No More Settling

On my wedding day, my bride, Emily, hid the rings for fun, refusing to come out until I found them.

My groomsmen and I searched frantically, sweating and nearly dismantling furniture-but nothing.

As panic set in, her best friend Ethan stepped forward, smugly revealing the ring on his finger.

Here it is! Don't worry, I'll take it off for you.

I laughed bitterly.

"You expect me to wear your ring at my own wedding?"

Emily defended him: "It's just a ring, Liam. Stop making a scene."

Her impatience was the final blow.

"The wedding's off," I said firmly.

She stared in disbelief.

"You're canceling over this?"

I nodded.

"I am."

"Come on, ladies, don't make this hard on us! Just tell us where the rings are! I'll get on my knees and beg if I have to!" one of my groomsmen pleaded with the bridesmaids.

"Yeah! We'll pay! Name your price!"

My heart warmed seeing my friends go to such lengths, practically begging to get the ceremony back on track.

Emily finally relented from inside the room.

"Alright, alright, we're running out of time. Give them the rings."

Every eye in the hallway turned to the three bridesmaids.

But they just stood there, unmoving.

A beat later, they all spoke at once.

"I didn't hide it."

"I don't know where it is."

The atmosphere shifted.

A strange tension filled the air.

Emily's voice sharpened from behind the door.

"Check again. Don't tell me you lost it."

But even after scouring every inch of the room, the rings were nowhere to be found.

Someone whispered, "Maybe someone's playing a prank and hid them somewhere else?"

That was all it took.

Without another word, everyone fanned out, searching the entire house.

We turned the place upside down, but there was no sign of the rings.

We were officially going to be late.

One of Emily's friends suggested, "Emily, the guests are waiting. Why don't we just head to the venue? I can have a new set of rings delivered. We can just get through the ceremony for now."

Emily didn't answer.

Her gaze, through the crack in the door, was on me, waiting for my decision.

I frowned, a knot of irritation tightening in my stomach.

But this was an accident.

No one could have predicted it.

After a moment's hesitation, I gave a curt nod.

"I guess that's our only option."

But just as I said it, Ethan stepped out from the corner he'd been lurking in.

He theatrically pulled up his sleeve, a mocking, playful glint in his eye.

"The ring's right here! Told you you wouldn't find it."

He was oblivious to the fact that his words had just sucked all the air out of the room.

Everyone stared at his hand, their faces a mask of shock.

One of the bridesmaids finally pieced it together.

"Oh, I remember now! I was about to hide it in the wardrobe, but Ethan said he had a better spot. Then someone knocked on the door, and I got distracted. I didn't see where he put it."

"I'm so sorry, Emily," she added, glaring at him.

"I never thought he would mess around with something this important."

She then turned on him, her voice sharp.

"Ethan! Why would you wear the groom's wedding ring?"

Ethan gave her an innocent look, as if he couldn't detect the accusation in her tone.

He turned to me.

"Bro, I was just trying to help Emily test you. I'll take it off for you right now. I promise you won't be late."

Looking at his face, I didn't need to guess.

I knew this was deliberate.

It all made sense now.

Ethan was usually an attention-seeking pest, but today he had been unnervingly quiet, practically invisible.

He had been waiting for this moment.

A humorless laugh escaped my lips.

"So, you're suggesting that at my own wedding, I should wear a ring that you've been wearing?"

My words left him speechless.

He looked at Emily, his expression twisting into one of a wounded puppy.

"Emily, I was just trying to help. I wanted to see if Liam was really worthy of you. I thought you'd be happy that I found such a good hiding spot."

He added, with a shrug, "Besides, I've never been married. How was I supposed to know you can't wear someone else's wedding ring?"

Even if it wasn't a wedding ring, you don't just wear someone else's jewelry, I thought, a feeling of disgust washing over me. "You may not have experience with marriage," I said cuttingly, "but do you have any sense of boundaries?"

Then again, if he had any boundaries, he wouldn't be constantly inserting himself into my life.

But what truly shocked me was that Emily, in that moment, took his side.

"It's just a ring," she said, her tone defensive.

"Do you have to be so harsh?"

I looked at her, at the frown on her face, at the complicated, unreadable emotion in her eyes.

And just like that, the fire in my chest was extinguished.

It wasn't that I wasn't angry anymore.

It was that, suddenly, it didn't seem worth it.

Emily, oblivious to the shift inside me, said impatiently, "I'll have a new ring sent over right now. Are you happy?"

The way she said it made it sound like I was the one being unreasonable.

I pulled at the corner of my mouth.

"Forget it," I said quietly.

"The wedding's off."

The room fell silent.

Everyone stared at me, stunned by my sudden declaration.

Emily let out a sharp laugh.

"Are you kidding me, Liam?"

