My Best Friend's Groom

The first time I saw my fiancé after he vanished five years ago was at my best friend's wedding. He was the groom. I was the maid of honor.

Brooke linked her arm through mine, a bright smile on her face as she shared their epic love story. "When he got into that car crash, I was the one who pulled him from the wreckage.

I knew he had a fiancée, but I didn't care.

I just put him on my private jet and flew him out of the country. "Love is a battlefield, right? "I won, and that pathetic fiancée doesn't even know how she lost." Chapter 1 Brooke kept chattering away, but her words dissolved into static.

A highpitched ringing pierced my eardrums. Five years. Nearly two thousand days and nights.

The man I loved more than anything had been hidden away by my best friend this entire time. I doubled over, gasping for air as violent tremors wracked my body.

Noticing my pale face, Brooke quickly guided me into the bridal dressing room. "Fallon, what's wrong?" she asked, feigning concern. "Is your depression acting up again?" Over the last five years, I had scoured the ends of the earth for Tristan.

I handed out flyers, hired private investigators, and bought out trending hashtags on social media just for a sliver of hope. Even his own family had given him up for dead.

I was the only one who kept looking.

On countless sleepless nights, I would stand dangerously close to the edge of the highway, tempted to take one step forward and let the headlights swallow my despair.

And now, it was all a sick joke. Staring at the jagged, faded scars crisscrossing my right wrist, my eyes burned.

A sharp, physical ache seized my chest, squeezing until I couldn't breathe. Brooke sighed. "Are you thinking about your fiancé again? Stop looking, Fallon.

It's been way too long. "He's probably dead by now.

I'll set up a party soon and have Tristan's groomsmen introduce you to someone." Just as the words left her mouth, Tristan walked in.

He wore a tailored black tuxedo, his tall, broadshouldered frame exactly as I remembered from five years ago. Our eyes met.

He gave me a flat, indifferent glance before stepping past me to adjust the train of Brooke's dress. His groomsmen filed in behind him. They were his old friends.

I recognized almost all of them. When they saw me, they shifted uncomfortably, avoiding my gaze. A minute ago, I could have lied to myself.

I could have pretended he had amnesia and simply didn't remember me. But the guilty expressions on his friends' faces told me everything. He didn't have amnesia.

He remembered exactly who I was. He just didn't love me anymore. "Babe," Brooke said quickly, "tell your friends to stick around tonight.

We're going to have a great time." She shot me a knowing wink. Tristan gave a casual nod. He didn't spare me a second look. Like I was nothing but a stranger.

I slowly closed my eyes, feeling all the oxygen instantly sucked from my lungs.

Five years of waiting and agonizing torture, and all I got in return was the look he gave me—like I was absolute trash. I needed to escape.

I had to get out of here before my sanity shattered and I started screaming.

I stumbled into the bathroom and gripped the edge of the marble sink so hard my knuckles turned a blinding white.

I gasped for air, my vision blurring as a tight knot formed in my throat. With a sudden swing, I smashed my fist into the mirror.

The glass shattered with a sharp crack, and blood began to drip down the back of my hand. But the sting in my flesh was nothing compared to the tearing agony in my chest. It hurt.

It hurt so goddamn much. I curled in on myself, sliding down the wall as an overwhelming, suffocating pain crushed my ribs.

A broken, selfdeprecating laugh escaped my lips. "So you really threw me away, Tristan…" Chapter 2 By the time I walked out of the bathroom, the wedding had already begun.

Brooke had played the considerate friend and found a lastminute replacement for me as a bridesmaid. I stood at the very back of the venue.

On the altar, Brooke flashed a sickly sweet smile as she said, "I do." Tristan knelt on one knee, his movements deliberate and solemn, sliding the ring onto her finger.

A raw, visceral flare of jealousy clawed at my throat. I wanted to storm that altar and tear them apart.

I wanted to scream in Brooke's face, demanding to know why she stole my fiancé. Why she hid him. Why she let me drown in a fiveyear nightmare looking for him.

More than anything, I wanted to grab Tristan and demand why he was acting like I didn't exist. Why didn't he come find me? Why did everyone lie to me?

I wanted to burn this whole goddamn wedding to the ground. But I didn't. I just sat in the shadowed corner of the room. When they finished their vows, I was the first to clap.

