The wedding day is supposed to be the best day of one’s life. Was mine? Well, most of the things that took place at my wedding were… questionable, let’s say.
Just three hours before the ceremony took place, my mother-in-law, Eleanor, threw a bucket of foul-smelling water on my wedding gown. She even placed a piece of paper inside the destroyed dress that read, “Know your place.”
My maid of honor, Tessa, was horrified, and insisted I call the security, just to make sure she won’t hurt me. My father was ang They both tried their best to cory and both him and Tessa tried to convince me to not step outside in the stained dress. Apparently, I’d be embarrassed if the guests see me wearing it, so one of the suggested getting a new dress, and the other thought I should call off the wedding. Well, I didn’t do any of it. Instead, I took a look of myself in the mirror. My hair and makeup were flawless, and though I found it strange, I wasn’t shaking, at all. So I decided to put the dress on because I had it enough of being dominated by Eleanor.
“I’m wearing it,” I told them.
This wasn’t the first time I was being treated like garbage. My ordeal lasted for two long years. All the wealthy Whitmore family did from the moment I stepped into their lives was humiliate me and treat me like a second-class citizen. To them, I was a charity case that didn’t belong in their world. And my future husband never really took my side. Whenever his mother made fun of me, he’d kiss my hand and say she acts like she does because she’s overly protective.
They all saw me as a stupid but fortunate girl who was about to marry into wealth.
I put on the stained dress, took my dad’s arm, and got ready to walk.
When I stepped into the church, the eyes of more than two hundred influential guests stared at me and my dress that had whatever Eleanor threw on it stretching from my chest to my waist.
Of course, Daniel was shocked, not surprisingly, though.
Eleanor wasn’t concerned that I’d ruin their image at the time. She had that annoying smile on her face because she was certain I;d eventually crumble under the pressure and leave the church crying.
As soon as I got to the altar, Daniel whispered, “What are you doing? Turn around!”
I just smiled at him as if I were a happily married bride. “Your mother forgot one thing,” I whispered. “I have the information that will ruin both of your lives.”
I turned around and faced everyone, took the microphone from the floral arch, and raised the stained piece of paper. “Before we start, I would like to thank Eleanor Whitmore for her kind message that she left with my dress today: Know your place.”
There was shock on the faces of the people in the chairs. Daniel tried to take my arm, but I looked straight into his eyes until he released me.
“For a very long time, I just ignored the money disappearing from our shared accounts and the mysterious phone calls at night. But now, I remembered my true place – I am the senior forensic accountant of the state attorney’s financial crimes division.”
I had always been presented by them to their high society friends as merely doing ‘numbers for the government’, assuming that what I did was just some kind of pastime activity.
I gave a nod to Tessa in the sound booth. The enormous projection screen came down, the very same that was meant to be used for our childhood slide show. It now showed transactions, company shells, dates, and forged signatures. Daniel and Eleanor were systematically stealing from their charity foundation in order to settle their personal gambling debt and buy zoning officials favor for a hotel project.
“Turn it off!” screamed Eleanor, and her whole elegant image crumbled down.
I pressed the remote control button and the screen changed to the security footage showing the hallway of the bridal suite. Everyone present could see the footage of Eleanor snicking into my room, throwing this filth on my dress, and placing the note there.
Chaos erupted inside the chapel. Daniel ran to pull out the cords from the projector, but my father, a retired boxing coach, stopped him. “Sit down, son,” he told him.
Two investigators from the state suddenly entered through the side door. I did not plan for the wedding dress stunt, but I worked weeks to send the evidence to the state attorney who held the warrants. Those warrants were timed to arrive just as the ceremony began.
An investigator held onto Daniel’s arm, and he looked at me with sheer betrayal. “You set me up.”
“No, I didn’t,” I told him. “You committed felonies in emails that you cc’d me on because you thought I was too stupid to understand what was going on.”
“You’re a disgusting little opportunist,” Eleanor screamed at me. But right then, every single one of our guests’ phones started ringing. Tessa had sent the entire financial audit and filings to everyone there. The mayor’s wife put her hand over her mouth in shock, and a well-known judge sitting in the third row quickly got up and left the chapel.
After accusing me of being an opportunist, Daniel made one final desperate plea. “Maya, please. We can fix this. I love you.”
I stared at my now tattered dress and the man who gleefully stood by while his mother abused me over the years because it suited him well. “You don’t love me,” I said. “You loved the signature you thought you were about to have on your liability shields next week.”
Mother and son were dragged out of the chapel in handcuffs, walking beneath the white roses from the wedding before all those they knew.
Dad stared at me while holding my veil. “Ready to go home, baby?”
I stared at the gorgeous ballroom and the costly caterers that were already paid for. “No,” I smiled. “I paid for the reception.”
I changed the dress and danced my heart out with my dad and his friends.
In six months’ time, the Whitmore Foundation was closed, Eleanor pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, and Daniel’s charming face appeared on every Internet news outlet as a mugshot. People sometimes wonder if I feel guilty about having walked down the aisle in a stained dress. But that is not the day I felt humiliated.
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