“YOU HIT ME OVER HER?” I WALKED OUT OF MY CHICAGO WEDDING AFTER MY GROOM SLAPPED ME FOR HIS BRIDESMAID. BUT THEN, HE BEGGED ME TO STAY…
“Seriously, what is your problem?” Jackson muttered, but he was smiling a little.
That night, Jackson told our parents what happened. His mother Barbara smoothed it over immediately. She told Riley to lay off the aggressive jokes and she pushed Jackson to take us both out on weekends so we could bond.
From that day on, Riley was always around. I did not know exactly when she and Jackson got so incredibly close, but the shift was undeniable.
Every afternoon, Jackson used to bring me a strawberry milkshake after my classes. It was our little tradition. But one day, he showed up at the campus courtyard and handed me a bitter iced coffee instead.
I stared at the plastic cup, my chest tightening.
“I barely drink coffee, Jackson. You know that.”
“Come on,” Jackson sighed, checking his watch.
“You only like the milkshake because it is pink. That stuff is basically melted sugar and chemicals. Try drinking something healthier for a change.”
Across from him, sitting on the bench, Riley lifted an identical iced coffee and took a loud sip.
“Oops, sorry shortcake,” Riley said, her eyes gleaming with malice.
“I was craving coffee, so I told Jackson to grab these for us. But honestly, milkshakes are kind of a lot. Do girls like you seriously drink that heavy stuff every day?”
“Do you always give people insulting nicknames?” I shot back.
For a second, Riley froze. Then came the deeply wounded expression. She looked at Jackson with wide, innocent eyes.
“Why are you making it such a big deal?” Riley asked, her voice shaking slightly.
“I was joking. You are being way too sensitive, do you not think?”
“Am I sensitive? Or did you do it on purpose to make me look stupid?” I demanded.
“Enough, Ashley,” Jackson cut in sharply, stepping between us.
“She just moved here. Sometimes she speaks without thinking. Stop taking everything so personally.”
My blood was boiling.
“Then maybe she should think before she talks!”
“Hey, hey. All right. My bad,” Riley said, raising her hands in surrender, though a smirk played on her lips.
“How about this? Tomorrow, I will personally get you a massive strawberry milkshake. Deal? My little princess.”
Hearing her say that, I glared at her. From that day on, Riley actively and ruthlessly targeted me.
Whenever I pulled out a pink pack of tissues from my purse, she would gasp dramatically in front of his friends.
“Wow, even your tissues are pink? What, are you trying to turn yourself into a living Barbie doll?”
At dinner, whenever I wiped down my silverware with a napkin before eating at a restaurant, she would point and laugh.
“There it is. Princess mode activated. God forbid she touches normal germs.”
During summer break, I was struggling to haul my heavy suitcases down the stairs from my dorm room. Jackson was busy talking to someone else. Riley walked by with a group of guys.
“Aw,” Riley mocked loudly.
“The princess cannot carry her own luggage. Someone get this weak girl a knight.”
Every single time she did this, her friends would crack up. At first, Jackson actually stepped in. He would tell her to knock it off.
“Relax, Jackson, I am kidding,” Riley would say, touching his arm.
“Ashley is too guarded. I am helping her loosen up and actually bond with normal people. She is a bit high maintenance. Is that just a girl thing?”
She would punch his shoulder playfully.
“Hey Jackson, do not lump me in with those annoying girls. I am definitely not like them. I can hang with the guys.”
And Jackson would laugh. It was such a gentle, admiring smile. My chest tightened with a sour, rotting ache every time I saw it. I always knew he thought I was spoiled and threw little tantrums, but seeing him admire her toughness made me feel entirely inadequate.
To guys like him, liking pink, hating germs, and not being physically strong just meant you were a high maintenance burden.
But finally, I snapped.
It was a mutual friend’s birthday party at an upscale Chicago club. I wore a fitted pink button down shirt over a white camisole. I felt good about myself. But when Riley saw me walk into the VIP section, she practically shrieked into the music.
“Oh my god. Ashley, are you serious right now?” Riley yelled over the bass.
“Pink with a white camisole? What is this, a cheap teen drama? No, seriously, I am dying laughing. Do you think you are the main character of a movie? Look at you. You look like… what is the word? One of those girls trying way too hard to look cute. Like a Barbie doll that wandered onto the wrong set. Hilarious.”