I clapped hard, the sharp, stinging sound drawing stares from the surrounding guests. I didn't care. I just kept my eyes locked on Tristan as he turned his head toward the noise.

Our gazes collided. A sharp ache hit the bridge of my nose, and the tears I'd been fighting back finally spilled over. Tristan's brow twitched. Then, he simply looked away.

His dark, deep eyes were hollow. I dug my nails into my palms until I felt warm blood. I thought I was actually going to lose my mind.

I pulled out my phone and typed out a text to him: [Tristan, I'm not going to wish you a happy marriage.] [I curse you.

I curse you to never get what you truly want for the rest of your life.] I didn't wait for the reception. I went straight home.

If I stayed another second, I would have completely snapped. Three years ago, when the leads on Tristan went cold again, I tried to end it all. But I didn't die.

My neighbor found me and rushed me to the ER. When I woke up, Tristan's mother was there, gripping my hand with tearsoaked cheeks. She begged me to keep living, to live for him.

But a world without Tristan was a suffocating hell. We met when we were six. We fell in love in high school.

Right after college graduation, we picked out a date to get our marriage license. But he got into that car crash on his way to me, and vanished without a trace.

I practically lived at the police station. I interrogated every bystander near the crash site. Nothing. No one saw a thing. Now he was back. But he didn't love me anymore.

I passed out in a heavy, exhausted daze. When I finally woke up and checked my phone, there were missed calls from Brooke and a few comforting texts from Tristan's mom.

And one glaring reply from him. Just one icecold sentence: [Stop playing the victim. It's sickening.] A hollow laugh scraped its way out of my throat.

My five years of agonizing loyalty was nothing but a joke to him. I locked myself away. The insomnia hit me like a freight train, keeping me awake night after night.

My hair fell out in clumps. I didn't step outside my apartment for ten days, my body rapidly wasting away until I was nothing but sharp, protruding bones.

Until Brooke showed up at my door because I wasn't answering my phone. Tristan was standing right behind her. I hadn't showered in ten days. I smelled like stale sweat and decay.

But Brooke didn't care. She lunged forward, throwing her arms around me and dragging me toward the hospital. I knew exactly what she was terrified of.

Chapter 3 I pulled my hand from her grip, my tone polite but entirely detached. "I'm fine. Thank you." I didn't know how to look at Brooke anymore.

I didn't know whether to hate her or bless her marriage, and since I couldn't stomach doing either, my only instinct was to back away.

She didn't seem to notice the sudden ice between us, just writing it off as another one of my depressive episodes.

Brooke let out a loud, exaggerated sigh of relief. "Can you please pick up your phone from now on? I was worried sick!

Starting today, my husband and I are moving in with you. "We're going to take care of you until you're back on your feet.

And don't even try to say no—my decision is final." She stood there looking dead serious, her voice firm.

She was so naturally radiant and warm—the kind of girl it was impossible not to love. So, really, it was no wonder Tristan fell for her.

I shifted my gaze to the man standing behind her. His eyes were glacial, narrowing slightly as if he were staring at a complete stranger.

Even though he was radiating sheer frost, even though he felt a million miles away, I was still pathetic enough to crave his presence. Even if he wasn't mine anymore.

I just wanted to look at him for one more day, one more minute, one more goddamn second.

I don't know if I just didn't have the energy to fight Brooke's suffocating concern, or if it was my own twisted, selfish desire. I let them move in.

This apartment was supposed to be our marital home. After he vanished, I designed the entire place exactly the way he liked it.

Every piece of furniture, every layout, was perfectly tailored to his taste. Brooke's eyes went wide as she stepped inside. "Wow, Fallon, your taste is… unique.

Why is everything so dark? It's so gloomy in here. "It's literally just black and gray, zero color." Because my world went dark.

I swallowed the thought and kept my voice quiet. "Because my fiancé liked it. So I decorated it for him." Brooke frowned, clearly disapproving. "You need to have a spine, girl.

Why cater to his every whim? In our house, my husband listens to me. "Our bedroom is super cozy, and I make him sleep on pink bedsheets every single night." I lowered my eyes.

A memory surfaced from when we first moved in together. I used to love pink, too. I bought pink sheets, pink mugs, pink toothbrushes.

I even bought him pink boxers, but he never touched them. As for the sheets, he chose to sleep on the hard hardwood floor rather than lay on a pink bed.

