I Wouldn't Marry Him. Would You?

“Darling, we’re going to be late!” I furiously hollered, holding up my skirts so that the water wouldn’t ruin the lace on the edges of my wedding dress. He didn’t reply. Lizzie nudged me, giving me the look that I should do something. I ignored her and turned around on my heels, creating the most annoying sound that you could possibly hear. My new, perfectly white dance pumps squeaked a little, shoe language for get your fat feet off me or I’ll eat your nail polish, I reckoned.

“If you’re going to be that loud, I’m not sure if I’d want to marry you,” Liam bellowed from the dressing room.

Ugh. That brat. Why did my dad have to play matchmaker even though he didn’t know what Tinder was? At least I liked him, I thought to myself. Unlike any of the other 20 weirdos that dad set me up on a blind date with. “When is that couch potato going to come down? I don’t know why you would want to marry him,” Lizzie admonished, tapping on the time displayed in huge, white numbers on the screen on her Samsung Galaxy s20.

“Don’t ask me why. You should be happy! This is your first time being chief bridesmaid,” I half-heartedly replied. Frustrated, she rolled her eyes and started playing Doodle Jump on her phone.

Suddenly, I heard a beep on my phone. I opened messages and squinted at a little blue dot next to a mysterious number. Lizzie craned her neck to get a look at who texted me. “Open it,” Lizzie immediately told me. Suspiciously, I tapped on the text.

There were a series of screenshots that they had sent me, followed by a text.

I wouldn’t marry him. Would you?

Shivers went down my spine as my other bridesmaids crowded around me to see what was the matter. Trembling, I quickly tapped on one of the screenshots. It looked like Liam’s messages to another woman!

When are u going 2 marry that douchebag?

I don’t wanna

Then why did u propose 2 her? I’m obviously so much better.

I didn’t propose! Her dad decided to arrange a marriage

O yeah, hubby did it.

Duh! He’s so stupid that I would divorce him as soon as I married him if I were u

What? My mum was dating my soon-to-be-husband? No, no, no this couldn’t have been happening. I rubbed my eyes, wishing that it was a dream even though I knew that it wasn’t.

Anyway, u need 2 get rid of her.

Poison her?

Uh, like yeah! How else can you get rid of her?

EZ, dump her when we’re having our honeymoon, obviously

Or get a divorce

Nah, I wanna get rid of her forever.

That was too much for me. Tucking my phone into my purse, I sat on the steps and sobbed into a handkerchief while Angela and Lizzie hugged me. “What will you do?” the other bridesmaids whispered, stroking me on the back. “I n-need r-r-revenge,” I slowly hiccuped while Tiffany grabbed a bottle of water.

“Of course you need revenge,” Lizzie cooed, dragging me up. Taking a sip of water, I fidgeted with my bouquet of flowers, thinking about what to do to Liam. All of a sudden, lightbulb moment.

Gathering all of my bridesmaids in, I told them about my plan to dump him. They all agreed, except for Lizzie, who wanted me to just walk in on him.

“Kick open the door and tell him not to do it again by giving him the good old’ kick in the eggs, that’s what I think,” she triumphantly whispered into my ear.

“No thanks, I’ll do it my way, but I will still add the kick in the eggs,” I politely whispered back, grinning mischievously.

Creeping upstairs, I pulled my cell phone out of my bag, excitedly opening it and pointing the camera to the gap between the hinge and the frame. Silently recording, I tried not to cringe in horror as I saw Liam in a lip-lock with my mum, moaning and pulling on her shirt, trying to get a good look at her bra.

Okay, maybe I didn’t love him so much now. That was a weird way for a fully grown man to tell his fiancé’s mum that he wanted to make out with her. He was fully dressed in a suit, trying to push my mum on the bed but failing because she was 40 pounds heavier than he was. Instead, my mum slammed Liam onto the door, 3 centimetres from where I was. When they finally pulled back, I stopped recording and tucked my phone into my purse.

Tiptoeing back to the bottom of the staircase, I smirked and walked downstairs to be greeted by 4 curious faces staring back at me. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, I quickly gave them a thumbs-up. Turning to excitement, they silently jumped up and down in ecstasy.

“Liam! We need to be ready in 2 minutes!” I bawled.

“Okay! Chill out, Maddie! I’ll be down in a minute.”

“That’s what you said 10 minutes ago!”

No response. Running up the stairs three at a time, I went straight to the dressing room and I banged hard on the door. “Come on! We need to go,” I berated. Not wanting to wait for a response, I turned the handle, just in time to see my mum give him a kiss on the cheek. While I gave mum the look, she argued that he was her son in law and that she had the right to kiss him.

“Madeline, let her,” Liam nervously said, trying to look stronger than he was.

“Ugh! Fine,” I mumbled obviously annoyed.

Taking him by the wrist, I dragged him down the stairs. My bridesmaids tried to creep him out by giving him suspicious looks and squinting at him. He looked nervous and I could see a bead of sweat forming near his hairline, so I looked closely at his lips and saw some red lipstick, the same colour as my mum’s.