She cracked up laughing with a few guys who had been mocking me since we were kids. Even Jackson seemed genuinely amused. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile as he looked at my outfit.
A massive tidal wave of humiliation and shame swallowed me alive. While they were busy laughing at my expense, I grabbed my full glass of expensive vodka cranberry and tossed the red liquid right into Riley’s face.
Riley gasped violently, wiping furiously at her wet, sticky face. Her heavy makeup immediately melted. Black mascara completely streaked down her cheeks, making her look ridiculous. She coughed violently, spitting out the drink.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Riley screamed, lunging forward.
“Are you completely insane?”
“Oh my god,” I mocked her breathy tone perfectly.
“Look at your heavy contour, fake eyelashes, and that tight dress that barely covers your ass. What are you, a hooker? Some trashy little club princess trying to get male attention?”
Jackson scowled deeply and immediately stepped between us. He yanked the empty glass right out of my hand, gripping my wrist hard.
“Ashley, apologize right now,” Jackson demanded.
He looked down at me, his brow furrowed in absolute disappointment. My eyes burned as I stared dead at him.
“Did you not hear what she just said to me?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“She mocked me first in front of everyone!”
“That is not the point,” Jackson snapped.
“You already insulted her back. Now apologize for throwing the drink. When you do something violent and wrong, you own up to it. Stop acting like a dramatic child.”
He said it with such casual, crushing authority.
“Just say sorry, Ashley,” Jackson sighed.
“She will not hold it against you.”
“Screw you,” I whispered.
“Ashley, what has gotten into you?” Jackson asked, looking genuinely baffled.
“You leave for college and suddenly this is how you talk to people? Apologize to Riley right now.”
I scoffed, turned on my heel, and walked straight out of the club alone into the cold Chicago night.
Three days later, Jackson showed up at my dorm. He brought my favorite strawberry milkshake. It had pink whipped cream on top with my favorite flamingo straw sticking out of it. He stood below the balcony of my dorm building like a scene from a movie.
“Ashley, come down here,” Jackson called out.
“I owe you an apology.”
I stood on the balcony looking down at him. The cold wind made my eyes sting. I wanted to stay angry, but I was so used to forgiving him. I went downstairs and took the cold shake from his hands. I took a sip. It was sweet, but my chest still felt incredibly tight and heavy.
“Do you actually think I am spoiled, petty, and making a big deal out of nothing?” I asked him directly.
Jackson fell silent for a long time. He looked at the pavement, then up at the sky.
“Riley is just blunt,” Jackson finally said, defending her again.
“She does not mean any real harm. Just let it go. You take everything way too personally, Ashley. That is probably why you have so few friends.”
The sweet milkshake sat heavy and disgusting in my throat. I could not swallow it, and I could not spit it out.
So that was it. No matter how badly I was hurt, I was always the petty one in Jackson’s eyes. I was always too sensitive, too dramatic, too much of a burden.
From that day on, our relationship just went on autopilot. We were together, but something vital between us had gone freezing cold.
After we finished graduate school, our parents started bringing up marriage more and more. They thought it was time we settled down and merged our lives completely. Jackson did not object, he just went along with the plan, so the wedding was set for my twenty fifth birthday.
And that led us to today. The wedding day.
When I walked into the bridal suite to check my makeup, Riley was already standing in the center of the room wearing my custom white wedding dress. She said she just wanted to see how it looked on her figure.
I let out a disbelieving, angry laugh. She glanced at the red reception dress I had just changed into, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Honestly, red is definitely not your color, Ashley,” Riley said, turning to check her reflection in the mirror.
“It looks hideous on your skin tone. Take it off. If you want to try on a wedding dress so badly, go rent a cheap one somewhere. That red one is mine.”
I stared at her.
“Take my dress off. Right now.”
But she just did a little twirl in front of me, the expensive lace catching the light.
“Oh, come on. You have already worn it for the main ceremony pictures. Jackson said he did not mind if I tried it on. Why are you being so insanely possessive?”
That was the final straw. I reached out and grabbed the white fabric of the sleeve.
“It is my wedding dress,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Give it back.”
As we struggled, her high heel caught on the edge of the thick rug. She tripped gracefully and fell hard onto the floor, making sure to cry out loudly. Her carefully styled hair tumbled into a messy heap.
