Part 2A Funeral March for My Wedding

I ran. The wedding was, of course, canceled.

Terence gave me the silent treatment for days, until Bonnie was finally “punished” by the family.

See? They thought I was just some girl from a lower-class background who wouldn’t dare make a fuss. Only when they saw I was serious did they make a token gesture of disciplining her.

This relationship, with me always on the bottom rung, was exhausting.

Terence finally tracked me down, his face a thundercloud.

“Bonnie is being punished because of you. I need you to go to my grandfather and ask him to forgive her so we can move on. What’s the point of dragging this out? She’s my sister, not some stranger.”

I wrenched my hand from his grasp.

“Not my problem.”

His patience snapped. He shoved me toward his car, forcing me inside.

“You’re the one who started this mess! My family barely agreed to let me marry you in the first place, and now you pull this?”

A chilling cold spread through my chest.

It was true. I had worked so hard to be accepted by his prejudiced family.

But I had dignity. I was a person, not a doormat.

If that’s how it was, then it was time to make things crystal clear.

At the Vance estate, Terence took all the blame, which was really just another way of protecting Bonnie.

“Bonnie is still young,” he told his grandfather. “Ultimately, it was Autumn who didn’t explain things clearly enough. It wasn't her fault. It was mine, too. You can punish me instead.”

The old man ignored him, his sharp eyes fixed on me. Seeing my cold, unyielding expression, he barked, “Bonnie, apologize!”

Bonnie was reluctant, but one look at her grandfather’s stern face and she bowed her head.

“I’m sorry, Autumn. It was my fault. I’m just so clumsy, I’m always messing things up.”

As she raised a hand to wipe away a crocodile tear, the ancestral jade ring flashed on her finger.

I took a deep breath.

“We’re broken up. The wedding is off. It has nothing to do with anyone else. I’m the one who doesn’t want to continue.”

Terence’s face darkened, his body trembling with disbelief, as if he couldn't comprehend that those words had come from my mouth.

His grandfather gave me a few days to “reconsider.”

I walked out without another word.

To my surprise, Terence ignored Bonnie’s calls and ran after me.

“Autumn, let me drive you home. What did you mean back there? What do you mean we’re broken up? I didn’t agree to it.”

It was late and hard to find a cab, so I got in his car.

On the way, he rambled on, explaining and justifying, but I tuned him out, staring blankly at the cityscape rushing by.

Terence was about to say something else when his phone rang. His expression shifted instantly.

“She has a fever? Okay, I’m on my way back right now.”

He slammed on the brakes and pulled me out of the car.

“Autumn, you’ll have to get a cab from here. Something’s happened to Bonnie. She must have gotten sick from being so upset about her punishment tonight.”

The car sped away, leaving me alone in the biting wind.

Of course, there were no cabs. I walked the whole way home in a daze, my hands frozen stiff.

I couldn't help but think about how we started.

I met Terence one night years ago. After my father remarried, I became the family punching bag. Terence found me crying on a park bench, and after hearing my story, he stormed into my house with a wooden bat and smashed a coffee table to pieces.

“Don’t you ever touch Autumn again,” he’d roared at my family, “or you’ll have to go through me.”

He was the light that guided me forward.

Until his adopted sister returned from overseas. Suddenly, I wasn’t the center of his universe anymore. I couldn’t be carefree, couldn’t be his priority.

I was always second place.

I decided then and there to refocus my life. My future would belong to my career.