“What is that?” I nearly yelled as I put my finger on his lips and shoved it his face, letting him see the reddish colour smeared on it. Everybody, including my bridesmaids, the ushers and my mum turned around. I could sense that he was feeling awkward about it, so I questioned him even more.

“Have you been cheating on me?”

“No, Maddie, I haven’t, I promise! Isn’t that right, uh, Ryder?”

Ryder mumbled something incoherent and then adjusted his bow tie.

“That’s a yes, right Ryder?” Liam turned towards Ryder, who wiped his hands on his pants.

“Yeah,” Ryder finally spat.

“Then what is this?”

He turned red and glanced at my mum for an answer.

“Um-uh, he was dressing when, uh, he banged his lip on the, uh-uh clothes rack. Yeah, the clothes rack,” my mum quickly stuttered, biting her nails and getting her hot pink nail polish all over her teeth.

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” I finally muttered, unconvinced. Strutting to the car, I could clearly see that he made eye contact with my mum and blushed. He stayed like that until I waved a hand in front of his face and he snapped out of his trance.

“What are you doing? You’ve been acting weird lately,” I snapped, pushing him into the groom and ushers’ soot-black Ferrari.

“Sorry, Maddie,” he apologised while twisting the ring on his finger.

I rolled my eyes and stepped daintily into the passenger seat of the white BMW, right next to Lizzie, who was driving. Fiddling with my ring, I strapped myself in and couldn’t help thinking about the video. Gosh, I would’ve loved to see his reaction when he saw it. Suddenly, I felt a jolt as the engine started. Chink chink brrrrrrrrrr, the car went. A few moments later, the BMW backed out of the driveway and left for the church. The Ferrari embarked on our trail and followed us.

A few minutes into the drive, Liam shouted to us from behind.

“Hey, maybe it would be a good idea if we took different paths and raced to the church,” he suggested.

My stomach boiled. What if he dumped me and had fun with mum? Before I could tell Lizzie, she had replied that it would have been a good idea.

Oh, crap.

After a few moments of pondering, I had caught an idea. I unlatched my purse and grabbed my phone out. I opened Messages and texted Ryder.

Hey, u mind spying on Liam and giving me updates for some bucks?

He replied immediately.

How much cash?

My fingers trembled.

100 but you have to send me evidence photos, videos, voice stuff, etc

A second later, my phone beeped.

Ok.

I relaxed and started to talk about the plan to Lizzie and the other bridesmaids.

“What if that pig tries to run away with your mum?” Lucy asked me, craning her neck to see what I was doing on my phone.

I paused for a few moments. Did I want to tell them that I bribed him? Heck yeah, I did.

“Oh… I just bribed Mr Best Man to send me stuff,” I smugly said, trailing off.

“Ohmygosh, that such a good move,” Angela quickly replied, nudging Lizzie.

Lizzie nearly yelled.

“What! You actually gave money to that guy?”

I clamped my hands over my ears.

“Well yeah… He was the only one that Liam wouldn’t suspect.”

“Why would you give money to your dad?”

“No, no, I said I gave the money to Ryder.”

“Oh. Phew! I thought you gave it to the guy that arranged the wedding!”

Abruptly, my phone gave out a small beep.

“Ooh, what did he send you?” Tiffany and Angela said in unison.

“Oh! Jinx!”

“Double Jinx!”

“Triple Jinx!”

“JINXLOCK!” Lucy cried.

Tiffany and Angela shut their mouths.

“Mmmhmmmhm!”

“Mmh, mmh.”

“Fine. Open.”

“What did he say? What did he say?” Angela hollered as soon as Lucy said open.

There were a series of videos, five photos and a voice memo, along with a text.

Done. Gimme my money!

Ok, hold your horses.

I scanned all of the photos and watched the videos, while Tiffany and Angela were making unnecessary comments about them.

“He is such a boiled egg.”

“You mean, THEY are such boiled eggs.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Oh my god. He should go to jail for that.”

“Oh ho! More like death row.”

“How do you put up with him?”

“I think Ryder deserved the money.”

Tiffany was about to say that he should become a professional cheater when Lizzie braked hard and we all jolted, making the tyres screech so loudly that a person walking his dog on the footpath jumped and the dog went into a hedge.

“We’re here!” Lizzie announced proudly.

“That was probably the worst drive ever. You got pulled over 3 times!”

“Says you. That’s better than Lucy doing it.”

“Lizz-ie!” Lucy scowled.

I chuckled. They could be so immature sometimes. The car door opened with a click and I saw Ryder approaching me. “Here,” I whispered, fishing 5 $20 dollar notes out of my bag and giving it to him.

“Thanks. I can spend all of it on my little sister’s birthday.”

“No problem. You made my evidence much better.”

“It’s fine.”

I strode purposefully to the entrance of the church while Angela was hobbling behind me, holding Tiffany’s shoulder because she needed to practice walking in high heels. Trailing 3 metres behind them were Lucy and Lizzie, arguing whose driving was more like crap.