At that exact moment, the suite door flew open. Jackson rushed in. His eyes landed on Riley crying on the floor, and without a single second of hesitation, he raised his hand and slapped me straight across the face.
The rain was coming down in sheets when I finally walked out of the massive hotel ballroom. It was a brutal, freezing thunderstorm sweeping off the Chicago lakefront. Heavy drops smashed violently against the concrete pavement.
I walked step by step into the freezing rain, still wearing that bright red reception dress Riley had just mocked. Behind me, my mother’s voice tore through the chaotic storm.
“ASHLEY! ASHLEY, COME BACK HERE!” Susan screamed from the hotel awning.
“OH, FOR GOD SAKE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER? Throwing a tantrum at her own wedding? This is so completely embarrassing for our family!”
I did not look back. My heel caught in a deep puddle, my ankle twisted painfully, and I nearly fell face first into the street. So, I reached down, yanked off both expensive heels, and threw them into the gutter. I walked completely barefoot on the soaking wet, freezing pavement. The muddy water was filthy, but I could not care less.
When I walked past the main wrought iron gates, the hotel security guards stared at me like I had lost my mind. A barefoot bride walking into a severe thunderstorm in a bright red dress. I probably did look totally insane.
My phone buzzed constantly in my purse. I pulled it out to look at the glowing screen. Dozens of frantic texts from relatives and friends.
What happened? Is everything okay? Why did you leave the venue?
I powered the phone completely off. I stood on the corner and flagged down a yellow cab. The driver hesitated when he saw me dripping wet and looking like a horror movie extra, but he eventually unlocked the back doors.
“Where to, lady?” he asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror.
I gave him an address. It was an old, run down apartment I shared with a college friend years ago. She had moved away, but she kept the lease active and left me a spare key for emergencies.
The ride took forty minutes through the heavy Chicago traffic. I shivered violently the entire way. I was not sure if it was from the freezing cold rain or the absolute shock of the betrayal.
When I arrived, I dug through my soaked purse. I only had two hundred dollars in cash and a single debit card. I paid the driver, climbed the dark stairs, and unlocked the heavy wooden door.
The apartment was dead empty. Just a bare stained mattress on the floor and a single metal folding chair in the corner.
I peeled off the heavy, soaked red dress, leaving it in a puddle on the floor. I crawled into an old scratchy blanket my friend had left behind, curling my freezing body into a tight ball on the mattress.
Finally, the tears started falling.
It was not even heartbreak anymore. It was not anger either. It was just a massive, suffocating emptiness. I had loved Jackson Westbrook for almost my entire life.
When I was five, he beat up the boys who bullied me. I thought he was the absolute bravest person in the whole world.
When I was eight, I scraped my knee badly on the concrete. He crouched down and put a bandage on it. His young hands had been clumsy, but so incredibly careful.
When I was fifteen, I completely bombed a massive history test. He stayed on the phone with me for four straight hours saying, “It is just one test, Ashley. You will be perfectly fine. I promise.”
When I was eighteen, I got accepted into my dream college. He bought me a beautiful pink crystal bracelet and smiled. “My little princess finally grew up.”
But when did everything change so drastically? Was it the exact day Riley showed up? Or was it even earlier than that?
Maybe Jackson had never actually loved me. Maybe I was just a needy, annoying friend he felt obligated to look after. A shadow he just could not shake off no matter how hard he tried. He treated me well out of sheer habit, not out of romantic love. He was completely used to me following him around, used to my endless clinginess.
But Riley was different. She was independent, fiercely opinionated, and bluntly outspoken. She did not need him to act as her knight in shining armor. She actively challenged him and made him laugh. To Jackson, maybe that felt like a mature, equal relationship, not a childish high maintenance princess who needed constant coddling and protection.
Those dark thoughts spiraled in my mind until I eventually passed out from pure emotional exhaustion.
In my dreams, I was five years old again. After he finished beating up those mean boys, he turned his head and looked at me. Sunlight hit his young face. “Anyone touches Ashley, they deal with me.”
But the very next second, the dream violently shifted. He was standing in the grand Chicago ballroom, staring at me with an ice cold face before his heavy hand cracked across my cheek.
