On the day we were supposed to discuss our wedding date, Derek Lawson pinned my photo to the ‘free’ board at the community flea market.
In the price field, his best friend, Tori Bennett, had scrawled “one cent.”
Beside it, she’d written:
*Five-year relationship. Clingy. Comes with eight old quilts. All sales final.*
By the time I reached Fairmount Park, Tori was already shouting into the event organizer’s megaphone.
“Derek’s sick of her. Whoever wants to take over today can have her for free.”
“Age doesn’t matter. Her biggest selling point? She’s desperate to get married!”
The crowd laughed.
A woman shopping for her divorced son grabbed my arm. She sized me up, decided I was too skinny, and demanded that Derek throw in a car.
He actually started to negotiate with her.
“The car is fine, but you have to make sure your son doesn’t let her run back to her own apartment. She’s too clingy. He’ll have to keep her in line.”
I jerked my arm out of the woman’s grip.
Only then did Derek pull me to his side, speaking as if nothing had happened.
“You’ve been hounding me about the wedding date every day. I can’t breathe.”
“Spend one afternoon here, and you’ll see that no one else is willing to take you. Then maybe you’ll learn how to treat me.”
Tori shoved the megaphone toward my mouth.
“Come on, Lydia, sell yourself a little. If you fix that attitude, maybe someone will actually want you.”
His friends were all filming. In their group chat, they were taking bets on how long it would take before I broke down and begged him to tear down the poster.
I looked past the crowd and saw a familiar face.
Everett Hale’s mother was standing in front of the board, pulling out the thumbtack and slowly tearing the poster down.
I borrowed a phone from one of the market organizers and dialed the number I knew by heart.
“Everett, change your ticket to Boston. Make it two.”
“Come get me, and I’ll go with you.”
He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 40 Because of age, the thread my mother had left behind was paler than the one I had sewn on later. After washing my hands, I sat at the edge of the bed and ran my fingers over the seam. Everett leaned in the
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 39 After the event, Carol and I stayed one more night in Philadelphia. On the train back to Boston, she fell asleep against the window, still clutching the Sewing Room’s sign-in ledger. I slipped it into her bag for her. My phone buzzed with
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 38 I nodded. I didn’t need to watch it being destroyed to know it would never be hung up again. People quickly filled the repair table. Carol assessed the tears; I handled registration. Some people recognized me and whispered nearby. The woman who had
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 37 The following autumn, the organizer at Fairmount Park sent me an invitation. The market wanted to set up a free repair table by the entrance and asked if the Sewing Room would like to participate. Attached to the email was a new set
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 36 Derek used to complain that I traveled too much for work. His mother had even written “quit my job” onto that display board as if it were a price I had to pay to become a wife. I took my phone into the
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 35 After the compensation came through, I kept only the repair cost for my mother’s quilt. I donated the rest to the community center where Carol worked. They had started with one old long table and a few sewing baskets. Before winter, the center
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 34 She knew I didn’t want strangers gathering around that tear and staring at it again. The conference room door suddenly flew open. Tori came storming out first. “You can’t make me carry this alone! Derek apologized and everybody praised him for being honest.
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 33 Three days after the civil complaint was served, Derek signed the agreement first. He agreed to delete anything he had posted or reposted, issue a public correction, stop contacting me in any form, and cover the share of costs assigned to him. In
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 32 Now they were only a belated acknowledgment. I handed the microphone back to the organizer. “I’ve said what I came to say.” A few steps away, Tori called after me. “Don’t you just want money? You already married into the Hale family. What
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 31 When Derek arrived at the park, Tori and Mrs. Lawson were still accusing each other. He came through the crowd and saw the evidence bag in my hands first. “Lydia, I didn’t know she was going to post it again.” The moment Tori
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