had put it perfectly: our relationship was less like a marriage and more like a rebellious son and his desperate mother. One trying desperately to escape, the other clinging on for dear life. I thought I would be tangled up with him forever. But then, one day, in the middle of a fight, I just got tired. Zoe and I didn’t need words. One look was enough. Seeing my unusual calm, she asked softly, “So, what’s the plan?” I took the warm glass of water she offered me. “The London project… both our families have invested a lot. I’m going to oversee it myself.” “For how long?” “Three years, for now.” She wrapped her arms around my neck, not wanting to let go. “Before you go, we’re going to have the time of our lives. My treat.” “Don’t worry,” I said, leaning my head on her shoulder with a smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”

3 The doorbell woke me from a deep sleep. Andrew was slumped against the doorframe, drunk, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. I checked my phone. My Do Not Disturb was on, but his chat window showed 99+ unread messages. He couldn’t reach me, so he’d come in person. A year ago, I would have been pathetically grateful that he’d even bothered to come home drunk. I would have scrambled to help him inside, fetching him water, fussing over him for half the night. But now? My hair was freshly washed and fragrant, my apartment was spotless, and I had no intention of letting the stench of stale alcohol contaminate my space. Seeing that I wasn’t letting him in, he asked, his voice raspy, “Are you just going to leave me out here?” “You’re at the wrong place. This is my pre-marital apartment, not our marital home. Should I call someone to pick you up?” As I looked down to find a number, he shamelessly shuffled closer. “Anya, I could really go for some of your soup.” I took a deep breath, pushing down the familiar, sharp sting in my heart. “Really? You’ll leave right after you have some soup?” He nodded eagerly. I opened a food delivery app and held it out to him. “Pick whatever kind you want.” He froze, the alcohol seeming to evaporate from his system. “Anya, you never let me eat this stuff…” He must have been remembering the early days of our engagement when I, determined to be the perfect wife, had hired a chef to teach me how to cook, starting from the very basics of chopping vegetables. He never so much as glanced at the food, let alone tasted it. I’d secretly post pictures of my carefully prepared meals on Instagram, hoping the likes and comments from our mutual friends might entice him to come home and try them. Instead, I overheard him at a bar, laughing with his friends. “If you had a doormat like Anya, you’d know my pain. You think I’m going to pass up the gourmet food out here to go home and eat her slop?” Amid the roar of their laughter, I ran home and cried for three days straight. Zoe was furious. “My dear girl, you’re the type who would rather starve than cook for yourself! Why are you learning to cook for a man? He’s out partying, and you’re turning yourself into a ghost!” It was a wake-up call. I never cooked for him again. “Mine doesn’t even taste good,” I said, pushing the phone closer to him. “Just order something.” He sighed and took the phone, his fingertips brushing against my palm. His other hand moved instinctively to my shoulder. I flinched back so hard my back hit the door with a dull thud. In the dead silence that followed, he lit a cigarette. The small flame flickered in the darkness, illuminating the features I had once been so hopelessly in love with. “Anya, I’m your fiancé, not the plague.” “Who can say for sure?” I took another half-step back. “I need to sleep. I have work tomorrow.” I don’t know when he left. The next morning, the hallway was littered with cigarette butts.

4 On the way to the office, waiting at a red light, I suddenly remembered the night I’d finally tried to leave him. Andrew had locked me out then, too. But that was at our marital home. He was inside with a crowd of people, partying. He’d changed the keypad code. The deep winter wind cut like a knife. I pounded on the door, my hand instinctively cradling my stomach, my voice cracking with tears. “Andrew, open the door… my stomach… it hurts…” It was the same girl from the spa who answered me through the video intercom. “Hey, you out there? Andrew said the Knight family is marrying you, not him.” Her voice was syrupy sweet. “You should go. Andrew says you need to learn about boundaries.” I froze for a second, then started hammering on the door like a madwoman. Someone inside must have found it amusing. They started recording me through the intercom’s camera. In the background, I could hear the spa girl’s cloying voice. “Andrew, she says she’s not feeling well.” His voice, slurred with alcohol and thick with irritation, came through clearly. “Ignore her. She’s just playing the victim.” In the video, I was a mess, crying and screaming, before I finally gave up. I dragged my suitcase away, disappearing around the corner. The video made the rounds in our social circle. Andrew only saw it after a full day of people looking at him with expressions that screamed, You’re a real piece of work. He didn’t think it was a big deal. So what? He was having a good time at home and didn’t want me to ruin the fun. But the Knight family elders were furious. They said his behavior was disgraceful and had brought shame to both families. So he found me, wearing an expression of someone forced to bow their head. “I didn’t know you would… leave alone that late. I saw the video.” He looked at me, as if assessing whether I had learned my “lesson.” “People are whispering, saying I left my fiancée stranded on the street… Anya, that’s enough. Come home with me.” He had no idea what happened in the darkness after the video ended. And I had no desire to explain. I was lying in a hospital bed. I just turned over wearily. “It wasn’t your fault.” After that, we supposedly made up. But from that day on, I stopped caring where he slept or if he came home at all. I quietly moved out of our marital home and back into my own small apartment.

