The Night Before My Wedding, I Found Out I Was the Other Woman

For a moment, my mind went completely blank. Back when I was trying on wedding dresses, I'd picked out the one I'd been dreaming about since I was a little girl. Adrian took one look and said it wasn't right for me. Then he asked the clerk to bring another one. That dress pinched my chest and squeezed my waist until I could barely breathe—it just wasn't my size. The clerk warned us that letting it out would be a nightmare, and one wrong alteration could ruin the whole thing. But Adrian said, "This one. It suits you." And I said yes. For countless nights after that, I stood in front of the mirror wearing it, dreaming about the romantic wedding Adrian and I were going to have. Turns out, it was Mia's dress. The wedding, the dress, even the husband—all of it, her charity. Mia kept going. "Claire, if you want to blame someone, blame me. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry." She raised a hand to slap her own face. Adrian caught her wrist instantly, pulled her into his arms, and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I'm the one who wanted to marry you. You didn't do anything wrong." When he looked back at me, there wasn't a trace of warmth left in his eyes. "You've pushed an innocent girl this far. Happy now?" Before I could get a word out, Mia went limp in his arms. Adrian panicked. He scooped her up and bolted for the door, then turned and shouted at me from the threshold, "What the hell are you standing there for? Bring the car around!" At the ER, Adrian never let go of Mia's hand. I still remember the night I was wheeled into surgery after my car accident. He'd sat at my bedside just like that. He hadn't slept for three days. At one point he grabbed the attending physician by the arm and wouldn't let go. "Please. Whatever it takes to save Claire. Blood, bone marrow, a kidney—take whatever you need from me." Only a few years ago. The same hand that used to hold mine was now holding someone else's—his real wife's. The man who once said he'd trade his life for mine didn't have any room left for me in his heart. To him, I was just the woman who demanded he sacrifice his happiness, the one he was throwing a wedding to as a favor. I turned around and walked out of the hospital. On the way home, I called the wedding planner. "Cancel tomorrow's wedding." There was a stunned pause on the other end. "Miss Bennett—you've been planning this wedding for two years. You designed every detail yourself. The ceremony is tomorrow. Are you sure?" I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles ached. The image of Adrian rushing out of that private room with Mia in his arms flashed through my head again. When I finally spoke, my voice was shaking. "Cancel it." "I don't want to marry him anymore." Late that night, Adrian came home. The moment he walked in, he flung his jacket onto the couch in a rage. "So you just left Mia at the ER? She apologized to you in front of everyone. She fainted because of you. Claire, what more do you want from her?" "Do you need everyone in that room to get on their knees and beg for your forgiveness before you're satisfied?" I stared at him. I couldn't get out a single word. My heart had shattered. Adrian had once been the man I trusted most in the world. And he had gone behind my back—slept with another woman on the night of our seven-year anniversary, and signed a marriage license with her at City Hall. He'd turned me into a joke in front of everyone we knew. And now he was standing in front of me, demanding to know what right I had to be angry. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. When I stayed silent, Adrian sighed. "Claire, I know you're upset. But this isn't Mia's fault. She didn't mean to hurt you." "Promise me you won't take this out on her, okay?" Then, the way he had a thousand times before, he reached out, cupped the back of my neck, and leaned down to kiss me. Mia's perfume flooded my nose. And in that instant, my head filled with images of him and Mia—his hands on her, his mouth on hers, their bodies tangled together in bed. I couldn't stop myself from wondering how many nights he'd come straight from her bed and kissed me with the same lips that had just been on hers. It was revolting. I shoved him off me, ran into the bathroom, and gripped the edge of the sink, dry-heaving. I turned the faucet on and rinsed my mouth out, over and over, scrubbing at my lips until they were red and swollen. Adrian followed me to the bathroom door. "What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm dirty?" He stared at me. Then he let out a short, ugly laugh. "Claire—when your mom got raped, did she lose her mind like this too?"

I stood there in the bathroom, staring at him, my whole body shaking. Years ago, after my mother was raped, my father said he couldn't stand the sight of her anymore. He filed for divorce not long after. After that, my mother fell into a severe depression. I took her to countless therapists. I begged her to hold on, for me. But in the end, she took an overdose of pills. On my birthday. That night, I locked myself in the bathroom, blood running down my wrist. Adrian was the one who broke the door down. He was crying, screaming at me: "Claire, don't do this!" "I swear to you—I will be by your side for the rest of my life. I will never do anything to hurt you. Not ever." I believed him. For countless nights after that, those words were the only thing that kept me alive. Now every one of those promises had turned into a blade, driving straight through my heart. I clenched my fists. My nails cut into my palms. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to throw every word he'd just said back at him, one by one. But I looked at the man I had loved for seven years, and all I felt was exhaustion. In the end, all I could get out was one sentence: "Adrian, let's break up." Adrian was quiet for a few seconds. Then he let out a scornful little laugh. "Claire, what game are you playing now? You think threatening me with a breakup is going to make me leave Mia?" He grabbed his jacket and turned toward the door. His hand paused on the handle. He looked back at me. "I'm not leaving Mia. You'd better get used to that." "You know what? Right now, you look like a lunatic. I'm not walking down the aisle with a lunatic." "The wedding's postponed. When you calm down and apologize to Mia, then we can talk about it again." He slammed the door behind him. Like a slap across my face. I threw up in the bathroom until tears were streaming down my cheeks. The diamond ring on my finger dug into my palm until it ached. Then I went to the jewelry store. The clerk examined the ring and looked up at me apologetically. "Miss Bennett, this is a custom piece. It's engraved on the inside, too. I'm afraid we can't take it back." I ran my finger along the inside of the band and stared at the string of numbers for a long time. It was Mia's birthday. In the bright, glittering jewelry store, I stood at the counter, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time. The engagement ring I had treasured for years had another woman's birthday engraved inside it. For seven years, everyone had known the truth. I was the only one in the dark. Laughably stupid. The tears fell. My collar was soaked in seconds. I was about to call Adrian and ask why he'd humiliated me even down to the engagement ring—when Adrian and Mia's joint Instagram post came up on my feed. "Twenty years later—finally, us." In the photo, their fingers were interlaced. The marriage license from City Hall sat beside their hands. I knew what this was. This was Adrian's punishment. Punishment for daring to break up with him. In the comments, our mutual friends, his relatives, Mia's friends—all of them, one after another, leaving their congratulations. Within minutes, people started messaging me. "Claire, did Adrian just marry Mia? Did you two have a fight?" Someone had already dropped screenshots into a local Facebook gossip group. People were calling me a homewrecker. Shameless. That I'd known Adrian had a wife and still tried to steal another woman's husband for my own wedding. My fingers trembled as I scrolled through comment after comment. That's when my best friend called. Her voice was shaking with panic. "Claire—has Adrian lost his mind? Your grandmother saw that post!" "Get to the hospital. Now!"