For the eleventh time, I had to call my fiancé, Wayne, to cancel our appointment at City Hall. He sighed, his voice thick with a mix of exhaustion and resignation. “What is it this time with Phoebe?” It was almost comedic, if it wasn’t so systematic. Every single time Wayne and I scheduled our marriage license appointment, Phoebe had an emergency. The first time, she had a sudden, violent bout of food poisoning that left her semi-conscious. The second time, she ate something she was allergic to and ended up in the ER in the middle of the night. I could only offer Wayne my deepest apologies, trying to soothe him. “Phoebe broke her leg and has literally no one else to look after her. I just need to stay with her for a week to help her out.” “She spent an entire semester getting bullied in high school just because she stood up for me. She’s my sister, Wayne. I can’t just abandon her.” “Please, Wayne. Just wait for me one more time. Okay?” Wayne sounded incredibly hurt, almost petulant. “Maeve, you’re really testing my patience here. This is the absolute last time. I won’t wait forever.” I finally breathed a sigh of relief, leaning against the sterile wall of the hospital corridor, waiting for the nurse to finish changing Phoebe’s dressings. I idly opened Instagram. And that’s when I saw the post she had forgotten to hide from me. “Fake-sick for the eleventh time to secure my girl’s happily ever after! So glad they finally tied the knot!” The attached photo was a screenshot of a City Hall marriage license reservation. The groom’s name was Wayne. But the bride was Amber. Amber. The girl who had made my life a living hell for three years. … The phone felt like ice against my palm, the screen still glowing, but my vision went completely white. How could Wayne be marrying Amber? And Phoebe—my best friend, my protector—knew about it. She helped him. She kept me in the dark. No. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. My fingers shook so violently I could barely swipe the screen. After a two-second delay, I tapped on the post again, but it was already gone. Deleted. It was as if the news that had just shattered my world had never existed. I sat frozen in the hard plastic hospital chair, so numb I didn’t even hear Phoebe calling my name. “Maeve? Hello? Is this how you take care of a patient?” Phoebe waved her hand in front of my face, her brow furrowed in annoyance as she gestured to her heavy plaster cast. “Look at me. I’m a mess. Getting these dressings changed hurts like hell.” Instinctively, I stood up and helped her ease into her wheelchair. She glanced at the phone still clutched in my white-knuckled grip. “What are you staring at? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” My throat dry, my lips parted, but no sound came out. How could I even ask? What if I had just misread it? What if it was a mistake? Phoebe and Wayne had been my anchors during the darkest chapters of my life. When my depression got so bad that I tried to end things, it was Phoebe who held my bleeding wrists, crying, begging me to stay alive. And whenever I woke up screaming from nightmares, Wayne was always there, wrapping his arms around me, whispering that it was over, that I was safe now. These two people. The ones who had kept me afloat for so long. They were the most important people in my world. They wouldn’t hurt me. I took a deep, shaky breath and shook my head. “Nothing. Let’s get you back to the room.” While I was running a bath for Phoebe, she picked up my phone to play a game. When Wayne called, she answered it without a second thought. “State your business, husband-to-be. Otherwise, stop interrupting my quality time with my girl.” Wayne replied, sounding amused. “Excuse me, you’re the third wheel here.” Phoebe laughed. “Well, look at you, Mr. Grumpy. Someone’s eager to be a married man. So defensive.” The sound of rushing water suddenly felt deafening. The bathroom went dead silent, save for the heavy sound of my own breathing. Phoebe caught my eye from the doorway, her smile faltering for a split second before she smoothly recovered. “Alright, alright. I know you can’t wait to put a ring on our Maeve. Here, I’ll let you talk to your future wife.” I took the phone, my throat tight as I swallowed hard. “What time are you getting in next week? I’ll come pick you up at the station.” My heart sank, heavy and cold. “Seven in the morning.” Wayne paused, sounding genuinely surprised. “That early?” “Yeah,” I murmured. “City Hall opens at eight.” He chuckled softly. “There’s no rush, honey. Go home, get some sleep first. We’ve got all the time in the world. We don’t need to rush this.” I had booked the earliest train just so I could marry him the second I got back. But standing in that bathroom, I realized I was the only one running. A