When I was ten years old, I suddenly gained the ability to see red strings connecting men and women. These invisible, undeniable red strings only linked people who had slept together. Over the years, two extra red strings sprouted from my father's head. As a result, my mother went through multiple messy, agonizing divorce attempts. Because of this, when it came to choosing my own husband, absolute loyalty was my only non-negotiable trait. Ultimately, I chose Liam—a stoic, reserved man whose head was completely free of any red strings. The night before my wedding, my bridesmaids and I were playing a drinking game at my bachelorette party. The rules were simple: whoever lost had to hand their phone over and let everyone else snoop through it. When it was my maid of honor, Chloe's turn, she clutched her phone to her chest, blushing and giggling. "Please don't look at mine! He kept me up so late last night... there are pictures on here that are definitely not PG-13." The girls teased her relentlessly. Her relationship had been incredibly secretive; she had been dating this mystery man for a while, but no one had ever met him. I was just about to smooth things over and let her off the hook, when I saw it. A bright red string extended from the top of Chloe's head, cutting through the crowded room, and connecting directly to my fiancé, Liam. But last night, when Liam dropped me off at my apartment, his head was completely clean. Not even thirty minutes ago, he had texted me: [Clara, I've kept myself pure for you for twenty-five years. Tomorrow on our wedding night, I finally get to be yours. I love you!] I looked out the door at Liam, who was gazing at me with deep, affectionate eyes. Then I looked back at Chloe, whose face was flushed with the afterglow of recent intimacy. I raised my wine glass and gently clinked it against hers. "Chloe. Your boyfriend... his name doesn't happen to be Liam, does it?" ... Chloe jumped, spilling a few drops of wine onto her dress. A flash of pure panic crossed her eyes. "Who cares if his name is Liam or Ryan? A bet is a bet, hand over the phone!" Maya, one of my bridesmaids, reached out to grab it. Chloe dodged, laughing, and hid behind me. "You really can't look! He has a terrible temper. If he finds out I showed you guys those pictures, he's going to be so mad at me." "Wow, so protective, huh?" Maya teased. "I have to be. He's... well, he has a pretty high-profile job, so we want to keep our relationship under wraps for now." As Chloe said this, her gaze drifted right over our heads, landing directly on Liam, who was standing near the doorway. The red string connecting the two of them was blindingly bright. Over the years, I had seen countless red strings cross and tangle, but I never in a million years thought I would see one attached to the man I was marrying tomorrow. "Clara, back me up here!" Chloe whined, tugging my sleeve. "He really made me promise not to show anyone." I fought to suppress the violent trembling in my wrist. I set my wine glass down and forced a stiff smile. "I made the rules tonight. If you lose, you hand over the phone." "Oooooh!" Maya slammed her hand on the table. "The bride has spoken!" Chloe froze for a second. She clearly hadn't expected me to refuse her an easy out. Liam walked into the room, resting a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder. "Clara, stop messing around." "You know Chloe is shy. You're the bride, you shouldn't be the one leading the charge to bully your maid of honor." Chloe. He used to call her Miss Chloe when he was being polite. I looked down at the hand resting on my shoulder. Last night, this exact same hand had pulled my coat tight around me. He had hugged me over my clothes, whispering that he wanted to save every part of himself for our wedding night. In less than twenty-four hours, his very first red string had appeared. "I'm bullying her?" I asked. "When you get stubborn, who can stop you?" Liam chuckled, grabbing a glass of juice from the table and handing it to me. "Pre-wedding jitters are totally normal. Drink something sweet." Chloe used the opportunity to step behind him, using him as a shield. "See? Liam always gets me. Clara, you shouldn't be so harsh on him. A guy this great... what are you gonna do if you scare him away?" "Are you very concerned about whether or not my fiancé gets scared away?" "I'm concerned for you." She covered her mouth to giggle. On her pinky finger sat a plain, unadorned silver ring. That ring... Liam had shown me the prototype sketch for it months ago. He had scrapped it, saying the lines were too basic and not good enough for me. Now, it sat perfectly on Chloe's finger. The fit was flawless. While Chloe was distracted, Maya reached out, pinned Chloe's hand down, and forced her thumb onto the phone to unlock it. "The more you hide it, the more we want to see it." Maya swiped to the first photo and let out a low whistle. It was a side profile of Chloe. The corners of her eyes were flushed red. From her collarbone down, a trail of dark, unmistakable hickeys disappeared into the neckline of her shirt. "Wow..." Maya held the phone up for the rest of us to see. The second photo was an extreme close-up of two hands with their fingers tightly intertwined. The sexual tension was palpable. The man's wrist was wearing a black-dial mechanical watch. On the bottom right corner of the watch face was a distinct scratch. I knew that scratch intimately. Liam had bumped his wrist against a shopping cart while we were grocery shopping together a year ago. My fingernails dug violently into my palms. Swiping further revealed their text messages. The contact name was saved as [L.V.]