The Fake Wedding Was For Me, The Real One For Her Chapter 06

The Fake Wedding Was For Me, The Real One For Her Chapter 06

Nobody had thought about the logistics when the swaps happened every other week.

Chloe could blow off her classes whenever she wanted. I always came back and pulled all-nighters to catch up on weeks of missed assignments-making sure her GPA never slipped.

When it came time to work, my parents insisted I take hidden freelance gigs from home-that way Chloe wouldn’t be exposed when we swapped. I couldn’t hold a real job, couldn’t build a career. All to protect Chloe’s

precious cover.

Chloe could wreck anything she wanted. I would inevitably show up later and fix it.

That system was gone now.

The Sterlings weren’t wealthy. Arthur had a mediocre corporate job, and my parents lived on a modest pension. The real income-the money that kept their comfortable lifestyle running-had always come from my freelance accounts.

They’d coasted on my scholarships through school, lived off my freelance income after. Now that money

had vanished overnight.

Her parents couldn’t come close to funding the lifestyle Chloe thought she deserved.

And when Chloe got into trouble-shoplifting, fender benders, whatever else – there was no one left to take

the fall.

Weeks later, Mom opened the bedroom door out of habit-and found it buried in trash. There wasn’t a clean

inch of floor.

She’d forgotten. I wasn’t coming back to clean it up this time.

Everything Chloe dragged in – they’d have to deal with it themselves now.

“Julian, why haven’t you touched me lately?”

Across the hotel room, Julian sat staring at a stack of maxed-out credit cards, jaw tight.

She still had that face – almost the same, close enough – and her voice was sweet. But the pull was gone.

The more time he spent with her, the more he saw what was underneath: entitled, reckless, impossible to

please.

And the quiet one – the gentle one – hadn’t been there in a long time.

Julian turned the wedding ring over between his fingers, and something he couldn’t name settled heavy in his chest. Beside him, Chloe’s patience snapped.

“Julian, who are you pretending for?”

“The night before your engagement party, you dragged me to bed. You would’ve kept me up all night if I

hadn’t passed out from exhaustion, right?”

“So who exactly are you missing right now?”

“What did you just say?”

Julian whipped around so fast Chloe flinched. And then her words caught up with him – and every nerve in his body went cold.

The woman he had pinned to the mattress that night wasn’t Chloe.

Clara had been awake for everything. Every word he’d whispered in the dark-she’d been right there.

His chest seized like something had reached in and squeezed. The memories flooded back – everything he’d

said, everything she’d had to lie there and hear.

That morning when she’d asked him to choose, when she’d stared at him through the screen with those steady, empty eyes. And the engagement, where she hadn’t fought, hadn’t cried, hadn’t done a single thing. She’d already known. She’d already decided.

She’d given up on him before the day even started.

He pressed his palms into his skull. Then his phone lit up. Arthur.

“We just checked with the authorities-Clara legally erased herself. She wiped her identity completely off the grid. She’s gone.”

Arthur sounded like he’d been running.

“Her apartment downtown-she broke the lease and cleared it out. Every single cent in her accounts was transferred to an anonymous children’s charity. All of it.”

Every trail led to the same conclusion. She hadn’t just left – she’d erased herself.

“Julian, what else aren’t you telling me? Did Clara know about you and Chloe? Is that why she “His voice cracked. “Is that why she didn’t fight it?”

“She thought you were the one person she could count on. And you

He couldn’t finish.

”

Maybe Julian had been the final blow. But what about the rest of them?

A lifetime of neglect, years of choosing Chloe over Clara, a decade of making her carry every burden alone- who did that? Not Julian. Them.

Months passed, and the household was in shambles. Their parents spent every day sighing, overwhelmed, barely keeping it together.

How had everything fallen apart this fast?

“Arthur, don’t fall for this. She’s doing it on purpose – playing the victim so you’ll feel sorry for her –

“Shut up!”

For the first time, they turned on Chloe. Told her to get out. But the person they’d actually thrown away – the

one they should’ve been screaming over – was never coming back.

I wasn’t going back. I wasn’t even thinking about going back. Because in this world, I was about to get

married.