dull, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t even breathe properly. “Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want.” After hanging up, I buried my face in the pillows. Through the fog of my spinning mind, a series of rapid-fire text alerts broke the silence. Phoebe’s phone was charging on the nightstand, the screen lighting up repeatedly. Compelled by some dark, instinctual urge, I walked over and picked it up. The passcode was still my birthday. The lock screen was still a goofy selfie of us. But what was foreign was the burner Instagram account she had logged into, and a group chat I had never seen before. The group was titled: “Operation: Save True Love”. There were only three members: Phoebe, Wayne, and Amber. The chat was a meticulous record of Phoebe’s fabricated emergencies, designed specifically to keep me away. While I was worrying myself sick about her health, Phoebe was actively advising Wayne on how to keep the lie going. “Maeve is clueless,” one message from Phoebe read. “Just tell her you have a last-minute business trip. She won’t nag you. Then you and your girl Amber can go wherever you want. Leave the cover-up to me.” Under Phoebe’s careful shielding, Wayne and Amber had traveled the country. They had chased the Northern Lights in Alaska, where he proposed to her. They had taken engagement photos in fields of wildflowers. And today, they had gotten married. I stared at the image of the marriage certificate posted in the chat, a physical, searing pain tearing through my chest. Pale and hollow, I walked back into the hospital room and confronted Phoebe. I asked the dumbest, most useless question in the world. “Why?” Phoebe froze, her eyes darting to her phone in my hand. “You went through my phone?” Then, she let out a soft, dismissive laugh. “Well, I guess it’s good you found out. Saves me the trouble of walking on eggshells.” “Honestly, lying to you was exhausting. I had to fake an injury just to get you out of the city. At least now the pressure’s off.” My eyes burned, tears finally spilling over as I screamed at her. “Why?” “Why did you lie to me? Why did you hide this? Was making a fool out of me really that fun for you?” Phoebe just stared at me, her expression entirely flat. After a long, agonizing silence, she said calmly, “Because you and Wayne aren’t right for each other, Maeve. You never were. It would have ended in disaster anyway.” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. “But he’s right for “Amber”? Is that it?” “You guys are sick. Honestly, you make me sick.” I turned and bolted for the door, desperate to escape the suffocating room, only to collide with a person whose face was etched permanently into my worst nightmares. Amber arched an eyebrow, offering a cool, effortless smile. “Long time no see, old friend.” Just hearing Amber’s voice triggered an involuntary tremor in my limbs. Phoebe rolled her eyes, her voice dripping with irritation. “Oh, come on, Maeve. Is the drama really necessary?” Behind Amber, Wayne appeared, holding a gift basket of fruit. When his eyes met mine, he froze, turning pale. He began to stammer, his words tripping over themselves. “I—I just ran into her. She was in the area and wanted to drop by and see how Phoebe was doing.” Wayne seemed to forget that Chicago and Detroit weren’t exactly “in the neighborhood.” It was such a flimsy, pathetic excuse it barely qualified as a lie. I dug my fingernails deep into the meat of my thumb, squeezing until the skin bruised, using the physical pain to anchor myself. Wayne took a tentative step toward me, his brow furrowing with concern. “Maeve? Are you okay? Have you been pushing yourself too hard taking care of Phoebe?” I let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Not as hard as you two have been pushing yourselves to put on this little show.” “I suppose I should say congratulations. Happy wedding day.” The reality finally clicked for Wayne, and he instantly stepped in front of Amber, shielding her from me. “Don’t blame anyone else,” he said, his voice dropping. “It was my decision to marry Amber.” I looked at him, my mind sluggish, trying to process the betrayal. “Did you both just… forget? Did you forget what Amber did to me?” In high school, Amber and I were polar opposites—I was the straight-A student, she was at the bottom of the class. She hated me for it, convinced that my academic success was some personal slight against her. She wrote vile, hateful slurs on my desk. She stuffed dead birds into my backpack. She once held my head down in a toilet until I couldn’t breathe. Phoebe had transferred to our school during our senior year and became the first person to ever stand up for me. Because of that, she endured an entire semester of Amber’s wrath alongside me. And Wayne… when I finally opened