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He Left Me Waiting Seven Times. I Married My Best Friend's Brother
Novelix
new
Completed
Seven times. That's how many times my fiancé, Mark, left me waiting for our wedding because another woman needed him. A broken-down car, a craving for soup, a twisted ankle—somehow, Lily always came first. On our seventh attempt, he walked out of the county office before we could finish the paperwork. I finally stopped begging him to choose me. Instead, I called Caleb, my best friend's brother, who had once offered to marry me. He actually showed up. Now I'm married to someone else, and Mark still thinks I'll be waiting when he comes back.
Chapters (2)
Chapter 1
Mark left before we could finish the paperwork.
His phone rang while the clerk was checking our information. He looked at the name on the screen and stepped away from the counter.
I knew before he answered.
“What's wrong?” he asked. His voice changed in a way it hadn't changed for me in months. “Don't move. I'll be there.”
He put his driver's license back in his wallet.
“Lily hurt her ankle.”
I looked at the clerk. She had stopped typing.
“We're almost done,” I said.
“She fell on the stairs, Grace.”
“Is someone taking her to urgent care?”
“I'm going to see what happened.”
“We could finish this first.”
He was already looking toward the door.
“We'll come back.”
Then he left.
For a few seconds, I stayed at the counter with my identification in my hand. The clerk waited. Behind me, somebody laughed softly at something their partner had said.
“Would you like to step aside while you call him?” she asked.
I nodded.
There were chairs against the wall and a small table with a fake plant. I sat beside it and called Mark.
No answer.
I sent him a message. Then another, asking whether he was coming back before our slot ended.
The little delivery mark appeared. Nothing else did.
Finally, I called Lily's number.
Mark answered.
“Grace, stop calling. She's trying to rest.”
“Are you still coming?”
“I told you, she hurt her ankle. I can't just leave her.”
I watched a couple walk toward the exit, laughing over the documents in a cream envelope.
“This is the seventh time.”
“The office isn't going anywhere.”
“Neither is her apartment.”
He sighed.
“I can't do this with you right now.”
The call ended.
On the wall, a poster showed a smiling couple against a mountain view. Colorado made it possible to marry without an officiant. Mark and I had picked that because it was supposed to be simple: get the license, sign together, take a picture outside, have lunch, tell Grandpa.
Six times before this, even simple had been too much.
I opened our messages. A month earlier, he'd said he'd never make me wait there again. I'd saved the message because I wanted something to look at when I started feeling foolish for believing him.
Now I had it in front of me, and it didn't help.
The clerk came around the end of the counter.
“I can't issue the license with your partner gone,” she said gently. “Do you want us to stop the application for today?”
I looked down at my left hand. No ring yet. Mark had said we'd choose one after we got through the part that mattered.
“Yes,” I told her.
Then I took out my phone again.
There was somebody else I could call.
Chapter 2
Caleb Bennett had offered to marry me two weeks earlier.
At the time, I'd thought he was joking.
His sister Mia was my best friend. I'd known who he was since high school, but we'd only had one real conversation as adults. He'd been away for college and work, then come home to a family determined to introduce him to every available woman in Colorado.
At Mia's birthday dinner, he'd listened while she complained about Mark canceling another appointment.
“I need an end to the introductions,” he'd said. “You need somebody who'll actually show up. We could solve two problems.”
I'd looked at him.
“That sounds like the start of a terrible movie.”
“Most of the good ones start badly.”
He'd smiled, and I'd put it away as one more ridiculous thing people said when they didn't know how to help.
Now I sat under a county office poster and remembered that he'd given me his number before leaving.
I wasn't calling because I suddenly knew him well enough to be in love. I was calling because I'd spent six months offering Mark chances to mean what he said, and I couldn't make myself offer an eighth.
Grandpa had been in and out of the hospital through most of those months. Lately, there had been more in than out.
Every visit, he asked how the plans were coming along. He wanted to see me in a wedding dress. He wanted to know somebody would be there when he couldn't be.
I had mistaken giving him that reassurance for a reason to keep waiting for the wrong man.
The first appointment fell apart because Lily's car wouldn't start. Mark said it was an emergency. I believed him.
The second time, a furniture delivery had arrived when she was alone and couldn't manage it. The third, she'd had a terrible day at work and needed somebody to sit with her.
Those first three cancellations had become apologies, dinners, promises. Each time, I'd thought the fact that he was sorry meant he understood.
The fourth time, she'd wanted soup from a place across town. Mark said she hadn't eaten all day and the line would be too long later.
I remembered standing beside his car while he explained why soup had to come before our marriage.
The fifth time, she'd locked herself out. He had her spare key.
The sixth, she had cramps. He went to make her tea and bring a heating pad.
I didn't think people should have to earn help by being in enough pain. What I couldn't understand was why I was always the person asked to wait for it.
The seventh time, she hurt her ankle.
He hadn't even stayed long enough to finish giving the clerk his information.
A few days earlier, Grandpa had taken my hand and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles.
“If I don't get to see the dress, I don't get to see it,” he'd said. “You still have to live, Gracie. Even if you're on your own. Don't let anybody make you small.”
I'd promised I wouldn't.
I looked at Caleb's name on my phone.
Then I called him.
He answered on the second ring.
“Grace?”
“Did you mean what you said?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“About marrying you?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
I told him.
“Stay there,” he said. “I'm coming.”
