Part 3The 519 Misprints

It felt like a jagged fist had violently crushed my heart.

Before my father passed away, his absolute biggest fear was leaving me alone.

That year in the hospital room, he held Ethan's hand, telling him that I was quiet, that I never fought back when I was wronged, and he begged Ethan to protect me.

Ethan promised him, tears in his eyes.

And now, he was using my dead father's memory to force me to swallow my humiliation.

A burst of laughter echoed from the hallway outside.

I opened the office door.

Chloe was sitting cross-legged on the rug, FaceTiming a group of Ethan's groomsmen.

She was holding the invitation with her name on it directly over her heart.

"You see this?! I am exactly 519 invitations away from legally marrying Ethan Sterling!"

The guys on the screen immediately started hyping her up.

"If the bride bails, you just sub in!"

"Chloe's been waiting twenty years in the friendzone, she finally got her shot!"

Chloe laughed so hard she fell backward onto the rug.

I walked over, picked up her phone, and ended the call.

Her face instantly dropped.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I picked up the massive stack of misprinted invitations and began ripping them in half, one by one.

Heavy cardstock fluttered to the floor like dead leaves.

Chloe shrieked. "Are you insane?!"

Ethan sprinted out of the office.

"Maya!"

I ripped the absolute final invitation. My fingertips were completely numb.

"I am not sending these out."

Ethan's mother was shaking with rage.

"You are acting completely irrational!"

Chloe looked at Ethan, her eyes brimming with fake tears.

"I'm so sorry. I genuinely had no idea she would be this obsessive over it."

Ethan looked at her, and then looked down at the floor covered in shredded red paper.

Finally, he looked at me, his voice freezing cold.

"Go back to your old apartment today and cool off."

"The wedding is proceeding as scheduled."

I looked up at him.

"If the bride isn't there, how exactly is the wedding proceeding?"

He stared me down, enunciating every syllable.

"You'll be there."

"You couldn't bear to humiliate me in front of that many people."

3

That night, I didn't go back to my old apartment.

I sat in the guest bedroom of our pristine, massive new house until the sun came up. I methodically went through my phone, silently exiting every single wedding planning group chat.

At 8:00 AM, I drove to my father's old calligraphy and printing studio.

It had been closed for a long time. The edges of the sign above the door were rusting.

I unlocked the heavy metal security gate, dust billowing out as I pushed it up.

Before he died, my father had hand-carved a wooden printing block for my future wedding. The characters "Giving away my daughter" were etched deeply into the wood.

I had originally planned to bring the very first, perfectly printed invitation here before the wedding, and place it in front of his memorial portrait.

But I didn't have a first invitation anymore.

So I pulled the heavy wooden block out of storage and began meticulously cleaning it with a soft cloth.

Footsteps echoed from the front entrance.

Ethan and Chloe walked into the studio, one right after the other.

He saw me, and his brow furrowed immediately.

"What are you doing hiding here?"

"There's a million things to do for the wedding and you aren't answering your phone."

Chloe walked in holding a massive iced coffee, craning her neck to look around.

"So this is the studio your dad used to run?"

She strolled over to the main workbench and casually picked up a heavy, vintage stone seal.

"This is so aesthetic. Super vintage. A photo of this would look amazing on my grid."

I slammed my hand down over hers.

"Don't touch that."

Chloe froze, startled.

"I'm literally just looking at it."

"I said, don't touch it."

She rolled her eyes and dropped the stone seal back onto the desk.

But a second later, her eyes landed on the wooden wedding block.

"Oh, this looks fun."

She grabbed a heavy ink roller, jammed it into a tray of crimson ink, and aggressively rolled it across the carved wood.

"Maya, let me print a brand new version for you."

I lunged forward to grab it out of her hand.

"Chloe, put it down!"

She jerked her arm back, violently flinging the heavy, saturated roller.

Thick, wet crimson ink splattered directly onto a stack of my father's old, handwritten letters resting on the desk.

The ink instantly bled through the fragile, decades-old paper, completely obliterating his elegant, careful handwriting into a muddy, red smear.

My brain literally flatlined. A deafening, high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

Chloe panicked for a fraction of a second, but immediately stiffened her neck, refusing to back down.

"It's just some old scrap paper! I'll pay you for it!"

I slapped the roller out of her hand, sending it crashing to the floor.

"You couldn't afford it if you sold your soul."

Chloe's eyes instantly welled with tears.

"Ethan! Look at her!"

Ethan took three rapid steps forward. But the person he reached out to steady... was her.

He looked down at her hand, checking for a mark.

"Did she hurt you?"

I stood in front of the desk, staring at the ruined, unsalvageable letters my father had left me. The absolute, staggering absurdity of the situation finally hit me.

"She literally just destroyed the last things I have of my father."