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My Fiancé Married His Dead Friend’s Pregnant Girlfriend—Then Locked Me In With a Stranger
Novelix
Completed
One night before our wedding, Leon told me he planned to marry his dead comrade's pregnant girlfriend instead. It was only a formality, he said. I could wait a few years until he was free to marry me. After five years together, he expected me to smile and put my life on hold. I agreed to let him change the paperwork—but not to keep waiting. I packed my belongings, ended our engagement, and reached for the dance career I'd given up. When Leon realized I meant to leave, he tried to interfere. I wasn't going to sacrifice another dream for him.
Chapters (3)
Chapter 1
On the eve of our wedding, Leon Sorel brought Elena Dvorak to the apartment we were supposed to share and asked me to wait a few years.
Elena was carrying the child of his dead comrade, he said. A wedding would protect her from scandal, give the baby a secure place in their community, and keep Leon's record clean enough for promotion. It was only a formality. I could wait until he was free to marry me properly.
“I've never heard of anyone being handed divorce papers by the regimental office,” I said. “How many years are we talking about?”
Elena was crying. Leon had an arm around her shoulders and a handkerchief in his other hand.
Five years together. One evening before the wedding. And I was standing in the middle of our new apartment, listening to my fiancé bargain with me as if my future were a spare room he could lend out.
My stomach cramped. I had run errands all day without eating. For one dizzy second, their voices seemed to reach me from very far away.
I pictured the life Leon was offering: keeping his place warm, his mother comfortable, and Elena supplied until he had finished being her husband.
“All right,” I said.
He stopped dabbing Elena's eyes.
“All right?”
“If the application is only a formality, you can ask the regimental clerk to change it. I won't make a scene.”
Relief softened his face. Elena leaned closer against him.
He thought my answer meant I would wait.
He didn't understand that there was something else I had been waiting for: the notice for the National Women's Performance Company's open audition in Novigrad. The application was in my case, beside my dance shoes.
Five years ago, I had taken the first job that let me leave my parents' house. I had met Leon when he started waiting for me outside the repertory hall. We had gone to the cinema, eaten hot rolls from paper wrappers, and danced at a neighborhood social club. He had made a life outside my own feel possible.
I had loved him. I had said yes when he proposed.
Neither fact obliged me to remain in the room now.
“Mara, I knew you'd understand,” Leon said. “We'll talk about our wedding once Elena is settled.”
“Perhaps.”
His gaze held mine, searching for some sign I was playing at anger. He found none.
Then Elena reached for the blue-green bracelet on her wrist.
It was my grandmother's.
Chapter 2
“Why is she wearing my bracelet?”
Leon shifted in front of Elena. Not enough to hide her, just enough to tell me whose feelings mattered more.
“It isn't worth fighting over.”
“Take it off.”
My grandmother had put the bracelet on my wrist the year before she died. She had worn it herself for decades, a small charm tied to the clasp. When Leon left for a dangerous assignment, I had tucked it beneath his pillow.
“Borrow it,” I had told him. “Bring it back to me when you come home.”
He had closed his hands around it as though it were something sacred. He promised to return it himself.
Now Elena's pale sleeve had slipped down to show the stone against her skin.
“I'm sorry, Mara,” she whispered. “I didn't know it was yours. I just said it was pretty, and Leon offered it to me.”
She tugged at the clasp. Her fingers fumbled. Then her hand lurched toward the corner of the table.
I caught her wrist before the bracelet struck the wood. My knuckles hit the edge instead. Pain flared across my hand.
Leon saw her frightened face. He didn't look at mine.
“She's pregnant. Why do you have to be so aggressive?” he said. “It's a bracelet. You're acting like a jealous child.”
He carefully unclasped it from Elena's wrist and tossed it onto the table.
“And then you wonder why I don't trust you with a household,” he added. “Apologize to her.”
For months I had heard some version of that sentence. After Leon returned from his assignment, Elena had wanted coal for her room, so he gave her our fuel allotment. She noticed the good bread, the wool blanket, my sewing scissors; eventually, they all found their way into her hands.
At first I had accepted it. Elena was the fiancée of a man who had died beside Leon. Kindness seemed fair.
Then Leon began dividing his pay and ration cards with her. He scolded me for setting aside fuel for his mother. He spent a night at Elena's room after she complained about a broken lamp. The next morning, when I asked why he hadn't come home, she lowered her eyes and said she had been worried about him walking alone so late.
Leon had laughed. His mother had said I was imagining things.
They made me apologize because Elena had felt uncomfortable.
One small favor after another had accumulated until I could no longer tell where Leon's kindness ended and my life went.
But I had already begun to make a different life. I had kept my old rehearsal shoes. I had not forgotten the music my grandmother taught me.
“No,” I said.
Leon stared at me.
“I won't apologize. I won't wait. If you want to marry Elena, go and change the application yourself.”
“Mara, don't say that just to hurt Leon,” Elena murmured.
Leon moved toward me, jaw tightening. She caught his sleeve and pressed a hand to her belly.
“My stomach hurts,” she gasped. “I can't go to the clinic. Take me home, please.”
He scooped her into his arms. At the door he looked over his shoulder.
“We'll talk when I get back.”
I picked up the bracelet. The charm had bent when I caught Elena's arm.
I was done waiting for him to come back.
Chapter 3
The new apartment was scattered with wedding things: a linen runner, a stack of dishes, a pair of curtains still folded in paper. I left them where they were.
Most of my things were already in boxes. I had packed them slowly, planning to move in after the wedding. Now I only needed my papers, clothes, and a little cash I had kept to myself.
My parents' home wasn't an option. It had never been a home for me.
Katya Bel opened the door before I finished knocking. She took in my swollen eyes and the case in my hand.
“You finally got tired of Leon and Elena?”
I tried to answer. My throat closed.
Katya took the case and pulled me inside. She had warned me before: if Leon could not set boundaries with Elena, I should not marry him. She had been right, and I had spent months telling myself that five years together meant the future had to work.
Katya heated a cloth and pressed it over my eyes.
“You can stay here while you prepare for the audition,” she said. “My parents are working in the southern district. They'll be away for weeks.”
“I brought a hundred crowns. That's three months of my old pay.”
“Then we will eat cheaply.”
“I was going to ask.”
“I know.”
I began to cry again, and she sat beside me until I stopped.
The audition was six days away. The announcement had come from the National Women's Performance Company in Novigrad. It was usually open only to performers from established troupes, but the Capital Film Studio was looking for a lead in an upcoming musical, and this time local candidates could be recommended too.
I had left the Vesper Civic Repertory to look after Leon's mother. I hadn't left because I lacked skill. At least, that was what I needed to believe.
The next morning, I took the audition form and my marriage papers to the district personnel office. If Leon intended to replace my name with Elena's on the joint marriage application, I wanted the signed copy out of his reach.
The clerk, Mr. Petrov, listened without prying. He returned the application and stamped my performance submission.
“You have time to change your mind about either one,” he said.
“I have changed it about the wedding.”
Outside the office, I tore the marriage form into small pieces. I folded the scraps with my name and fingerprint into an envelope to burn later.
When I turned, Leon was standing behind me.
