Love Is an Unfinished Ritual

My fiancé's fallen buddy's little sister slit her wrist at my wedding and screamed for Luke not to marry me.

So he stopped the ceremony on the spot and ordered me in a tone that left no room for argument.

"Ivy, Chloe can't be hurt. We're pausing the wedding. I promise—once I've calmed her down, we'll do it again."

"You're about to be an Army wife. You understand what that means, right? Her brother died saving me. I can't just abandon her."

I watched him soothe his buddy's sister with a tenderness he rarely showed anyone else, and I canceled our wedding in silence.

That same day, I called the man I had run from three years earlier.

"Are you... still willing to marry me?"

......

"If you marry Ivy Foster, I'll die right in front of you!"

Chloe Miller's shrill voice cut through the country club ballroom like a blade, slicing apart the soft music, the smiles, the careful happiness everyone had dressed up for.

I stood on the small stage with a delicate bouquet of roses in my hands.

Before the ceremony, Luke had placed it into my palms himself, his eyes bright with something that had felt like home. "Ivy, you look beautiful today."

Now the bouquet seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

A wave of sharp, startled breaths rippled through the guests.

I looked up.

Chloe stood in the doorway of the banquet hall, her face wet with tears, her posture the picture of wronged and helpless. When Luke didn't move fast enough, she opened her purse and pulled out a small knife. She pressed it against her wrist as if she'd practiced the motion.

The blade slid over her pale skin. A thin line of blood appeared at once.

Drops spilled down and soaked into the cuff of her white dress, blooming into a glaring red stain.

Chloe's expression turned fierce and final. She cried as if her heart were being torn out. "Luke—see you in the next life!"

Luke completely panicked.

The calm he'd been forcing onto his face shattered. He ripped the white rose boutonniere off the collar of his dress uniform and crushed it in his fist without realizing it. His knuckles went white.

"Chloe!" His voice shook. "Put the knife down. Please."

He took one step toward her, then stopped abruptly, like he was terrified that even air moving in her direction might push her over the edge.

I knew this routine too well.

Whenever Chloe threw a fit, Luke would scold her lightly—just enough to sound responsible—while his eyes gave her the indulgence he couldn't seem to deny her.

But this time, he didn't call her immature. He tried to protect me instead, as if words could patch what she'd already ripped open.

"Listen," he said, voice strained, "whatever this is, we can talk. Like adults."

"I'll do anything you want—just put the knife down!"

"No!" Chloe sobbed, lashes clumped with tears, yet her words rang out clear as a bell. "Luke, you promised my brother you'd take care of me for the rest of my life. How can you marry someone else?"

"My brother won't rest in peace if you break your promise!"

Luke's face tightened with pain.

I saw it immediately—the memory he carried like shrapnel: Afghanistan, the buddy who died saving him, Chloe's brother. The debt Luke had decided would never be repaid.

Then he looked at me, and there it was again, that familiar helplessness mixed with pleading.

"Ivy," he said, his voice rough like sandpaper, "Chloe's not stable right now. We need to postpone the ceremony."

The bouquet slipped from my hands and hit the floor with a dull slap. Inside me, everything surged and overturned at once.

"I know this isn't fair to you," Luke said quickly. Fine sweat gathered along his forehead. "But you're going to be an Army wife. This is what we do—handle emergencies."

"Chloe's brother gave his life for me. I can't stand here and watch her hurt herself."

He paused, then pushed the point in, as if the comparison would make it impossible for me to argue.

"Besides, you're only missing a ceremony. She could lose her life."

"You're going to be my wife," Luke added when I didn't answer. His voice softened, coaxing, almost pleading. "I promise you—you're the only person I care about. You know that."

I stared at the gold insignia on his shoulders.

Three years ago, on the night we met, it had been that same bright glint that caught my eye first, that same sense of solid certainty I'd mistaken for safety.

He reached out like he wanted to touch my face, then stopped in midair.

Chloe's sobbing rose at exactly the right moment, higher and sharper, reminding everyone to keep watching.

When I stayed silent, Luke gave a bitter little smile. His eyes were full of struggle.

"Ivy... her life is in your hands right now."

"Whatever you decide, I won't blame you."

"And my love for you? That won't ever change."

Looking at him—restrained, frantic, in pain—I understood it perfectly. He was calling it my decision, but it wasn't.

Not here. Not in front of everyone.

I didn't have a choice.

My gaze dropped to the bouquet on the floor. A few petals had been crushed and bent under someone's shoe.

Just like what Luke and I had, stained and trampled, again and again, by Chloe's hands.

Ever since Chloe's brother died, Luke had brought her from her rural home in Tennessee to live near Fort Bragg in North Carolina, so he could "take care of her." And from that moment on, he had sided with her without even noticing he was doing it.

I had fought. I had cried. I had been jealous and angry. I had tried to reason with him, to lay out facts, to argue like a person who still believed fairness mattered.

And every time, after Luke gently soothed me, he still went back to Chloe with the same careful attention, the same endless leniency.

After enough times, something in me stopped struggling. I told myself I understood. I told myself I could endure.

We'd been together for three years. I had believed that once the date was set, once we stood in front of everyone and made it official, I would finally get to be his wife.

I hadn't expected Chloe to choose today to make sure I understood the truth.

A love with sand mixed into it was never going to be whole again.

"Fine," I heard myself say. My voice was so calm it didn't sound like it belonged to me. "Then cancel the wedding."