. The profile picture was a generic patch of green grass. The chat history was overflowing with daily "good mornings," "goodnights," and hours-long late-night phone calls. The earliest visible message was from a year ago. "Chloe, I literally can't stop thinking about you." "I miss you too, L.V. I dreamt about you last night. I dreamt you were holding me while I fell asleep." My eyes caught a message from three months ago, and my breathing stopped. Chloe had texted, her tone whiny and cute: "The concert tonight was amazing, but when are we going to be able to hold hands in public like we did today?" L.V. replied with four words: "Soon. Wait for me." Three months ago on that exact date, it was our seven-year anniversary. I had spent two hours doing my makeup and cooked an entire feast from scratch. I waited for him for five hours, only to get an apology text. "Work is insane tonight. Don't wait up, just eat and go to bed." "AHH!" Chloe screamed, snatching the phone out of Maya's hand and jumping up. "You guys are so annoying! This is so embarrassing!" Covering her flushed face, she sprinted toward the stairwell. Less than two minutes after she left, Liam's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and immediately locked it. "My mom wants me to go book two extra hotel rooms for some out-of-town relatives who just arrived. You girls have fun, but let my Clara get some sleep soon. She has to be up early for hair and makeup." Liam leaned down and kissed my forehead while the room erupted in 'awwws.' After he left, I excused myself to use the restroom. As I walked past the stairwell, I heard Chloe's voice echoing from the landing. "I thought you said we weren't going to see each other tonight?" Liam answered, his voice hushed and thick with emotion: "I just missed you too much. I had to come see you." "Well, you've seen me. Now go. We agreed, last night was the last time. We're breaking up." Chloe's words were pushing him away, but her tone was incredibly soft and clingy. "Tomorrow is your wedding day. I don't want Clara to suspect anything." "You know how she is. She's been terrified of cheating since she was a kid. She overthinks everything. Earlier, she even asked me if my boyfriend's name was Liam." Liam let out a low chuckle. "Oh, so you do know she's terrified of being betrayed." After a brief silence, the unmistakable sound of clothing rubbing together pressed against the heavy door. "Chloe, last night... I crossed a line." "And?" "I have to marry Clara. I owe it to her." Chloe's breathing hitched. "Do you even love her?" "Yes." He didn't hesitate for a single second. "I've known she was the one since college. I put her name on the deed to the house, my paycheck goes to her account. I will never let her suffer in this marriage." "Then what the hell am I?!" "I'm sorry. Blame it on me losing control. Blame it on me not being able to resist you." Liam's voice dropped lower. "Over the years at the firm, I got so used to you helping me out. When you were sad, you came to me. When I was stressed, you were the only one I could talk to. Last night, when you were crying and saying we could never see each other again... I couldn't stop myself." It sounded like Chloe weakly hit his chest. "If you love her so much, why are you here looking for me right now?!" "I miss you." Those three words dropped into the air, as light as a sigh, but they brutally smashed the absolute trust I had built over seven years into a million pieces. I gripped the door handle, my knees buckling beneath me. So it was true. A person could clearly and consciously love me, while simultaneously and desperately missing another woman. He had guarded his absolute loyalty for twenty-five years, treating it like an invaluable gift he was saving to give me on our wedding day. But right before he handed it over, he tore open the packaging and let Chloe take it for a test drive. "Liam... after you get married tomorrow, are we really over?" "We have to be." "Can you really let me go?" "Even if it kills me, I have to. Clara won't tolerate a single grain of sand in her eye. If she finds out, she will never forgive me." "She loves you so much, how could she ever leave you?" Liam chuckled softly. "You're right. She would never leave me." His absolute, arrogant certainty hurt far worse than the betrayal itself. "She's spent the last six months agonizing over this wedding. The house is fully decorated. Both our families are flying in tomorrow. The thing she fears most in the world is embarrassing her mother. Even if she finds out, she'll wait until after the wedding to deal with it." Chloe choked on a sob. "What about me? Did you ever