Chapter 1
PHOEBE
“Oh, for fu—”
The living room swims in and out of focus, my mascara-crusted eyes refusing to cooperate.
My head throbs like I have daggers through my skull. I can’t tell if it’s from crying or barely sleeping. It’s almost noon, judging by the blade of light cutting between the pulled curtains.
It’s my wedding day.
Correction: it was my wedding day.
BING. BING. BING.
My phone goes off next to me, and I briefly consider drop-kicking it through the damn drywall.
Honestly? The phone deserves a medal for enduring the last 24 hours.
BING.
I grab the offensive object. Forty missed messages on the WhatsApp group chat. I skim through them. Pity, shock, a sprinkle of “saw this coming.”
Of course.
But it’s not the breakup itself that sent everyone spiraling.
It’s Matthew’s lovely little public assassination of my dignity from last night.
Let’s not drag this out. I’m calling off the wedding. I can’t marry someone who doesn’t even try. I kept hoping you’d lose the weight, get serious about your appearance, and show some ambition.
-
I move in circles where image matters, Phoebe. I need someone who reflects that. Someone who turns heads. And before you ask, yeah, there’s someone else. Someone who gets it.
-
I know this will be a tough pill to swallow, but maybe it’ll be the wake-up call you need.
Then he left the chat.
Coward.
Certified Grade-A USDA Choice Coward.
Bitterness claws up my throat.
There’s a bottle of water on the table. My spine screams as I sit up. The couch kept me company all night, curled up like a sad armadillo trying not to feel anything.
I take a swig and reread his message.
He could’ve sent it privately.
Posting it publicly was calculated cruelty.
BING.
“Fuck,” I mumble as I start reading through the replies.
My mother shaming Matthew.
My sister cracking jokes to lift my mood.
Tears prick my eyes, then spill freely.
The pain, the humiliation—it’s too much.
I keep reading the messages, the regrets that the event will not happen, while my mother and sister somehow manage to make everything worse.
No word from Matthew’s groomsmen, though I’m not sure what I was expecting. They’re great guys, and they were always good to me, but they’re his friends.
Their silence says enough.
I'm staring at my phone, debating whether to check social. A catastrophically stupid idea that I somehow can’t talk myself out of.
Then I hear footsteps thundering down the hallway.
“PHOEBE, you need to see this RIGHT NOW!”
Penny bursts into the living room, coffee in one hand, phone in the other.
For a second, I try to figure out where she came from. She’s still wearing the shirt and jeans she had on last night when she came over with, the now-empty takeout containers and crumpled tissues littering the floor.
“You’re here?” I ask.
“Where the hell else would I be?” she shoots back, brows lifting. “I’m not leaving you alone to spiral. Someone has to keep an eye on you before you do something insane—like texting your ex or announcing you’re joining a convent.”
“How thoughtful,” I mutter.
“I know. I’m a goddamn saint.”
She thrusts her phone at me. “Now brace yourself for this…”
She sits next to me on the sofa, setting her phone on the table where we can both view a video gone viral on TikTok, judging by the number of likes blowing up in the bottom right corner of the screen.
“What the…?” is all I can manage as the frame fills with August, Dominic, and Theo—Matthew’s groomsmen. Shirts tailored within an inch of their lives, jaw lines that could cut glass.
Eyes sharper than my mother’s commentary on my life choices.
Dominic speaks first.
“Hey, guys. You’re probably aware the wedding of Matthew Hearst and Phoebe Baldwin was canceled last night.”
“We didn’t find out until this morning while we were literally getting dressed for it,” August adds, gesturing to their shirts. “We’re in shock.”
Theo Forbes, their best friend and business partner, chimes in. “And disgusted. We didn’t expect this kind of behavior from our close friend Matthew, the groom.”
“Wait, what?” I gasp.
Penny hits the pause button. The content of this video isn’t going where I thought it would. My heart starts beating a million miles a minute.
“Give it a second,” Penny says, then taps play again.
The men stand in unison, suits stretching over thick biceps and powerful chests.
August buttons his jacket with lazy precision, Dominic rolls his shoulders like he’s warming up for a fight, and Theo tugs his cuffs into place, veins flexing along his forearms. They look even bigger upright—three living statues carved out of sin and money, made for the camera and lit like Zeus personally hired the lighting crew.
“Phoebe deserves better,” Dominic says.
My soul leaves my body.
“We know her well enough to understand that what Matthew did is sick and twisted. It was an attempt to humiliate her while also ruining what was supposed to be the most beautiful day of her life.”