5 Saying it wasn’t his fault was a lie. I’m no saint. Giving up on someone you’ve loved for so long is like tearing a part of yourself away, right down to the bone and marrow. When the withdrawal hit, I’d lie awake all night, my chest feeling like a gaping hole with the cold wind from that winter night howling through it. Besides, my family’s fortune and the Knights’ were already deeply intertwined. The consequences of a clean break were more than either side could bear. I knew better than anyone that our personal grievances were nothing compared to the interests of our families. Perhaps the pressure from his family scared him. Or maybe he belatedly realized he’d gone too far. Andrew started to rein it in. He stopped staying out all night. He stopped ignoring me. Instead, he began reporting his every move to me, in detail. One day, I was in the middle of a high-stakes negotiation, hammering out the final terms of a multi-million dollar deal. We were at a standstill over profit margins. You could hear a pin drop in the conference room. All eyes were on me, waiting for my response. And that’s when his texts started flooding in. Non-stop. Something about booking a famous wedding dress designer, asking me what style I wanted. When I didn’t reply, he started calling. Again and again. The buzzing of my phone was deafening. The client said, graciously, “Please, take it. It might be urgent.” I nodded my apologies with a polite smile, walked to the restroom, and finally answered, my voice a low hiss of fury. “What the hell do you want? Why are you blowing up my phone over something so trivial? Are you that bored? Can’t you have some damn boundaries?” After my tirade, the other end of the line was silent. I was the first to snap out of it, rubbing my temples wearily. “I’m sorry. I’ve been pulling all-nighters for this project. The style… you can just pick one for me.” On the other end, Andrew was quiet for a long time before he finally managed a dry, “Okay.”

6 I pulled up to the Knight Corporation building. I was here to consolidate some resources before heading back to my own company. In the breakroom, I overheard some colleagues gossiping. “Did you see? Mr. Knight came in with her again this morning.” “I know! I heard he even left his underwear at her place last time…” “What is he even doing? Isn’t he engaged?” “Please, everyone knows Andrew can’t stand Miss Anya. He’s always saying he wishes she’d just disappear.” … Thanks to Andrew never publicly acknowledging our relationship at work, “Miss Anya” herself got to hear all the juicy gossip. I sipped my coffee, my eyes lowered, feeling nothing but a calm detachment. This little scandal was nothing. They were amateurs. They’d never seen a female delivery driver show up late at night wearing a matching set of lingerie underneath her uniform. They hadn’t dealt with the mountains of explicit texts on his phone. They’d never been toasted at a family banquet by some random girl who called me “sis.” Andrew never said no to anyone. I was always the one left to clean up his messes. A pair of briefs left at someone else’s house barely even registered on the scale. I fought the urge to say something. When I looked up, the subject of the gossip was standing right in front of me. The girl from the spa, the one who was “afraid of the water,” was clinging to Andrew like she had no bones. Andrew saw me and frowned, telling her to stand up straight. I took a closer look. Of all his flings, she had certainly lasted the longest. The girl pouted and handed me a file. “Aren’t you the one from Mr. Knight’s house?” I took the file and met her gaze. “And you’re the one who was sitting on his lap in a bikini at the spa.” The breakroom went dead silent. Her face changed, and she bit her lip. “Why can’t you just let him go?” I waved my hands dismissively. Don’t start with me, sweetie. I’m just trying to get my paperwork done so I can get out of this country. In a moment of desperation, my voice rose an octave as I threw Andrew’s own words back at them. “You call him ‘brother,’ I call him ‘brother.’ What’s all this about letting him go?” “Anya.” Andrew’s warning tone came from behind me. “What nonsense are you talking about?” I waved the file in my hand and hit the elevator button. “Bro, handle your own drama. Leave me out of it.” The elevator doors slid shut, reflecting Andrew’s furious face and the hurt expression of the girl beside him. Looked like they were having another lover’s spat. Not my problem anymore. I glanced down at the flight confirmation email on my phone. In twenty-four hours, I would be gone.