think about me?! I love you, but I have to stand there as her maid of honor and watch you marry her!" Chloe started crying. Liam spent a long time coaxing her, kissing her tears away. Finally, he whispered: "The passcode to the smart lock on the new house is her birthday. Go over there and wait for me. I swear I'll make it up to you tonight." "Are you insane?! She decorated that house herself!" "After tomorrow, I can never hold you like this again." "What if she catches us?" "She's staying at the hotel with the bridesmaids tonight. She won't go to the house." I heard the wet, heavy sound of a kiss. Then, Liam's voice, raspy and dark: "Wait for me." Hearing footsteps approaching, I quickly backed into a stall in the women's restroom. Through the thin metal door, I heard Chloe walk in. She turned on the faucet and started happily humming a song into the mirror. At the same time, my phone screen lit up. [Clara, I'm not feeling great, so I headed home early. Please don't be mad, I promise I'll be there bright and early tomorrow to be your maid of honor!] I stared at that line of text, my lips twisting into a bitter smile. I replied: [Get some rest.] Half an hour later, I was sitting alone in the driver's seat of my car in the hotel's underground parking garage. A notification popped up at the top of my phone screen: Motion Detected: Living Room. It was the smart security camera I had installed in the new house. We had bought the house together, taking out a joint mortgage. After the renovations were finished, I was worried about break-ins, so I installed a camera in the living room. I hadn't even had the chance to tell Liam about it yet. On the cloud storage live feed, Chloe didn't look the least bit uncomfortable. She pulled a pair of men's slippers out of the shoe cabinet, then navigated the kitchen with practiced ease to open the wine fridge. Twenty minutes later, Liam walked through the door. Chloe threw herself into his arms. "This is our last night. Do not bring up Clara." "Chloe, don't be a brat." "You can't even promise me that?" Liam hugged her from behind. "Fine. We won't talk about her tonight." They kissed passionately from the living room all the way down the hallway, the camera catching them right as they stopped in front of the master bedroom. Inside that bedroom, the bed was covered in the luxurious, crimson-red bridal bedding I had spent my entire afternoon meticulously ironing. On the wall hung our framed engagement photos, and on the nightstand sat the wedding gift he had bought for me. Now, all the love and care I had poured into that room was nothing more than the backdrop for their affair. The camera only covered the living room. But the red string had already spoiled the ending for me. Even though I had prepared myself mentally, seeing them making out on the screen still felt like a physical blow to the chest. My throat closed up, and I couldn't breathe. The tears I had been fighting back finally broke, massive drops smashing onto the screen, distorting the blurry, intertwined silhouettes of the two people I trusted most. The screen went black, and I saw my own reflection in the dark glass. I was twenty-eight years old. The exact same age my mother was when she caught my father cheating. The only difference was... my mother chose to suffer in silence. I wasn't going to. The evidence was on my phone, the security footage was backed up to the cloud. I wiped my tears, put the car in drive, and drove straight to my mother's house. The second I saw my mom, the tears broke again. "Mom. The wedding tomorrow... I want to cancel it." By 11:00 PM, my mother had just finished watching the security footage. Her fingers were trembling violently. "Clara, this video cuts off before they go into the bedroom." "But yesterday, their red strings connected." My mother's head snapped up. "You saw it clearly?" "I saw it clearly." When I was ten years old, I asked my mom why the man on the first floor and the woman across the hall on the third floor had a red string connecting their heads. I asked if it meant they were sleeping together. My mom slapped me across the face, thinking I had learned something vulgar and was making up sick lies. Six months later, when the two families ended up in court over a highly publicized, violent affair, she finally understood what I could see. From that day on, she made me swear to never tell anyone about my ability, warning me that it would only bring me trouble. She also knew exactly why I had refused to get married for so long. My mother closed her eyes, a look of profound pain crossing her face. "Why did it have to be the night before the wedding?" "It's not just the night before. They've been having an emotional affair for a year or two. Last night was just the night they finally tied the knot, so to speak." My mother was silent for a long moment. Then, she pulled out the guest list. "I'm going to start calling our relatives right now. As for his side of the family, you tell Liam to deal with them himself." "Clara, you didn't follow in my footsteps. I've got your back. I am so proud of you." I dialed Liam's number. It rang seven times before he sent me to