I jolted awake, gasping for air. Sweat slicked my cold skin. The storm outside had finally passed. The morning sky was starting to turn a pale, washed out gray.
I plugged my dead phone into a wall outlet and powered it on. It vibrated for three straight minutes, flooded with hundreds of messages and missed calls.
Most were from my mother, starting from a panicked “Ashley, where are you?” to “Please answer me right now.” And finally, a furious “Do you have any idea what this massive scandal has done to both of our families?”
Then there were a few texts from Jackson.
“Where are you?” “Ashley, are you done with this childish stunt yet? Pick up the phone.”
The very last message from him was sent at two in the morning. Just one single line.
“Are you happy now?”
I stared at that text for a long time. A bitter, broken laugh escaped my dry lips. He slapped me across the face in front of our entire wedding party. And now he actually had the absolute guts to text me asking if I was happy.
Just like always. To him, this entire disaster was totally my fault. I was being unreasonable. I ruined our perfect, expensive wedding.
I did not reply to a single person. I opened a food delivery app on my phone and ordered some hot chicken soup.
An hour later, the harsh buzzer sounded. I assumed it was the delivery driver with my soup. I pulled open the heavy door, but it was not a delivery guy holding a paper bag.
It was Jackson.
He was still wearing the exact same gray wedding suit from yesterday. It was deeply wrinkled. Dark, heavy circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes like he had not slept a single minute all night. He took one look at my pale face and completely froze.
I knew exactly how pathetic I looked. I was drowning in a baggy old tee shirt someone had left behind, my hair was a tangled mess, and I still had the faint red outline of his handprint bruised on my left cheek.
He stared at that faint red mark for a few seconds. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“You stayed here… last night,” Jackson stated, his voice raspy.
I did not answer him. I just turned my back and walked back inside the apartment. He followed me inside, pushing the door shut behind him. He scanned the completely bare, depressing room, his brows drawing together in confusion.
“You are staying here? There is not even a real bed, Ashley.”
“None of your business,” I replied flatly. I sat down on the edge of the mattress, picked up a plastic cup, and took a slow sip of water.
He walked over and towered above me, looking down with that familiar mixture of annoyance and pity.
“Come home,” Jackson commanded softly.
“Let us finish the wedding paperwork. We can tell everyone it was just a misunderstanding. We can pretend yesterday never even happened.”
I slowly looked up at him. His handsome face was so incredibly calm. It was terrifying how calm he was after physically striking me.
“Jackson, do you honestly think I cannot live without you?” I asked.
“What?” He blinked, genuinely confused by the question.
“I said I am not marrying you. We are completely done.”
His brow furrowed into a tight, angry knot.
“Ashley, do you even hear yourself right now?”
“I do,” I said, my voice steady and unwavering.
“I am perfectly clear.”
“Why?” Jackson threw his hands up in frustration.
“Just because of one single slap? I did not mean it. Given the stressful situation…”
“What situation?” I stood up, closing the distance between us. “You saw Riley sitting on the floor and you hit me. You did not ask why she was on the floor. You did not ask what she did to me. You did not even give me a chance to explain my side. You just hit me.”
He opened his mouth, but I cut him off.
“Do you even know what she did? She wore my white wedding dress on my wedding day. She put it on without my permission and paraded around the suite. I told her to take it off, and she blatantly refused. We argued. I tried to pull the fabric off her arm. Then you walked in, and you hit me for absolutely no reason. Tell me, Jackson. What did I do wrong?”
Jackson rubbed his face tiredly. “She never wore a wedding dress before. She was just curious about how it looked. Did you really have to make such a huge, embarrassing deal out of it?”
“Did you really have to hit me?” I screamed, the anger finally boiling over. “Jackson, I chased you for twenty years! I loved you for twenty years! I have been your loyal, pathetic shadow for twenty years!”
He stared at me, shocked by my outburst.
“I thought you were just bad at expressing your feelings,” I continued, tears finally spilling hot down my cheeks.
“I thought you loved me and just did not know how to say it properly. But that slap yesterday finally woke me up from this delusion. You never loved me.”
“Ashley, that is not true…”
“You got used to me!” I shouted.
“I am just a convenient accessory to you. Someone you could snap your fingers at whenever it suited your needs. But Riley? You will back her up in public every single time. You will hit your own bride for her. Because deep down, Jackson, she is more important to you.”