“You don’t do that to the woman you claim to love,” Theo adds.
“As Matthew’s former groomsmen and best friends—as he often called us—we cannot condone this kind of headline-grabbing garbage.”
“Hold on, what is he talking about? What headline-grabbing garbage?” I ask.
Penny hits the pause button again and gives me a flat, awkward smile. “Matthew didn’t just post that message on the wedding group chat. He leaked screenshots of his conversation with you from last night. TMZ picked it up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t look pretty to anyone looking in from the outside, Phoebe. But those of us who know you get it. We know the truth. What he did was horrible, unnecessary, and mean.”
“He called it a ‘wake-up call.’”
“Yeah, well, the only thing waking up today is my desire to punt him into the Hudson,” Penny mutters. She hits play.
“We stand with Phoebe,” Dominic says.
“And anyone who thinks what Matthew did is okay is just as sick and twisted as he is,” Theo says, shaking his head.
“None of it was okay,” August concludes and the video starts again. The comment section has blown up.
“Internet chaos promptly erupted as soon as they posted this,” Penny says as she taps into the replies. Of course there are two sides to every story, but way too many people are just downright mean.
Matthew Hearst was too good for Phatty Phoebe, says one comment.
“They used to call me that in high school,” I sigh deeply. “The bullies are now hiding under anonymous TikTok usernames.”
“Girl, you dodged a damn missile,” Penny says. “Hate to say I told you so.
“You love to say it.”
“Well… yeah.”
“He’s humiliating me. Fat shaming me. Making me feel unworthy. I kept trying to see the best parts of him,” I reply, on the verge of another round of tears. “But look at what he’s doing now: making me feel like I’m not worthy of any guy’s time or affection.”
“Screw that!” Penny snaps, then whips out a cool grin as she points at the comment section. “Read what else they said.”
“Why, so I can feel even more miserable?”
“Forget the groom. Take the groomsmen on your honeymoon,” Penny reads aloud another comment.
“Why are the backup dancers hotter than the lead?” Penny laughs as she reads another.
“Oh, boy,” I mutter. “This is becoming a huge sparkly shitshow, isn’t it?”
“Correction: this is karma girl,” Penny says.
“Matthew wanted attention. Now he’s getting dragged by three Greek statues in tuxes.
He thought he was going to tear you down and then ride the wave.
He got engaged to a Baldwin heiress, then humiliated her in public for notoriety. Imagine if you’d actually married him!”
I know she means well—even if I still feel broken.
“Take your revenge honeymoon, Phoebe. Be the story,” she adds, while I laugh bitterly in between sobbing fits.
I crumble, feeling like the world is about to cave in on me. I was always the lesser of the Baldwin sisters. The “chubby but pretty one,” TMZ used to call me. Crystal was the headliner, the Manhattan princess, the apple of the Hamptons’ eyes.
When Matthew came into my life, when he proposed, I thought it was finally my turn to feel like a beautiful and desired woman.
What a terrible joke.
“There’s no way I’m letting him enjoy this,” I mutter and take a deep breath, letting the anger take over for a moment.
The red mist is lifted from my eyes, and a strange kind of clarity ensues as I open my phone camera into selfie mode and use a tissue to wipe as much of my raccoon eye away as possible. It takes a minute, but I manage to pull myself together.
“Attagirl,” Penny encourages.
“Listen, I may be emotionally devastated, but I refuse to be visually devastating on top of it,” I say and fiddle with the settings on my camera until I finally see a version of myself that’s worth posting online. “Okay, here goes nothing—”
“Go for it, Phoebe!”
“Shush,” I reply, hitting record. Aware that August, Dominic, and Theo will be the first to see this, I open my statement with a confident—albeit tired—smile.
“You guys… you’re so kind to speak up for me, and I appreciate it more than you know. Honestly? It would be a shame to waste a two-week honeymoon in Hawaii. So if any of you want to join me…”
I wink. “Pack light.”
Penny shrieks. “TAG THEM. TAG THEM NOW!”
“This will probably blow up in my face, but at this point, it can’t get any worse.” I post the video and set the phone down.
I take Penny’s mug of coffee and chug it while she watches the video on her phone, scanning the incoming reactions.
She giggles gleefully, almost maliciously. “Ooh, it’s blowing up already. But not in your face.”
“It’s still early,” I mutter and lean back into the sofa, emotionally exhausted.
My phone pings.
I grab it and check the notification. My eyes widen as I read the first comment on my video.
August has just replied.
Pack your bags, sweetheart.