They were torn between consoling me and cutting my brother off, so I gave them time to think. After that day, I only saw Elara twice. Once when she came to pack her things, and again a couple of years later at a mutual friend’s party.
She tried to talk to me, but I left as soon as I saw her coming my way. My brother and I haven’t spoken since. My parents ultimately disowned him for what he did.
Last I heard, he was working in Europe. That was all in the past. I’ve moved on.
I’m in a better place now and with a better woman, my fiancée Clara, whom I trust wholeheartedly. It was all going well until a few days ago. Exactly one week before my wedding, Elara reached out.
I don’t know how she found out, but she contacted me from a new social media account, sending a ton of messages about how devastated she was to hear I was getting married again. It felt like a total déjà vu—the pleading, the claims that I was the only man she’d ever loved. It really got to me.
I told Clara about it immediately. Part of me was so perturbed that I wanted to give Elara a piece of my mind. But another, more unforgiving part of me really wanted revenge.
I knew I’d done the right thing all those years back, handling it like an adult. But this time, I wanted to mess her up so badly she wouldn’t even think of contacting me again. When I told Clara what I was feeling, she was totally on board.
She’d been hurt in the past, and while it wasn’t a ten-year relationship, the pain was familiar. So, instead of letting it go, we came up with a plan to make sure Elara went through the same heartache she put me through. A couple of hours after I received her text, I decided to reply, telling her I was finally ready to talk.
She was eager to come to my place right that second, but I told her to get a room in a nearby hotel. I’d meet her there the next day, I said, so Clara wouldn’t get suspicious. Of course, Clara was right beside me while I typed.
Elara agreed. The next day, I went to her hotel at the agreed-upon time. She seemed overjoyed to see me, actually crying happy tears.
But she’d be crying real tears in a couple of minutes. She sat me down and started explaining how sorry she’d been for the past twelve years, how she wanted to make it up to me but didn’t know how until she heard from a friend that I was getting married. She just knew she had to text me one last time or she’d lose me forever.
I listened intently, even pretended to be interested, holding her hands while she spoke. Meanwhile, I was just waiting for Clara to show up. Almost twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
I rushed to open it. Clara entered, followed by all our groomsmen and bridesmaids wearing masks of my brother’s face. They carried a cake, and even that had my brother’s smiling face printed on it.
Elara was horrified. She couldn’t even form words. “Surprise!” we all yelled, while she looked on with a shocked expression.
I’m sure nobody could have seen this coming. We’d managed to convince the hotel staff that we were surprising her, which was easy since she’d already told them to let in any guest who wanted to visit her—meaning me. After she processed what was happening, she started sobbing, mumbling some incoherent gibberish.
But I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. She’d had the audacity to message me just a week before my wedding, after what she did with my own brother a day before we were supposed to get married. Now, she’d have to face the consequences.
“This is what you deserve,” I told her, my voice cold and curt. “If you thought you ever had a chance with me after what you did, you were dead wrong. You had no business texting me, and I’m glad you’re hurt by this because you brought it upon yourself.”
She continued to sob, saying that if I didn’t want her back, I should have just ignored and blocked her instead of going out of my way to humiliate her.
But I didn’t feel sorry for her in the slightest. Not then, and not now. I told her never to speak to me again and left her crying by herself in the hotel room.
I’m supposed to get married in two days, but some of Clara’s friends want me to apologize to Elara. They think the way I told her off was harsh and that, no matter what she’d done, she didn’t deserve this. My groomsmen don’t share this sentiment.
They’ve known me since middle school and are well aware of how I had to battle severe emotional distress and fight for my life in the years following my breakup with Elara. They knew how much I loved her and what she’d meant to me, so they didn’t mind what I’d done. Clara’s friends had probably been expecting some high school drama they could gossip about later, but this was too raw and real for them.
Clara is on my side and doesn’t think I should apologize, but her friends are refusing to be part of the wedding if I don’t. Now, I’m really torn. On one hand, I don’t want Clara to be upset on our wedding day; she really values her friends.
But I also don’t think I owe my ex any apology at all. She could have just stayed out of my life, but she just didn’t want to see me happy. In fact, she’s still trying to play the victim, sending me texts from spam accounts about how I broke her heart and that this will definitely come back to me someday.
I don’t particularly care for this brand of emotional manipulation, not from my ex, and most certainly not from my fiancée’s bridesmaids. I know she’s never going to tell me to apologize just for her sake, but I sort of feel obliged to at this point. That’s why I’m here.
I’m running out of time and I need to decide what I’m going to do. Update One: There’s just one day to go until the wedding, and I’ve decided to speak to my fiancée before I do anything. I talked to her about how I’d been feeling, and as soon as I told her, she said that I absolutely did not have to apologize to Elara just because her bridesmaids thought so.
If that offended them, they could skip her wedding. She told me that her bridesmaids had no idea what had happened, and most of them thought I’d overreacted, even when she explained the full context. They still weren’t convinced and believed I was being unreasonable.
