Chapter 2
My phone chimed.
“Hello?”
My eyes were barely open, my head still foggy with sleep.
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“Maeve Yule! What are you doing?” It was Yelena Anderson, my best friend. “I flew seven hours just to be your bridesmaid, and now they won’t even let me into the hotel! And the bride is… Jolene Lanier? Who’s that? What kind of game are you and Nathaniel playing? Are you messing with me?”
I shot upright, suddenly wide awake. “Who’s getting married?”
Yelena sounded even more shocked than I felt. “What do you mean? Isn’t today your wedding with Nathaniel?”
A cold sweat broke over me, and I retorted, “Who the hell is Nathaniel? You know I’ve always been single.”
“Cut the crap, Maeve! You’ve been dating him for five years. There’s a wedding photo of you two hanging on your damn wall!” Yelena sounded completely fed up.
I bolted out of bed and tore through my home, but there was nothing. No sign that a man had ever set foot in here.
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“It’s just a portrait of me on the wall,” I snapped. “Seriously, I don’t even own a double bed.”
“No freaking way! Hold on. I’m on my way.”
Yelena hung up before I could say another word.
The second she stormed in, she started yelling at me,
at me, convinced I was pretending to have amnesia just to screw with her. But then she looked around, and her face went blank while she kept muttering, “No way.”
“I’ll prove it to you!”
Yelena suddenly remembered that she had joined Nathaniel and me at our wedding photo shoot and taken some candid photos that she posted on Instagram.
In the photos, I was wearing a white wedding dress, smiling brightly as I held the arm of a good–looking man in a black suit and gold–rimmed glasses.
I went completely still. I didn’t know the man in the picture. His face meant nothing to me, but for some reason, tears started pouring down my face. I brushed them away, and that was when it hit me.
“Leni! Do I have a long–lost twin sister or something? Is my little sister actually the one getting married?”
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Yelena let out an annoyed sigh. “Are you two fighting again?”
grew agitated. “I mean it! I honestly don’t know any Nathaniel.”
Yelena gave me a long, searching look, her concern deepening. “You’re not actually losing your memory, are you? Did you hit your head or something?”
She snatched my phone and scrolled through my contacts, but there wasn’t any Nathaniel listed. Out of ideas, she called him
herself.
The line picked up, and a soft voice answered, “Hello?”
“Nathaniel, what the hell is going on?” Yelena snapped. “Mae says she doesn’t know you! And now you’re marrying someone else?”
Nathaniel paused briefly before asking stiffly, “May I ask… who
is this?”
Yelena shot to her feet, yelling, “Nathaniel! What kind of bullshit are you trying to pull? Don’t act like you don’t recognize my voice!”
“Wrong num-” he started, but a frail woman’s voice cut in between harsh coughs. “Who is it, Nate?”
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“It’s nothing… Just a wrong number,” Nathaniel replied, flustered.
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Before Yelena could say a word, the line went dead with a series of beeps. Nathaniel had hung up.
“This isn’t right.” Yelena bolted out the door without hesitation. “Stay here. I’ll keep you posted.”
She was determined to figure things out, but I couldn’t have cared less. Strangers had never been my thing.
When Yelena got back, I’d already ordered a huge bag of snacks and was happily munching away while watching a show. “Hey, Leni, want some? They’re maple bacon–flavored potato sticks.”
She shoved my hand away and yelled, “Are you serious? You’re still eating? Nathaniel is a total bastard! He cheated on you!”
All she got in response was the sound of me crunching on potato
sticks.
Yelena went on. “That woman coughing in the background was his first love! And the bride from today’s wedding! Apparently, she has cancer.”
I kept chewing, louder than before. Then I held out another stick to her. “Damn, that’s crazy. What else happened?”
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Yelena automatically took it and started chewing before suddenly stopping. “Wait, your fiancé cheated on you! And you’re not even freaking out?”
I kept munching away.