“You got 3 tickets!”

“Well, what happened last time you drove?”

“Nothing did!”

“Except for crashing into a stop sign and ruining the bonnet of Angela’s car!”

“Well, it’s better than losing your driver’s license!”

I shook my head and nearly ran to the bathroom to touch up my make-up so that I would look pretty while completely roasting my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Mascara. Foundation. Lipstick. Oh, it looked like crap. I pulled a stick of blood-red mascara out of my handbag and opened it. While I was putting it on, I saw a movement while I was looking in the mirror.

Mum.

“Hey, Missy.”

“Hey, mum.”

“So… I saw you give some money to Ryder while I was getting out of the car. What was that about?”

I stopped in my tracks and turned around to see her scowl staring right back at me. Oh, shoot.

“He helped Liam buy his suit for the wedding so I gave him the money to make up for it.”

Her face deflated as her plan to accuse me of giving away family money collapsed, falling brick by brick. Trying to contain myself from smirking, I turned back around and saw her annoyed face. I was thinking about the plan. What if it didn’t work? What if nobody believed me? I started to breathe harder and sweat.

“Why are you sweating?” she said, putting on a fake sympathetic look.

If there was one thing that I liked more than money, it was getting sympathy, but I didn’t fall for it this time.

“I have worries about how it’s going to go,” I stuttered.

“Aww, don’t worry. I’ll make sure that everything is perfect,” she replied as she sauntered out of the door. I saw the look on her face as she shut the door behind her.

I stared at the time on my Rolex. Two more minutes until I had to walk down the aisle and totally reck Liam. Lizzie stormed into the room, looking like she was on fire.

“Two more minutes until you can yeet him to hell,” she whispered into my ear, cupping her hands.

Pff. More like ASMR with Lizzie.

I went to get ready by getting out my phone and scanning through the photos, videos and screenshots. Good, good, ok, good, savage, savage, good, good, ok, savage, ok. Was I ready to yeet him to hell?

Oh, boy was I ready!

The velvet carpet was soft and spongy under my feet, like the first time I stepped onto Liam’s bed. My face was like any one of the faces on Mount Rushmore - cold, hard, neutral. Ok, maybe not the neutral part. I looked like I had just eaten a huge, 100-year-old rotten egg. Yuk. Finally, when I reached the officiant, I stood to the right of him and waited for him to say something.

“Mr Clyde, do you marry this woman?”

“Yes, I do.”

My heartbeat quickened.

“Mrs Clyde, do you marry this man?”

I paused. I blinked and had a flashback of everything that I had seen.

“I wouldn’t marry him. Would you?”

“He is such a boiled egg.”

“I want to get rid of her forever.”

“I wouldn’t marry him. Would you?”

When I opened my eyes, I had a clear answer.

“Hell no. Take the ring and shove it up your ass.”

The crowd gasped and whispered. The officiant’s eyes went wider than the moon. I could see the look of despair when Liam heard me, but I didn’t cringe. I turned my back on him and I remembered what Lizzie told me.

“A good old’ kick in the eggs.”

I was wearing stilettos, and I knew that. Using the heel tip, I did a back kick with all of my might and let’s say the projectile found its target.

I could hear the moans and groans from Liam as he buckled to the ground for two reasons, because of the pain and knowing that he wouldn’t be able to take a piss anymore. My mum ran up to him and tried to check if he was ok.

“He was cheating on me!” I shrieked, putting my phone into the projector. The crowd gasped, even louder this time and started to bore into Liam by giving him stares so intense that they could melt ice.

“Maddie, I was not!”

“Well, what will you say if I have evidence?”

He didn’t say anything else. The wedding venue was chaotic, with people standing on their chairs and the band players abandoning their instruments, crowding around the projector screen. Mr Officiant was pacing down the aisle, wondering what he would do if we all started butchering the life out of Liam and my mum.

I turned the projector on and started reading all of the texts aloud, silencing the audience.

She is such a douchebag…

OO yeah, hubby did it.

I love you

EZ, just dump her while we’re on our honeymoon.

My voice became stronger and stronger each word I said, while my mum’s face slowly turned to despair.

“You can’t say that! That’s all fake! You’re such a liar! You just want to stir up the drama!” my mum accused.

Luckily, I came prepared.

“Well, you certainly can’t call this fake evidence,” I smugly said as I switched to the videos and pictures. The guests oohed and aahed every time I showed them a video or a picture.

“So,” I said, glaring into them. “What do you have to say?”

Liam slowly stood up, relying heavily on the officiant’s stand.

“I’m sorry, Mad-”

“Well I’m not,” my mum bellowed.

She immediately regretted saying that, because I dragged her and Liam to the door and threw them outside, then closed and latched the door.

I turned back to the crowd.

“Now what to do?” I shouted.

“Oh, Maddie. Do whatever you want! Party, eat, rent a bouncy house because it’s your day!” Lizzie exclaimed, slapping me on the back.

I grinned. I would have fun tonight!