White Dew
The night before our engagement, my fiancée, Yvonne Gomez, died.
The police said her car had crashed through a guardrail and plunged into the river. All they found was a bloodstained watch.
The entire Gomez family blamed me.
"If she hadn't gone out to buy you a wedding ring, none of this would've happened!"
"You're a living curse! Wasn't getting your parents killed enough? Now, you've killed your fiancée too!"
Ernie Young, a junior she had gone to school with, played her final voice message as he cried. "Don't die for me. Go live a good life."
I held her watch and kept vigil at the funeral home for three days.
On the fourth morning, I put on the white suit she liked best and went to the river alone. Then, I downed a bottle of poison.
"Yvonne, I'm coming to marry you."
I had just climbed over the guardrail when cheers erupted under the bridge.
Ernie ran up to me, clapping and laughing so hard that tears rolled down his face. "I won! I knew he would come! Yvonne, he fell for it! He was really going to jump into the river to keep you company!"
The crowd parted, and Yvonne stepped out holding a bouquet of roses.
Her white dress was spotless, and it hurt to even look at her. She turned to Ernie first, her voice indulgent. "Happy now? No more games after this."
Ernie put an arm around her shoulders and asked smugly, "Don't I get some credit for testing how much he loves you?"
"Of course." She smiled and nodded. "You liked the wedding ring I picked out, didn't you? You can borrow it for a week."
Only then did she hand me the roses. "Surprised? Ernie was just upset. He felt like you were taking me away from him, so I went along with it this one time. You don't mind, do you? You've proved you love me. Now, we can go back and get married."
I finally understood everything.
The accident was fake. So was the recording. It was all a prank Ernie had come up with to appease himself.
And Yvonne had personally allowed him to put my life on the game board as a bet.
I shook my head as a sharp pain shot through my stomach.
"It's fine… There's no going back…"