Chapter 3

Scarlet used to think that she was someone who couldn’t be angry for too long, but after the situation with Emily and Henry, she had come to realize that she had just never been in a situation where she needed to be angry for a long time.

Currently, she was watching Emily walk down the altar to where Henry stood with a massive smile on his face, and every fiber of her being was boiling with so much anger that she felt like she could explode at any moment.

She wanted to avoid standing out too much, so she made sure to wear something casual that wouldn’t draw any attention to her because the last thing she wanted was to get caught in this place. She didn’t even want to imagine the look people would have on their faces when they saw her there, attending her sister’s and her ex-husband’s wedding.

She knew she was already a laughingstock to many people, but she certainly wasn’t ready to get caught and watch them laugh in her face.

The fact that nobody seemed to see anything wrong with what was happening here made her even more upset because it was public knowledge that he and she had just divorced four months ago.

Now all of a sudden, he was marrying her sister, and the typical moral police that usually saw a problem with anything and everything were quiet and supportive.

The hypocrisy!

When Henry and she first got married, she saw several news outlets and articles questioning her character and claiming that she simply married him because of his money, even when they had no idea how they got married in the first place. Their marriage happened so suddenly because neither one of them had expected that they were going to be getting married to each other. Because of this, everybody else assumed that she rushed the marriage because she was a gold digger who wanted to cement herself into his family and have a taste of his family fortune.

It was very upsetting at first because she didn’t even want to marry him of her own free will, and yet, she was getting dragged by people who had no idea who she was over something that she had no control over.

She hadn’t seen any article, not one, criticize the fact that these two people were getting married, and for every article that she had read in the last few days, they kept praising Emily and indirectly shaming her by writing that she was nothing like her because she was a genuine person who fell in love and helped Henry get out of his previously loveless and forced marriage.

How ridiculous, right?

So, right now, her father, who had walked her down the aisle about a year ago, to marry Henry, was walking her younger sister down the aisle to marry the same man that his first daughter had married not too long ago.

She was seated way behind, but she could see every one of her family members staring at Emily with massive smiles on their faces, and it reminded her of the day she was getting married and how they all had similar smiles on their faces like they were genuinely happy for her.

The situation just made her realize that they weren’t happy that she was getting married; they were just happy because of who she was getting married to and how her marriage to him was going to elevate their status in society. It took her a while to realize it, but now she knew that the only thing they wanted was to keep Henry Jones as their son-in-law, even if he had to divorce one daughter to shamelessly marry the other daughter.

They didn’t care what people thought, and people also weren’t concerned with the weird situation because Henry’s family was a big-shot family in the country, and no one would want to get on their bad side simply because of their unsolicited opinion.

Emily and her dad continued making their way down the aisle, and she just kept watching them with the feeling of emptiness and hurt growing inside her. After what felt like a decade, Emily finally arrived at the altar, and she watched her dad place her hand on Henry’s with the same smile he had on his face on her wedding day.

“Dearly beloved,” the priest started, “we’re gathered here today to witness the lovely union of two wonderful people who are about to be joined in holy matrimony.”

Hearing him use the words ‘lovely’ and ‘matrimony’ made her have the sudden urge to puke.

He kept going on and on about how God had brought them together and blah blah blah, and her eyes kept rolling continuously. She was pretty certain that anyone who saw her right now would think that she was a bitter witch who wasn’t happy for them, and even though it was true that she was the farthest from being happy for them, she had very valid reasons not to be.

The more she heard him speak and the more she saw the reaction on people’s faces, the more it dawned on her that everybody in this hall except herself was a bloody hypocrite because about 80% of the people here right now were also present for her wedding, and they were simply repeating the same reaction they had when Henry and she were getting married.

The fake smile, the fake gasp, the teary eyes, and the most common one of them all, the showering of comments on how they envy you, how they wish to be in your shoes, how beautiful you look, and how happy they are for you. The comments and the lies were just never-ending.

Bloody hypocrites!

“Now, you shall recite your vows to each other, promising before God and man what your partner will always mean to you,” the priest encouraged, and her heart clenched a bit when she realized that she would have to hear him making vows to her sister, just a year after vowing to always be with her.

“I, Henry Jones, take you, Emily Parker, to be my lawfully wedded wife, my best friend, my companion, and the love of my life from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family, and friends, I vow to be a faithful partner to you, to love and to cherish you in sickness and good health, in the good times and the bad, to love and support you unconditionally and to respect you for as long as we both shall live,” Henry recited and hearing it directly from his lips broke her heart even more.

It made her sad, but even more than that, she was mad because he didn’t even put any effort into his vows. He repeated almost the same things that he said to her when they got married, and it pissed her off to realize just how much he didn’t regard her or their wedding, that he even went ahead and repeated the same vows he made to her, to her sister.

“I, Emily Parker, take you, Henry Jones, to be my lawfully wedded husband. To love and to cherish you, to be with you through the good and the bad times, to support and encourage you in everything you do, and to respect and honor you for as long as we both shall live,” Emily said in her vows, and she couldn’t help but scoff at both of them.

Two liars, cheats, bastards, fools, idiots, and betrayers, that deserved to rot in hell were getting married, and she was unfortunate enough to witness such a disgusting event.

She could feel herself getting angrier and angrier, and she knew that was her cue to leave so that she didn’t end up reacting in a way that would expose her because the last thing she wanted was for everybody there to find out that she also attended this sham of a wedding.

She stood up quietly after a while and proceeded to walk out of the hall. She bowed her head, carefully covering her face with the scarf over her head while walking briskly out of the place.

She had successfully managed to leave the wedding hall, but just when she was about to heave a sigh of relief that she didn’t get caught, a hand grabbed her arm suddenly, and when she looked up to see who it was, she was met with the face of a man that literally almost took her breath away.

So angel-like humans exist? She wondered internally, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to be bolting out of there at full speed.

“Who-” she was about to ask after snapping out of it, but he cut her off before she could say anything else.

“Forgive my audacity, beautiful, but I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” he said in the most calm and respectful tone ever, and before she knew what was happening, she was getting pulled away by some strange guy.

Sadly, she couldn’t scream for help because that would only call attention to her, and she’d get caught, so she had no choice but to allow herself to get dragged to heaven knows where.