up to him about my past, he had wept, holding me tightly, promising he would protect me. I thought we all shared the same moral compass. I thought we agreed that some things were unforgivable. Phoebe tilted her head, her smile sharp and cruel. “God, you really are naive, aren’t you? You actually thought Amber and I were enemies?” “I knew Amber long before I ever met you, Maeve. She only targeted you because she was jealous of how much time I was spending with you. It was all a misunderstanding.” Wayne chimed in, his voice heavy with self-righteous reason. “I talked to Amber about it, Maeve. She just wanted to be friends with you back then. She didn’t know how to express it. She didn’t mean to hurt you.” “It was just high school drama. Kids being kids. You need to let it go.” I have over a dozen scars tracing the inside of my wrists. Each one represents a night I begged for the pain to stop. The two people who had literally begged me to choose life were now standing in front of me, telling me to “let it go”. The sheer weight of the betrayal crashed over me in a suffocating wave. I clutched my chest, struggling to draw oxygen into my lungs. Wayne watched me, a flicker of genuine worry in his eyes, but I managed to force a small, empty smile. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll let it go.” I don’t even remember how I made it back to my hotel room. With trembling fingers, I tore through my purse, searching for the small plastic bottle hidden in the lining. My antidepressants. I hadn’t needed them in over a year. I swallowed the dry pills, the rough coating scraping painfully down my throat. But the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. A chime at the door broke the silence. I assumed it was the room service I had ordered. But the moment I unlocked the door, Wayne pushed his way inside. He reached out, his hand warm against my cold forehead, his face twisted with worry. “Are you having an episode? Where are your pills? Let me get you some water.” I flinched away from his touch, my expression freezing over. “You are another woman’s husband now, Wayne. Learn some boundaries.” Wayne chuckled, reaching out to playfully pinch my nose—a gesture that used to make my heart melt. “Are you jealous, honey?” “Amber and I only got married for our graduate research project. It’s a sociological study on marital structures. The moment the study is over, we’re getting a divorce.” “I’m still going to marry you, Maeve. You promised me you’d wait. Did you forget?” As if to prove his point, he pulled out his phone and played a voice recording. “Wayne, please. Just wait for me one more time, okay?” Hearing my own desperate, begging voice play back to me made my stomach turn. “To be fair, you made me wait eleven times. It’s only fair you wait for me once, right?” Wayne held out his pinky finger, waiting for me to lock mine with his. It was our thing. We pinky-promised on everything, big or small. In college, we pinky-promised to move in together and adopt a cat. When we started working, we pinky-promised to save every penny for our future home. And now, he wanted me to pinky-promise to wait until he divorced my childhood abuser. The sheer absurdity of it made me laugh. And then, I swung my hand and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. “Who do you think I am, Wayne? Your mistress?” “We are done. We were done the second you and Phoebe decided to make a joke out of my life.” Wayne wiped a bead of blood from the corner of his lip, shrugging as if the blow meant nothing to him. “If hitting me makes you feel better, go ahead. But I’m not letting you go.” “I love you, Maeve. And you love me. You’re really going to throw away seven years of history over this?” Seven years. He knew exactly how long we had been together. Yet he still chose Amber, a girl he had only worked with on a project for three months. Over the last few months, his occasional late nights had turned into constant business trips. Even when he was with me, his eyes were glued to his phone, a stupid, private smile on his face. I hadn’t been completely blind. I had suspected something. But whenever I vented to Phoebe, she would always shoot it down. “You’re overthinking it, babe. Honestly, Wayne doesn’t deserve you anyway. If he’s cheating, good riddance. I’ll find you someone a million times better.” Only now did I realize the sick double-meaning behind her words. I let my head fall, completely drained. “You really think Amber is better than me, don’t you?” Wayne’s expression softened, and he sighed. “You both have your strengths.” “But Amber isn’t the monster you made her out to be, Maeve. She’s incredibly capable, smart, and driven. Working with her has been incredibly seamless.” “Are you sure you didn’t just misinterpret what happened back in high