So she gave up trying to explain and even told them they didn’t have to attend. She hasn’t spoken to her friends in a whole day, and it seems unlikely they’ll be attending. One of them even paid her back for the cost of the bridesmaid dress.
She’s putting up a strong front for my sake, but I know she’s hurting since these women have been her friends since high school. My fiancée says she doesn’t care, but I know she does, deep down. So I’ve decided to talk to her friends and try to convince them myself.
As for my ex, well, she’s still being a total pain. A few hours ago, she managed to call me and wasted fifteen whole minutes trying to argue. She was trying to convince me that I was still in love with her but was just too proud to admit it.
Why? Apparently, because I went to such lengths to humiliate her, it obviously meant I still had feelings for her deep down. She’s right, but those feelings are of hate and disgust.
She believes that I just wanted to see her one last time, which is why I held her hands while she was talking. Honestly, that was just to shock her even more. I literally laughed in her face, hoping she’d get the hint, but she kept on blabbering about how we were soulmates and that I needed to call off the wedding before I made a huge mistake.
The only reason I’m even entertaining any of this is so that she doesn’t end up doing anything drastic. I’ve been trying to get through to her parents so they can take her away but haven’t been able to. I’m just waiting for them to respond so I can finally be rid of her once and for all.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate her, but I also don’t want her to hurt herself. I’m not that inhuman. Update Two: Hey guys, so we’re officially married now!
It’s been a couple of days since the ceremony, and I still can’t believe it. She’s now my wife. I’m thrilled, but unfortunately, there’s still sad news.
Her friends ended up not showing up, despite my attempts to get them to come. I personally called each of them to explain why I’d done what I’d done, but they didn’t care. Even when I asked them to attend just for my wife’s sake, they weren’t interested.
I only learned the real reason yesterday when my wife finally confessed she’d had a feeling her friends wouldn’t attend, whether I apologized or not, simply because she’d refused to do what they’d asked. They didn’t like that one bit and believed they always needed to have a united front. These were her friends from high school, and while they’d managed to stay friends over the years, this was the first time their friendship was truly tested.
She chose me over her friends, which they didn’t like. She said she was a little upset but was too embarrassed to admit it because it was all so juvenile. I didn’t mind, though, since at least now I was sure this wasn’t really my fault and her friends were just self-centered.
My wife even said part of her was glad they’d refused to attend because she could finally stop trying to fit in all the time and could live life on her own terms. So that was good for us, I suppose. Also, my ex’s parents finally responded on the evening before my wedding.
I explained what their daughter had tried to do and how they needed to get to the hotel and take her back for her own safety. It turns out they’d been on a hiking trip with no network, but now that they were back, they promised they’d come get her. I haven’t heard from them since, but I’m guessing they got her back home safely.
Update Three: It’s been a week since my wedding, and unfortunately, it’s been nothing but drama. I’d assumed my ex’s parents would take her home, but apparently not. Two nights ago, there was a knock at our door late at night.
I made the mistake of opening it before looking through the cameras. When I opened it, my ex pushed past me and walked in with her bags. My wife sprang to her feet.
Before I could ask what she was doing, she told me she was here to stay. She said her parents had come to get her, but she’d refused to go since she knew I would take her back soon. My wife and I were stunned.
She said she was running out of money, so she decided to move to my place instead. The reason? If I spent enough time with her, I’d be reminded of the past and fall back in love with her.
I had no idea how to react. My wife tried to speak to her, but she ignored her presence altogether and continued speaking to me, demanding that I let her live with us. I told her as gently as I could that I was a married man now, but she said she didn’t accept the wedding, so in her eyes, I was still unmarried.
I couldn’t believe this was happening, but I didn’t have the heart to kick her out. She seemed seriously unstable and needed help. My wife was also quite sympathetic.
She knew there was something seriously off. We realized she needed serious professional help. I tried to get through to her parents, but they didn’t accept my calls and texted back saying they couldn’t force her to come back anymore and she was on her own.
They were clearly embarrassed and ready to just abandon their own daughter. With no other option, I called my own parents, who showed up within half an hour. My ex had fallen asleep on the couch, which was lucky.
When my parents arrived, we decided to take her to a professional as soon as possible. My wife and I let her stay that night because, honestly, neither of us could bring ourselves to hate her anymore. Something had snapped in her mind.
My parents and I took her to the hospital the next day. She was still rambling about how she was glad I was finally coming around and even started planning our wedding. She refused to see a mental health professional, saying she felt perfectly fine.
After a lot of struggle, the doctors managed to calm her down with some medication. A couple of hours later, she finally said she wanted to go home. I brought her home, and we let her rest while my family and I figured out what to do next.
My wife and I were relieved when she said she wanted to go home and even helped her pack. We drove her home in silence. What could we even say?
Once she got home, she apologized to both of us for the trouble she’d caused and said she was ashamed. We felt incredibly awkward but told her it was all right and advised her to take care of herself. I contacted my ex’s mother again and filled her in on everything.
I guess that finally made them realize the gravity of the situation. She told me she’s moved in with her daughter and will keep us updated. Despite everything, my wife and I truly wish that she gets better.