“Not true,” he muttered, but his eyes shifted away from mine.
“Say it, Jackson. Tell me what it actually is.”
He stood there, his jaw clenched tight. He could not say a single thing to deny it.
I let out a bitter, exhausted laugh and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“Ashley…”
“I already threw the diamond ring away,” I told him coldly. “The wedding is permanently canceled. I will deal with our angry families and the financial fallout. From now on, we are completely done. Do not ever reach out to me again.”
He did not move. He stood there staring at me for a long time, the reality of the situation finally starting to crack his arrogant facade. Finally, he muttered under his breath.
“Fine. Cool. I will leave for a few days. I will come back when you have finally calmed down and stopped acting crazy.”
Then he turned around and walked out.
The second the heavy door shut behind him, my legs completely gave out. I sank to the hard floor, burying my wet face in my arms. I was the one who initiated the final breakup, who boldly canceled the wedding, but why did my chest still hurt this incredibly much?
For the next three days, I locked myself inside that empty Chicago apartment. I ignored every single phone call and text message. My mother was losing her mind with worry. She texted me that she and my father were already on their way to the city to find me.
I just replied, “I am fine. Please do not come here.”
On the third afternoon, the loud doorbell rang. I checked the small peephole. It was my mother. With no choice left, I slowly unbolted and opened the door.
When Susan stepped inside and saw the state of the apartment, her eyes welled up with thick tears.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she cried, dropping her bags and pulling me into a tight hug.
“You have lost so much weight. You look so incredibly pale. Have you even eaten anything solid?”
As she scolded me gently, she started pulling heavy thermoses of food out of her large tote bag.
“I know you are hurting so deeply,” she said, her voice cracking. “I know what happened humiliated you in front of everyone. But starving yourself in an empty room will not fix a single thing.”
My nose stung violently. Fresh tears threatened again.
My father, Thomas, stood silently in the doorway. His face was dangerously grim and stormy.
“I have already talked to Jackson’s parents,” Thomas said, his deep voice rumbling with suppressed anger. “If you want to call the whole thing off permanently, just say the word, Ashley. I have your back entirely.”
“Drop it, Thomas,” my mother sighed, unpacking the food.
“What?” my father snapped, stepping into the room.
“Laying a hand on my daughter right in front of me? Who the hell does that arrogant boy think he is? I did not raise my beautiful girl to be his punching bag.”
Susan let out a heavy, painful sigh and did not argue back. I knew this massive scandal had hurt them deeply, too. Decades of close friendship between our two families, and now they were stuck right in the middle of this toxic mess. The ruined wedding destroyed everything they had built together.
“Mom, Dad, I am so sorry,” I whispered, staring at the floor.
“I am sorry for putting you through this embarrassment.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Thomas said fiercely, walking over and kissing my forehead.
“I do not care about any of the gossip or the money. I only care that you are okay. We only care that you are safe.”
That night, my mother stayed with me in the apartment, and my father checked into a hotel nearby to give us space. She lay next to me on that bare, uncomfortable mattress in the dark, just like she did when I was a little girl scared of thunderstorms.
“Ashley, be completely honest with me,” Susan whispered into the quiet room.
“Okay.”
“Do you still love him?”
I stayed quiet for a very long time, listening to the distant sounds of the city traffic outside the window.
“I loved him for twenty years,” I finally confessed, my voice breaking in the dark.
“You do not just magically turn that off overnight. But Mom… I really do not want to love him anymore.”
“I know, sweetie,” she said, pulling me closer and stroking my messy hair.
“Then take it slow. I am right here with you.”
Staring into the dark shadows of the ceiling, I cried without making a single sound.
On the fourth day, someone knocked on the door again.
I thought it was my father bringing us breakfast. I opened the door without checking the peephole.
Jackson stood in the hallway. He looked worse than before, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. But this time, he was not alone.
Riley was standing right behind him.
She looked nervous, clutching her designer purse with both hands.
“Ashley, we need to talk.”
I stared at both of them for three seconds. Then, without saying a single word, I grabbed the heavy wooden door and slammed it shut in their faces. I locked the deadbolt.
They could knock all they wanted. The little princess they loved to mock was finally dead, and I was never letting either of them back into my life again.