voicemail. Five minutes later, he texted me. [Clara, are you back at the hotel?] [Go to sleep early, you have to be up at dawn for hair and makeup.] I stared at those fake, sickly-sweet words and replied with one question: [Where are you?] The typing bubble appeared and disappeared multiple times at the top of the screen. Two minutes later, he sent me a photo of the guest bedroom in our new house. [I got the relatives sorted out, but the hotel was totally overbooked. I decided to just crash in the guest room at the new house tonight.] He lied so flawlessly. So effortlessly. If it hadn't been for that red string, if it hadn't been for the living room camera, I probably would have spent all of tomorrow feeling guilty about how exhausted he must have been running errands for us. I didn't argue. I just sent him a screenshot of the security camera feed. In the frame, Chloe's dress was thrown carelessly over the arm of our new sofa. Then, I sent my final message: [From today on, you guys don't have to hide anymore. The wedding tomorrow is officially canceled. Let's try to leave each other with a shred of dignity.] Liam didn't reply. One minute later on the live feed, the man sprinted out of the master bedroom, staring directly up at the camera lens in pure horror. Chloe, wearing my bridal robe, chased after him. "What do we do?! Did she see?!" Liam reached up and violently ripped the camera out of the wall. Right before the feed cut to black, I heard his voice, terrifyingly calm: "Don't panic. I'll handle it." Early the next morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise, it became glaringly obvious that his idea of "handling it" was to physically force me to go through with the wedding. Liam sent a message to the groomsmen and bridal party group chat, claiming I had suddenly spiked a high fever and the traditional morning "door games" were canceled. His mother, flanked by over a dozen aggressive relatives, blockaded the door to my hotel suite. "Clara Hayes, you are coming downstairs today whether you like it or not!" "Backing out on the morning of the wedding is literally fraud!" "Clara, if you don't walk out that door right now, I swear to God I will tell the entire city that you had a psychotic break before your wedding! Let's see what man ever wants to marry you after that!" Liam stood in the hallway behind them, not lifting a single finger to stop his mother's rampage. He just spoke to me through the locked door: "Clara, put on the dress. I'm taking you to the venue." "Once we get through today, I will let you punish me however you want." When my bridesmaids woke up and saw the text I sent them apologizing for canceling the wedding, they realized I wasn't in the suite. They frantically ran around the hotel looking for me, only to run smack into Liam and his mother throwing a massive, screaming tantrum outside the bridal suite. They immediately covertly recorded the chaos and sent the videos to me. Watching the footage, my hands and feet turned to ice. I thought I had given him an easy out. I thought we could just break up quietly and go our separate ways. Instead, he chose absolute nuclear warfare. He was trying to use the immense social and financial weight of the Vance family to force me to swallow this disgusting betrayal and marry him anyway. I called Liam's phone. "Stop harassing my bridesmaids. I will be at the hotel banquet hall at exactly 11:00 AM." I opened my closet and pulled out a sleek, pitch-black evening gown—the one I had worn to a funeral last year. I grabbed a black veil fascinator to hide the dark circles under my eyes from not sleeping a wink. I took my mother, and we drove to the wedding venue. When Liam's mother saw me walking in dressed entirely in black mourning clothes, her hand, which had been enthusiastically accepting wedding envelopes from guests, froze mid-air. Liam reached out to grab my hand. "Stop throwing a tantrum. I brought your wedding dress over here. Go to the bridal suite and get changed." I dodged his hand. "Where's Chloe?" "She's not feeling well." "What, did you keep her up too late last night?" Liam's mother suddenly shoved me hard by the shoulder. "Watch your filthy mouth! Today is a joyous occasion, how dare you try to throw dirt on my son's name?!" I stumbled backward, the small of my back slamming painfully into the sharp corner of the reception desk. My mother immediately lunged forward, shielding me. "You dare put your hands on my daughter?!" She was instantly blocked by Liam's uncle and his older sister. "Your daughter is hell-bent on humiliating the Vance family today." Liam's mother pointed a vicious finger right at my nose. "You have two choices. You either walk down that aisle and marry him like a good girl, or you drop to your knees right now and apologize to every single guest the Vance family invited today." Liam gently took my arm. "Mom, stop pushing her." "Oh, so you're still defending her?!" his mother shrieked in absolute fury. "She is my wife." I let out a harsh, cold laugh, reminding him of reality. "We haven't signed the marriage license yet. We have absolutely no legal relation to each other." Liam's grip on my arm