The Wedding Was A Game And Her Father Was The Prize

On my wedding day, I walked my blind father down the aisle of the church, and the entire sanctuary suddenly erupted in laughter. Dad tightened his grip on my hand, nervous. "Claire… did Dad embarrass you?" I quickly lifted the lace veil from my face and turned toward the projection screen behind the altar. That was when I finally saw it. A single, bright red USDA pork inspection stamp had been slapped onto each of our faces. From the bridesmaids' bench, my best friend Bianca Whitmore was doubled over laughing. "Oh my God, Claire, you two are adorable. You look like two little pigs that just rolled off the slaughterhouse conveyor belt." My fiancé, Nolan Ashford, laughed and pulled a folded check from the inside pocket of his tux, handing it to her. "A bet's a bet. You win. She really didn't notice a thing all the way to the altar." So it was another bet. Back in college, they'd bet on whether I'd actually eat the cereal they'd swapped out for dog kibble. On my birthday, they'd bet how long it would take me to open the gift box stuffed with Monopoly money. And this time. They'd made my blind father a chip in the game too. Nolan held out his hand, coaxing me like a child. "Sweetheart, everyone's watching. Let's just finish the ceremony." I looked at him, then at Dad standing beside me, disoriented, still not understanding what had happened. This time, I wasn't going to swallow it. ... "Claire, why'd you stop? Are you mad?" When I didn't answer, Bianca picked up two flutes of champagne and stepped down from the bridesmaids' bench. She pressed one of them straight into my father's hand. "Mr. Sutton, it was just a little joke to lighten the mood. You're too much of a gentleman to take something like that to heart, right?" Dad couldn't see the ridiculous red stamp on his own face. He accepted the flute awkwardly and tipped his head back, draining it in one go. "Of course not. It's Claire's wedding. As long as everyone's having a good time…" He didn't finish. His body suddenly folded forward, and he started dry-heaving violently. Bianca clapped her hands and laughed out loud. "Nolan honey, you lose again!" "I told you a blind man's sense of smell isn't that sharp." "I literally squeezed half a tube of septic-tank slug juice into that glass, and Mr. Sutton chugged it!" Laughter and camera shutters exploded all around us. Nolan's face did tighten. But not because my father had just been publicly humiliated. Because his wedding had gone off script. I watched Dad forcing himself to endure it, that meek little smile on his face. I couldn't listen to another second of it. "Nolan Ashford, the wedding is off." I steadied my father, who was swaying on his feet. "Dad, we're leaving." Nolan finally panicked. He rushed down from the altar and caught my wrist, lowering his voice. "Claire, Bianca takes jokes too far, I know. I'll make her apologize to your father myself, later." "Every guest in this church is staring at us. Don't blow this up any bigger." I shook his hand off and walked straight for the church doors without looking back. Bianca's voice drifted after me, wounded in exactly the right pitch. "Claire Sutton, it was just a joke. Are you seriously doing this?" ... Mass General. The emergency room. A nurse worked over our faces with alcohol wipes, one careful pass at a time. I could guess when it had happened. Before the ceremony, Bianca had insisted on doing our "touch-ups." My face had foundation on it, and once it was wiped away, only a few faint pink marks remained. Dad's face wouldn't come clean, no matter what she tried. The skin had already scrubbed raw and red, and yet he was the one smiling at me, trying to comfort me. "It's okay, Claire. Walking around with a mark on my face isn't the end of the world." "Dad just made trouble for you again. Because of me, you didn't even get your wedding…" I lowered my head. My throat was too tight to say a word. How could I blame him. It was Nolan and Bianca who had always treated me like a chip at their table. Like the summer after graduation, when the three of us had planned to go skydiving together. They'd coaxed me into jumping first. Then they'd stayed in the cabin, filming me at my worst, betting on whether I'd cry from sheer humiliation the moment my feet hit the ground. But this time, they had no right to make my father a punchline in their game. I opened my phone. The college group chat was already blowing up. 【Bianca is a legend, I peed a little laughing, two little pigs 💀】 【Claire is being SO dramatic though?? She really called off her own wedding in front of everyone???】 【Guys don't forget, Nolan only confessed to her back in the day because he bet Bianca he could pull the scholarship kid.】 【And she said yes on the spot and followed him around for five years like a puppy. I can't 😭】 I stared at the messages scrolling past. So that was it. Even the first "I love you" of this entire relationship had just been a bet. It was over. 【Ding.】 A new email pushed through. Munich Ophthalmology Institute. Dad's surgery had finally been scheduled. At last, I could take him and leave.