school?” Of course Amber was smart. Smart enough to torture me for years and still go on to lead a perfectly successful, unbothered life. I instinctively pressed my hand against my tenth rib. The rib Amber had broken with a kick when I was sixteen. Even after seven years, the bone still throbbed with a dull, phantom ache whenever the weather turned cold. I didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. I didn’t have the strength to bare my scars to someone who had already decided they didn’t care. I blinked back the hot tears stinging my eyes and shoved him toward the door. “Believe whatever you want. Just get out.” Once she realized I knew, Phoebe didn’t bother hiding her social media anymore. She unblocked her main account, making all her posts public. Like a masochist, I scrolled through her feed, searching for any sign of hesitation or guilt on their faces. There was none. Just pure, unadulterated bliss radiating from every photo. My tears fell hot and fast onto the screen as I scrolled to the most recent post. No photo. Just a single line of text: “To true love, and leaving the dead weight behind.” Wayne had liked the post. Amber had commented underneath: “Careful, or your little shadow is going to start crying again.” Phoebe replied with a rolling-eyes emoji. “Just enjoy your honeymoon, you two!” I paused on the screen, taking careful screenshots of every single post, ensuring I didn’t miss a single comment or detail. Then, I shut down my phone. I booked a ticket, checked out of the hotel, and called a cab to the train station. When I stood in front of the apartment we had shared, a wave of vertigo hit me. The fingerprint lock chimed, recognizing my hand. In the entryway, our matching house slippers sat side-by-side. The air still smelled of the white tea diffuser I loved. Our cat, Barnaby, trotted over and rubbed his head affectionately against my shin. Everything was exactly as I had left it. Except for the constant stream of honeymoon photos on my feed, reminding me that it was all an illusion. The love was fake. The comfort was fake. I systematically packed up my life, throwing away everything I couldn’t carry. I found a thick stack of Polaroids of Wayne and me. We had decorated them with metallic markers, attaching little NFC audio tags to record our daily memories. My thumb brushed against one, and Wayne’s voice filled the quiet room. “I love you, Maeve. Forever and ever.” I stood there, my heart feeling like a hollow, dried-out shell. My phone vibrated. A text from Wayne, sharing his research progress. “Just two more days and the project is officially wrapped. Then I can finally call you my wife. I can’t wait.” Phoebe’s voice messages also popped up, a barrage of casual dismissals. “Look, Amber is my friend, but you are too. Don’t be mad at me, okay? Tell you what, when you and Wayne finally make it official, I’ll write you a massive check to make up for it.” Barnaby let out a soft meow, nudging my hand as if trying to soothe me. I gently scratched the soft spot behind his ears, then tossed the stack of Polaroids into the trash. “It’s too dirty here, sweet boy,” I whispered. “Let’s go.” Once I settled my affairs in Chicago, I blocked every single one of them. I packed Barnaby into his carrier and boarded a flight to Asheville, North Carolina. At O’Hare, Wayne and Phoebe were seeing Amber off for her flight. Through the bustling crowd, they waved enthusiastically at a figure they thought was Amber, watching her disappear down the jet bridge with lingering affection. Only when the final boarding call echoed through the terminal did they turn back. Wayne smiled, a sense of pride in his voice. “The project went beautifully. A prestigious lab in Zurich just offered Amber a fellowship.” “It makes sense for her to go, but I don’t know if I’ll ever find another research partner as brilliant as her.” Phoebe nodded proudly. “Of course she is. She’s my girl, after all.” A brief silence fell over them as they walked toward the exit, both letting out a soft sigh. “Well, the project is done. Let’s not bring it up again.” “Yeah. Maeve is so sensitive. She holds onto grudges forever.” “Speaking of, I’ve sent her a dozen texts and she hasn’t replied to a single one.” They exchanged a glance, a sudden, inexplicable wave of panic washing over them. “She hasn’t texted you either? Do you think… something happened?” Just then, a hand tapped Phoebe on the shoulder. They both spun around. Standing right behind them, smiling, was Amber—who was supposed to be on the plane. “I decided not to go,” Amber announced, grinning. “I’m staying in Chicago with you guys.” Wayne’s smile froze on his face. He and Phoebe stared at her, their expressions turning ash-gray. “Then… who just got on that plane?”
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