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 30 “The moment you pinned her photo up in a public market, it stopped being a family matter.” When Mrs. Lawson saw her, her voice dropped. “Of course you’d say that. In the end, your son was the one who married her.” “If Everett
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 29 Before the livestream feed went dark, her voice rang across the walkway. “I had no idea that was something her mother made!” On the large screen, the Tori from last year was clearly reading the embroidered line aloud. *For Lydia, love Mom.* The
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 28 The sky in the video slowly darkened. When the alert for the one-cent payment chimed, the staff paused the footage. The organizer asked, “Who accepted the money at the time?” The woman who had been looking for a wife for her son was
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 27 The crowd gradually went quiet. Outside, Tori kept livestreaming. She raised the backup poster higher and shouted across the barrier: “Of course the organizers are helping her. The Hale family leaned on you, didn’t they?” I handed the organized files to the staff.
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 26 “The star of the show is finally here.” Her voice carried over the walkway, and people nearby all turned to look. “Lydia, do you dare tell everyone if you were the one who picked up the megaphone that day? If you had already
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 25 Saturday morning, Fairmount Park was swept by almost the same wind as that day. The second I saw the display line at the entrance from inside the car, my palms broke out in sweat. Everett didn’t rush me. He turned off the engine
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 24 He set a cup of warm water beside me. “If you need to stop, then stop. Tomorrow is soon enough.” I took a sip and kept going, writing down the posting time and source of every video. By the time dawn was close,
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 23 After Everett read the screenshot, he sat up straight. “I’ll call a lawyer.” His hand had already gone to the phone on the nightstand, but then he stopped. “Or is there something else you want to do first?” In the past, whenever someone
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 22 I took the corner from her and pressed it against my face. Carol turned her head away and said she was going to wash her hands. Once we were alone, Everett shut the closet door and sat down beside me. “When you miss
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He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 21 I married Everett in the early summer of the following year. I was the one who brought it up. Near the end of spring, we went for another walk by the river. When we got back, I stood outside Carol’s front door, holding
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