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“Wow, dramatic,” I said, popping two more potato sticks into my mouth. “Cancer, first love, a bride swap–this is straight out of a soap opera. But I don’t even know the guy. He can marry whoever he wants for all I care.”
Yelena didn’t bother responding and just dove deeper into gossip mode, having already dug up every last detail.
Apparently, Nathaniel and Jolene were planning to tour every country on the Esvera continent for their honeymoon. Everyone was calling him a hopeless romantic, the ultimate devoted man.
Yelena scowled. “So you’re just letting him off the hook?”
“Of course I am. I don’t even remember him. He doesn’t make
me feel anything. Why wouldn’t I let a stranger do whatever he
wants?”
Yelena had nothing to say to that, but that didn’t stop her from digging up even more about Nathaniel. She bought the wedding surveillance footage of him and Jolene from the hotel manager.
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In the video, they walked hand in hand through a dreamy sea of flowers, whispered loving vows, and sealed their promises with a kiss. The flowers were absolutely stunning.
Yelena screamed in fury. She pointed out that they were calla lilies, symbols of faithful love. She’d spent two weeks helping me pick them out, analyzing every bloom for its deeper meaning before we finally settled on the perfect ones.
She brought up how I’d spent countless nights designing those floral arrangements, that the final result wouldn’t have been so breathtaking without all that effort.
Slouched on the couch, Yelena started ranting about Nathaniel. “What kind of psycho does this? You forget all about him, and the next thing you know, he’s marrying someone else that same damn day. You’d have to scour the whole planet to find a man worse than him!”
I just shrugged. “How romantic. His childhood sweetheart’s dying of cancer, and the lovesick fool still won’t leave her side.”
Yelena kept digging for updates, and the latest news was that Nathaniel had taken Jolene on a trip to the coastal cliffs of Veylmar, right to the Edge of the World.
I clapped my hands like a seal. “Wow, how romantic. I’ve heard Veylmar even has the Garden of Dawn. You know, where the first man and woman were supposed to have fallen in love.”
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Yelena was furious at my carefree attitude, but there was nothing she could do except drop it.
She stopped mentioning them altogether because Nathaniel and Jolene were heading off on another romantic getaway to the countries in the Esvera continent, which meant she had no way of tracking down the wandering lovers.
After that, I didn’t hear another word about them. They vanished from my life without a trace, while I carried on happily, watching TV, working, and snacking.
But sometimes, Yelena’s words would pop into my head while I was on the job. I’d stop cold, my chest throbbing with pain.
Even though my mind was blank, tears would just start falling out of nowhere. It felt like something inside me had rotted, and the bad part had been cleanly cut out.
It was strange.
Whatever. I brushed it off and forced myself to focus on work. I couldn’t even remember anything clearly. It didn’t matter now
anyway.
A month later, I was sorting through data when my phone
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suddenly started buzzing nonstop. It was flooded with so many text messages that it almost froze.
I tapped to open them and saw they were all photos—lavish wedding portraits, sweeping landscapes, casual everyday
moments.
In every single one, Nathaniel had his arms around a pale, delicate–looking woman. They looked like any other happy newlyweds, totally wrapped up in each other.
Then came a text along with the photos. “Thanks for bowing out, Mae. Nathaniel went straight to your place as soon as he got off the plane. I didn’t have time to print the photos for him, so I’ll let you handle that.”
I was completely stunned. This was insane. Was I some pawn in their twisted little game?
I couldn’t resist firing off a text. “Was the doctor’s exam not thorough enough? Maybe you should get evaluated by a psychiatrist.”
The files she’d sent were complete garbage. My hand was cramping from deleting all of them.
I typed out the address for the city’s main psychiatric hospital. “600 Virenswood Avenue, Selthorne, Virenia.”
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Nathaniel and Jolene could use a nice, long visit there together.
My inner critic was running wild, so I quickly took a screenshot and sent it to Yelena, asking her to join me in ripping these delusional idiots apart.
We were right in the middle of our rant when the door burst open with a loud bang. And there, standing right before me, was the man I’d just been trashing.
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