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They Switched My Groom—So I Kept Him
Novelix
Completed
I've had face blindness my whole life. I can't remember people's faces. My best friend and my boyfriend had always loved teasing me about it. At a get-together with old classmates, Ethan once had someone dress exactly like him and made me guess which one was really him. When Sophie and I went shopping, she and Ethan would sometimes duck into fitting rooms while I wasn't looking, swap clothes with strangers, and make me find them. Every time, I would end up standing there helplessly, crying and begging them to stop messing with me. Until my wedding day, just before the wedding party was supposed to leave for the hotel. Ethan arranged for six fake grooms to show up dressed exactly like him and told me to pick out the real one. This time, I didn't cry. I simply placed my hand in the palm of one of them. They all looked the same to me anyway. Whether I chose Ethan or someone else made no real difference.
Chapters (3)
第1章
I've had face blindness my whole life. I can't remember people's faces.
My best friend and my boyfriend had always loved teasing me about it.
At a get-together with old classmates, Ethan once had someone dress exactly like him and made me guess which one was really him. When Sophie and I went shopping, she and Ethan would sometimes duck into fitting rooms while I wasn't looking, swap clothes with strangers, and make me find them.
Every time, I would end up standing there helplessly, crying and begging them to stop messing with me.
Until my wedding day, just before the wedding party was supposed to leave for the hotel.
Ethan arranged for six fake grooms to show up dressed exactly like him and told me to pick out the real one.
This time, I didn't cry.
I simply placed my hand in the palm of one of them.
They all looked the same to me anyway.
Whether I chose Ethan or someone else made no real difference.
......
I circled the six grooms once, then returned to where I'd started and placed my hand in the palm of the man standing closest to me.
Sophie, my best friend, stood off to the side in her bridesmaid dress and quietly let out a breath, as if relieved that their plan was already halfway successful.
The night before the wedding, I'd woken up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and overheard my parents, Ethan, and Sophie holding what amounted to a family meeting in the living room.
They weren't planning a surprise for me.
They were planning to use my wedding to give Sophie, who had always insisted she never wanted marriage or children, the grand wedding experience she'd always secretly dreamed of.
My mother had always been the one who called the shots in our family. She was the first to make a suggestion.
"Claire can't recognize faces anyway. We can find someone built like Ethan to stand in for him during her ceremony."
My father helped refine the idea.
"Claire's naturally suspicious. If we make a game out of letting her choose the groom herself, swapping him out will seem perfectly natural. If she picks the wrong one, we can always blame it on her not recognizing her own husband."
Ethan made the final decision.
"We'll hold both weddings at the same time. When they're over, I'll make an excuse, switch back, and finish the official marriage paperwork with Claire. As long as the groomsman doesn't talk, she won't know the difference."
Sophie didn't object. She only asked one question.
"What if she actually picks you?"
Ethan took that seriously.
So, to make absolutely sure there was no chance of that happening, he had me choose from six groomsmen while he wasn't even among them.
And now Sophie was lying to my face.
"Looks like the wedding planner really did pick the perfect day. Claire, your luck is incredible. You found Ethan on the first try!"
I smiled and ran my fingers over the hand I was holding.
His palm was broader than Ethan's, and rougher too.
I had face blindness, not brain damage.
But I didn't expose their pathetic lie.
Instead, I smiled and lightly squeezed the fake groom's palm.
"What are you standing there for? Hurry up and carry me downstairs."
He froze, then quickly crouched in front of me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and settled against his broad back, waving at Sophie over his shoulder.
"We'll head down first. You can follow us."
When Ethan came back from the bathroom, all he saw was me being carried away on another man's back.
His hand shot out instinctively, as if he wanted to yank me down.
Sophie grabbed his shoulder and held him back.
"Don't forget what we planned last night."
Ethan pulled his hand back and lowered his voice.
"The plan never said the guy she picked would carry Claire downstairs."
Sophie released him, her face going pale.
"Then go stop her. Tell her yourself what a horrible best friend I am. Tell her I was selfish enough to steal her groom for my own wedding fantasy and leave her to marry some other man."
Ethan sighed helplessly and wiped away her tears.
"That's not what I meant."
My mother immediately stepped in to smooth things over.
"All right, all right. Is something this small really worth fighting over?"
My father laughed and patted Ethan on the shoulder.
"Your mother and I love Sophie like a daughter. She's the bride today. You shouldn't be making her cry. If we leave now, we can still make it to Sophie's reception hall in time."
第2章
Even though I'd already cried myself empty the night before, my eyes still stung.
I'd always known my parents adored Sophie.
She was sweet-talking and affectionate. She'd wave at them from across a parking lot, rush over smiling, and shower them with compliments until they were beaming.
I was nothing like that.
Because of my face blindness, there were times my own parents would walk right up to me and I'd pass them like strangers.
They'd gotten angry with me more than once over it, demanding to know how I could live with them for so many years and still fail to recognize their faces.
But I never imagined that on something as important as my wedding, they would agree to replace my groom for Sophie's sake and let a complete stranger stand beside me in Ethan's place.
A tear fell onto the fake groom's neck.
His back stiffened. Then, still trying to imitate Ethan's voice, he asked softly, "Why are you crying? Is my back too bony? Am I hurting you? I can put you down and hold your hand instead, if you want."
I shook my head and tightened my arms around his neck.
"It's a happy day. I'm just happy."
Finding out what kind of man Ethan really was before marrying him, and learning that my own parents didn't love me as much as I'd believed—maybe that really was something worth celebrating.
He carefully helped me into the car.
Probably afraid I'd realize he wasn't Ethan, he barely spoke for most of the drive.