tightened like a vice. "Clara, please, stop acting like this." "I admit I made a mistake last night. After the wedding is over, I will compensate you for it." "You still think I'm negotiating with you?" Liam stared at me, a flicker of genuine, baffling confusion in his eyes. "Are you seriously going to throw away seven years of our lives over one tiny mistake?" At that exact moment, the officiant's booming, emotional voice echoed from inside the ballroom: "And now, please welcome our handsome groom!" The guests erupted into applause, and Liam, flashing a brilliant, flawless smile, walked through the double doors. Inside, the room was a dreamscape of soft spotlights and thousands of cascading flowers. The romantic swell of the wedding march filled the air as the officiant announced: "And now... please rise for our beautiful bride!" I stood there, dressed entirely in black like I was attending a funeral, staring at the wedding venue I had spent five years dreaming about. Chloe was standing off to the side of the stage in her bridesmaid dress. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, and she was still wearing that plain silver ring on her pinky. When she saw me walk in, the tears instantly started falling. "Clara... you finally made it." "Last night I was just in a really bad place mentally, so I asked Liam to have a few drinks with me. You can't misunderstand, I swear we didn't do anything..." As she spoke, she reached out, pretending to adjust the train of the wedding dress I wasn't wearing. The officiant signaled for the groom to come collect his bride. Liam smiled warmly, walking toward me like absolutely nothing was wrong, and dropped to one knee. I reached out, grabbed Chloe by the collar of her dress, and violently yanked her forward. With a sharp gasp, Chloe tripped and fell directly into Liam's kneeling embrace. The entire ballroom gasped in shock. People exchanged wild, bewildered looks. I pulled out my phone, marched straight over to the AV control booth, plugged it in, and mirrored the security footage from the new house onto the massive projectors. When the video started playing on the jumbotron, the massive room fell dead silent. First, Chloe unlocked the door and walked in. Liam followed right behind her. The two of them passionately made out in the living room, Chloe's bridesmaid dress dropping to the sofa. Still entangled, they stumbled down the hallway toward the master bedroom doors. The video cut to black right there. I turned around and grabbed a microphone. "Today's wedding is officially canceled. Because last night, in the home we bought together, the groom slept with my maid of honor." Chloe suddenly let out a shrill laugh. "You can't even see the faces!" She pointed frantically at the blurry silhouettes on the screen. "It's fake! Everyone, do not believe her!" "You can't even see who that is! Clara majored in graphic design in college, she's an expert at video editing! She used AI to fake this video so she'd have an excuse to back out of the wedding!" Liam's boss stood up from the VIP table, looking stern. "Clara, this is a very serious accusation. You can't just ruin a man's life over a blurry, incomplete video clip." Liam's uncle slammed his hand on the table and stood up. "Exactly! You can't even see the side profile! For all we know, the woman in that video is you!" Liam's sister pointed an aggressive finger at me from across the room. "Exactly! What is wrong with this bride?! She fakes a sex tape to get out of the wedding? Did you just scam us for the ring money so you could run off?!" The accusations rained down on me from every direction. Liam walked up to me and held out his hand. "Delete the original video right now, and I won't press charges for defamation." His mother snatched a microphone from a nearby table. "Everyone heard that, right?! The Hayes family is deliberately slandering my son so they can back out of the wedding!" "I want the $50,000 engagement gift returned. Double." "The Hayes family will also be paying for this entire banquet and all the floral arrangements." "And she will issue a public apology, promising to never drag Liam's name through the mud ever again." I stared at Liam's mother, and then at the sea of furious guests. Countless red strings extended from their heads, crossing and tangling in the air above them, forming a massive, filthy, sickening web. The uncle who just accused me of faking the video? His red string connected directly to the hotel's catering manager. The sister who called me a scammer? Her red string stretched across three tables, tying her directly to her best friend's husband. Even the mother, who was screaming so loudly about her son's pure, untarnished reputation... had a red string shooting straight from her head to the VIP table. I yanked the microphone out of the officiant's hand. "Since you refuse to believe the video evidence, let's try verifying the truth a different way." Liam's mother sneered. "What other lies are you going to spin?" I raised my hand and pointed directly at the VIP table. "Let's start with the affair between you... and Liam's boss."
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