Part 1The 519 Misprints

Seven days before the wedding, the printing company delivered a heavy box of 520 physical invitations to our house.

I pulled out the very first one, and my fingers froze instantly.

Printed on the line that clearly said Bride, was the name: Chloe Thorne.

Refusing to believe it, I ripped open the second envelope. Then the third. Then the fourth.

Exactly 519 invitations, all bearing her name.

Only the very last one had a sticky note slapped in the corner.

"Exclusively for the Bride-to-be! Don't be mad! :)"

On that single invitation, my name was squeezed into the absolute bottom margin, the font size so incredibly small it looked like a footnote.

Chloe was leaning against the doorframe, twirling a red pen, watching me with a sickeningly sweet smile.

"See? I told you this printer was fast. Ethan dragged me along to help him proofread the order, and oops! I guess I accidentally typed my own name in the template."

Ethan stepped out of the elevator, hearing her excuse, and offered nothing more than a mild frown.

"Stop messing around."

Chloe immediately threw her hands up in mock surrender.

"Okay, okay, my bad! I'll pay for them. I'll cover the cost for all 520 of them."

She reached over, snatched the very top invitation from the stack, and casually tucked it into the breast pocket of Ethan's suit jacket.

"But I'm keeping this one. You know, just in case it ever actually comes in handy?"

Ethan didn't take it out of his pocket.

He looked at me, his tone as casual as if he were discussing a typo on a grocery list.

"We don't have time. Just fix the digital evite and send that out. We don't need to reprint the physical ones."

We don't need to reprint them?

He knew I spent three grueling months agonizing over the exact paper stock for these 520 invitations.

He knew I specifically chose a heavy, textured cotton parchment to honor my late father, who was a master calligrapher.

He knew the quote inside, "Giving away my daughter," was painstakingly traced, letter by letter, from one of my father's old letters.

But Chloe 'accidentally' prints her name on 519 of them, and his only response is that we don't need to reprint them.

I picked up the single, solitary invitation that actually bore my name, and slowly, deliberately, ripped it completely in half.

Ethan's face instantly darkened.

"Maya, what kind of tantrum is this?"

I looked up at him.

"Nothing."

"I just realized that out of 520 invitations, it doesn't matter if I'm missing from one of them."

1.

Chloe bent down, picked up the torn halves of the invitation, and clicked her tongue.

"Wow, Maya. That temper is actually kind of scary."

"The paper didn't do anything to you. Why take it out on the invitation?"

Ethan reached out to take the remaining half from my hand.

"Stop it."

"We have older relatives coming tomorrow expecting a physical invitation. How do you expect me to explain this mess you just made?"

I dodged his hand.

"Reprint them."

His brow furrowed into a deep V.

"The printer said the absolute fastest turnaround is ten days. The wedding is in seven. What exactly do you expect me to hand out?"

Chloe immediately threw her hand in the air.

"Just use my version!"

"I mean, everyone already knows I'm basically your ultimate bro. No one is actually going to take it seriously, right?"

She fanned out a massive stack of the invitations, spreading the heavy cardstock across the coffee table like a deck of cards.

On every single one of them, her name sat directly next to Ethan's.

It burned my eyes just looking at it.

Ethan's mother walked out of the kitchen, took one look at the table, and her expression sank.

But the person she directed her frustration toward... was me.

"Maya, the wedding is literally days away. Don't ruin the mood over a few pieces of paper."

Ethan's father set his coffee mug down.

"The family and friends have already been notified, and the venue is fully paid for."

"It's too late to reprint. Just fixing the digital evite is fine."

They said it so effortlessly. So lightly.

As if the person whose name was erased wasn't the bride, but just some mislabeled centerpiece.

Suddenly, Chloe pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the massive pile of misprinted invitations.

"I'm posting this on Instagram! The caption is gonna be: 519 mistakes, 1 true love."

My voice was like ice. "Delete it."

She blinked her innocent eyes.

"Maya, seriously? I can't even post a joke?"

"You call hijacking my wedding invitations a 'mistake,' and you expect me to sit here and laugh with you?"

Ethan finally lost his patience.

"Chloe just has no filter. Do you have to take every single thing she says so literally and turn it into a massive fight?"