But when he noticed me hugging my arms around myself, he quietly turned up the heat.
Halfway to the hotel, our car suddenly slammed to a stop.
I'd just lowered the passenger-side visor mirror to touch up my makeup. The sudden braking pitched me forward.
His hand shot out instantly, catching my forehead before it could hit the dashboard.
"You okay?"
I nodded.
He glanced ahead. "There's another wedding party coming from the other direction. Their cars are blocking the road."
Temporary construction had reduced the street to one lane, and the two groups of cars had met at the narrowest part of the road. Neither could get through.
I lifted my eyes—and froze when I saw the familiar license plate on the lead car opposite us.
Two weeks before the wedding, Ethan had bought a new car and said it was the one we'd take to the venue.
He'd even ordered a vanity plate: LOVE-SL.
At the time, I hadn't thought much of it. I'd laughed at him for choosing something so cheesy.
Only now did I realize that the last two letters matched Sophie's initials: Sophie Lane.
LOVE-SL wasn't a romantic gesture to me at all.
It was Ethan declaring his love for her right in front of my face.
Which meant Sophie and Ethan were sitting in the car across from us.
Yet Ethan had told me the plate hadn't arrived in time, so we couldn't use the car for our wedding.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Sophie appeared on the screen.
Claire, looks like we're stuck. Can you ask Ethan to back up a little? If we wait much longer, we'll miss our ceremony time.
Meanwhile, the "Ethan" sitting beside me was frowning at the road.
"I'll get out and see if there's enough room to squeeze past."
He reached for his seat belt.
I stopped him and pointed toward a side road.
"Turn in there."
He frowned. "That road's rough, and it'll take longer. We might miss the ceremony."
"Miss the ceremony?"
My smile disappeared.
"What could possibly be worse than having your groom replaced on your wedding day?"
第3章
He went completely still and stared at me in shock.
"When did you figure it out?"
"The moment I took your hand."
I looked at him calmly. "And I know you're not one of Ethan's original groomsmen either."
He still tried to bluff.
"I am."
"You don't need to lie to me. I've met most of Ethan's friends. None of them wear the cologne you're wearing. And more importantly, anyone Ethan hired for this wouldn't have agreed to carry me downstairs. He definitely wouldn't have started talking to me."
Apparently he'd never expected such small details to give him away.
Finally, he admitted it.
"My name is Ryan. And no, Ethan didn't bring me here."
He glanced at me, unable to hide the expectation on his face.
I frowned and searched my memory for the name.
Nothing.
Disappointment flickered across his face. His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
"We used to play together when we were kids. You really don't remember me."
When I was little, I was the unofficial leader of every kid in the neighborhood. I carried around jars of candy and handed sweets out to everyone.
I'd played with too many kids to remember them all.
And with my face blindness, remembering people was even harder.
"Honestly, I only came because I wanted to see you in your wedding dress," Ryan said. "Then one of the guys told me to cover for him, shoved his boutonniere at me, and disappeared."
I looked at him. "You only wanted to look? You don't want to be the real groom today?"
He made a startled sound.
I pointed toward the side street.
"Do what I say. Turn here."
Our car disappeared down the smaller road.
Not one of the cars behind us followed.
One of the groomsmen got out and knocked on Ethan's window.
"Ethan, why don't we just follow your car?"
Ethan frowned, but before he could answer, Sophie rolled down the rear window with a smile.
"Sure. I was just thinking we barely had any cars with us anyway."
Ethan glanced toward the road where we'd disappeared.
"Then Claire won't have anyone following her car."
"Just say traffic separated everyone. As long as they all meet us at the hotel in the end, it'll be fine."
Sophie poked him lightly in the back.
"You promised I'd get to know what it feels like to be a bride for one day. You're not backing out now, are you?"
Ethan pushed down the unease in his chest.
"I'm not backing out."
Meanwhile, I had Ryan pull over in front of the Clark County Marriage License Bureau.
"Do you have your driver's license?"
He blinked, then quickly understood and pulled it from his wallet.
I'd discovered while driving the route to the hotel two weeks earlier that this side road led straight to the marriage license office.
At the time, I'd thought Ethan and I could stop here before the wedding and take care of the paperwork.
That was why I'd kept my driver's license in my clutch all morning.
I looked at Ryan.
"So... will you marry me? Right now. Get the license, do a quick civil ceremony, and be my real groom today?"
"Wait. I need to make one call first."
Ryan pulled out his phone immediately.
"Mom, I'm getting married in an hour. You and Dad need to get to the Grand Sterling Hotel in Las Vegas right now. Third floor, second ballroom. Have them change the groom's name to mine. And especially the wedding welcome sign at the entrance—the one that says Claire and Ethan. Get rid of it. The bride and I will be there soon."
He ended the call and grinned at me.
"Okay. Now I'm ready."
After we obtained the marriage license and completed a short civil ceremony nearby, we stepped outside.
The anger that had been burning through my brain finally cooled enough for reality to catch up with me.
Ryan immediately took the marriage documents from my hand.
"Your dress doesn't have pockets. I'll hold on to these."
My phone started ringing.
Mom.
I answered.
Her anxious voice rushed through the speaker.
"Claire, the wedding's about to start. Where are you?"
Without changing my expression, I lied.
"We got a flat tire. It's fixed now. We're on our way."
She let out a relieved breath.
"Good. Hurry."
My mother had a habit of never hanging up first. She always waited for the other person to end the call.
This time, she apparently thought I already had.
I heard her turn to Ethan.
"Claire's fine. Just a flat tire. Go ahead and start your ceremony. Don't worry about hers. The stand-ins we hired to attend in our place are already there. Nothing will go wrong."