"It's just a ring. It's not dirty, it's not broken. Someone else just wore it for a few minutes. And you're going to cancel our wedding over that? Are you seriously making such a big deal out of nothing?"

The person who had sabotaged our wedding was Ethan.

But in her eyes, I was the one being petty and irrational.

Emily and I had been together for a year.

But before that, she had spent three years chasing me.

She had been clumsy but determined, always showing up exactly when I needed her, doing everything she could to win me over.

Even a man with a heart of stone would have been moved.

The day we finally got together, she was as happy as a child with a new toy.

She had held me, crying and laughing, and sworn, "I, Emily, will only ever love Liam!"

And she had meant it.

For a while, her world had revolved around me.

My feelings were her priority.

So, even though we hadn't been together long, when she proposed, I said yes.

But then, during the wedding planning, this "male best friend" had appeared.

And Emily had changed.

Dates, dinners-it didn't matter.

One phone call from Ethan, and she would drop everything and run to him.

When I got angry, she would brush it off.

"Ethan doesn't know anyone else here. I'm just looking out for him. It'll get better."

The change was so drastic it threw me off balance.

We started fighting constantly.

More than once, I wondered if we should even get married.

I couldn't make up my mind, right up until the night before the wedding.

But in that moment, standing there, the answer was suddenly crystal clear.

I was not going to marry Emily.

Seeing my silence, she must have thought I was having second thoughts.

"Alright, stop this nonsense," she said, her tone condescending.

"If you keep this up, we'll really miss the ceremony. It's just a ring, once..."

I cut her off, my patience gone.

I answered her earlier question.

"I am."

Emily froze, finally realizing I wasn't joking.

It was Ethan who broke the silence, his voice thick with fake tears.

"Liam, if you're angry, blame me. Don't take it out on Emily. She didn't do anything wrong."

Then, he actually dropped to his knees in front of me.

"Bro, you can do whatever you want to me, but you can't just cancel the wedding. Emily has put so much into this. Have you even thought about her feelings? And what about the guests? It's not right..."

He was pretending to plead with me, but every word was an accusation.

But I'm stubborn.

Once I've made a decision, I don't back down.

I was about to speak when Emily pulled Ethan to his feet.

Her face was a cold mask.

"Liam, I'm giving you one last chance. If you don't want to be utterly humiliated, you will walk down that aisle with me right now. Otherwise, you can figure out how to explain this to our parents and all our guests."

A threat.

But I'm not the kind of person who responds to threats.

I smiled.

"Fine by me."

Emily's face contorted in anger.

"Fine," she hissed.

"Fine. Fine."

She turned to her friends.

"Let's go."

Seeing that we were serious, they tried to intervene, but Emily cut them off.

"He's the one who wanted to cancel. If he comes crawling back, I might not even take him!"

Her words were for them, but they were aimed at me.

I just smirked and said nothing.

After they had gone, my best man asked, "Bro, what now? She's right. The guests are all waiting. She just left you to clean up this mess."

I laughed.

If Emily thought this would make me regret my decision, she was sorely mistaken.

"So what if I don't have a bride? I'll just get a new one."

I pulled out my phone and made a call.

She picked up right away, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, well. You have time to call me on your wedding day? Don't tell me the bride ran off."

I swear, my friend Ava has a sixth sense for disaster.

She's always right.

I cleared my throat.

"So... you want to come to my wedding?"

A dry laugh.

"Liam, have you forgotten what I said?"

Of course, I hadn't. Ava had sworn that if I married Emily, she wouldn't show up even if I begged her.

And true to her word, she was nowhere to be seen today.

"Okay, I'm begging," I said.

"I'm short one bride. Can you help me out?"

The line went silent.

For a second, I thought she had hung up.

Then, she said one word: "Wait."

After she hung up, I called the jeweler to have a new set of rings delivered, then turned to my groomsmen.

"Let's go."

But when we got downstairs, one of them said, "Bro, they're gone! They took all the wedding cars. What do we do now?"

Just then, my phone buzzed.

A text from Emily.

"If you want to cancel the wedding, then don't bother showing up at all!"

I had to laugh.

So that was her game.

Well, I was definitely going to that wedding now.

Cars?

I had a garage full of them.

But I hadn't anticipated just how low Emily would go.

The moment I got into my car, my phone exploded with messages from both our parents.

"Son, Emily said you want to cancel the wedding. What's going on?"

"Liam, I don't normally get involved in your arguments with Emily, but on a day like this, you can't be serious."

"Listen to me. Go get Emily, patch things up, and get married. You can deal with the rest later."

Then there were the texts from friends, gossiping and asking for details.

I glanced at them briefly, then replied to my mom.

"The wedding is still on. If Emily won't come, I'll marry someone else."