Eventually, I had to cave and change the color before he finally got back into bed with me. My body went rigid for a split second. Then, almost masochistically, I asked, "Oh yeah?

Does he ever just sleep on the floor?" Brooke scoffed and shot a sideways glance at Tristan. "He wouldn't dare.

He even wears pink underwear now." She lifted her chin triumphantly, clinging tightly to Tristan's arm like she was marking her territory, deliberately pressing her full breasts against him.

Tristan didn't push her away; he just looked down at me with an incredibly cold, condescending stare.

A flicker of embarrassment crossed Tristan's face, and he gently patted her head, trying to shush her. "What's wrong with pink sheets anyway?" Brooke continued. "If your fiancé chose to sleep on the floor over a color, it just proves he didn't love you enough.

Can't believe you wasted all these years looking for that piece of trash." I stood there in silence for a long time. Finally, I nodded. "You're right.

He probably just didn't love me enough." The moment the words left my mouth, I felt Tristan's stare bore into me.

When he finally spoke, his voice was laced with ice. "If that's the case, Miss Jiang should take the hint and bow out.

Stop invading other people's lives. "If possible, you should completely disappear from his sight.

Playing the martyr doesn't win sympathy; it just makes people sick." Tristan's words were vicious, completely slicing through any lingering delusion. Playing the martyr.

So that's all my devotion had ever been to him. Chapter 4 My eyes immediately stung with tears, my voice shaking. "You seem to know him so well.

Is it because you two are the exact same kind of monster?

You love disappearing. "You love making people wait, bleeding them dry of every last drop of hope, and you don't even have the decency to leave a fucking apology.

And at the end of it all, you have the nerve to call it 'playing the martyr'. I just wanted closure!

Does my five years of waiting just get erased like it meant absolutely nothing?" Tristan's brows knitted together, his patience snapping. "No one forced you to wait.

Love and hate are a choice. You chose to sit around waiting, so shouldn't you be the one to swallow the consequences?" He let out a dark, mocking laugh. "Or what?

Just because you wasted five years, he's supposed to fall to his knees in gratitude and marry you?" His words were a ruthless, calculated execution.

I stood frozen, the last crumbling pillars of my hope turning to dust. Hot tears spilled over my lashes. Every syllable he spat out was a jagged blade twisting in my gut.

He was so damn right. Love and hate were a choice. No one put a gun to my head. No one asked me to wait. This pathetic wreckage of a life was entirely my own doing.

Our unbreakable bond, our entire history, had vaporized into thin air.

Sensing the volatile shift in the air, Brooke rushed out to play peacemaker, grabbing Tristan's arm and pulling him toward their bedroom.

Her hushed warning drifted perfectly into the hallway. "Are you asking for a death wish?

You know Fallon is in a dark place right now, why would you say something so vicious? "Stop triggering her, do you hear me?" Tristan let out a cruel scoff. "She's just putting on an act." I stood alone in the dead silence of the living room, staring at the empty space where they just stood.

The jagged cuts on my knuckles throbbed with a dull ache, a physical mockery of my pathetic, onesided devotion. After that blowout, I barely saw Tristan.

He was likely going out of his way to avoid me. We lived under the same roof for two weeks, but I could count our runins on one hand.

I withdrew further into myself, spending most of my hours locked in my room. Brooke kept me company, cooking different meals every day and gently coaxing me to take my pills.

Selfishly, I wished she would just treat me like garbage. Her suffocating kindness stripped away any right I had to fight back.

It made me feel like the villain, like a homewrecker secretly coveting someone else's husband. But how the hell could I just let this go?

I was sick with jealousy every time Tristan smiled at her, every time he treated her with that sickening gentleness. I wanted to gouge my own eyes out.

In my darkest, most twisted moments, I caught myself wishing Tristan really had died out there. At least then, I could have kept living in my beautiful delusion.

I started lingering in the living room for hours, just so I could catch a fleeting glimpse of him when he came home.

But as if sensing my pathetic surveillance, he didn't show up for days. I couldn't hold it in anymore. "Where is he?" I asked Brooke.

She was curled up on the sofa, typing a text with a sickeningly sweet smile on her face. "Well, he hasn't been back in the States for the past three years, so there's a ton of corporate mess to clean up.

He won't be coming over for a while." I froze, the blood draining from my face. "Tristan was back three years ago