“What?” Theo shouted. “How dare you? After everything we’ve built together, you have the nerve to freak out over a joke?”

Before I could even respond, the crowd exploded with outrage.

“You humiliated her!”

“That was disgusting!”

“Who does that to their bride?”

Theo turned toward the guests in disbelief.

“A joke doesn’t make your wife cry,” one woman snapped while pointing at him.

“And now you don’t even have a wife,” someone else added.

Theo looked around desperately, as though searching for an escape route.

The charming, warm version of him had vanished completely.

“You’re all overreacting!” he shouted.

At that moment, my father stepped beside me and gently wrapped a towel around my shoulders.

Then he walked through the crowd until he stood directly in front of Theo.

“I welcomed you into our family,” Dad said firmly. “And this is how you treat my daughter?”

Theo opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“I think you should leave,” Dad said.

“Yeah, get him out of here!” someone yelled.

“Where’s security?” another voice shouted.

Theo threw up his hands in disbelief. “Wait, you can’t kick me out of my own wedding!”

Cally stepped forward through the crowd. “There are 200 of us and one of you. I think we can kick you out easily.”

The guests erupted in approval.

Dad gestured toward two uniformed security guards standing near the garden wall. They had witnessed the entire thing.

The guards approached calmly.

The crowd moved aside to let them through.

One guard gestured politely toward the garden gate. “Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

Theo looked at me one final time. “You’re really ending everything over this?”

“Absolutely. I don’t want to be married to a man who thinks it’s amusing to humiliate me, who thinks throwing me into a pool in an expensive, bulky gown is a joke.”

Theo stared at me in stunned silence.

One of the guards gently placed a hand on his elbow, and finally, Theo allowed himself to be escorted away.

The moment the iron gate clicked shut behind him, the entire garden fell silent.

Part 6: Moving Forward

I stood there in my soaked wedding dress, suddenly feeling the cold much more intensely now that Theo was gone.

I pulled the towel tighter around myself.

Then Cally appeared beside me.

“Come on, let’s get you dry and cleaned up.”

I nodded, and together we started walking back toward the main building.

“If only I’d listened to that warning…”

“You had faith in the man you loved.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders gently. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I guess not, but…” I paused and glanced back at the glowing terrace, the pool, and the guests still standing around in shock beneath the twinkling lights.

“Hey.” Cally stepped in front of me. “The only person here who laughed at you was him. That should tell you a lot.”

I nodded slowly. “At least I found out who he really was.”

“Now, we’re going to cry about this, wonder how we missed the signs, clean up the mess, and then, we move on, okay?” She rested her hands on my shoulders. “We leave Theo in the past, nothing more than a bad memory. That is the thing you’ll laugh about later.”

I finally smiled.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

Note: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. All images are for illustration purposes only.