Grandma Faked Dementia So My Sister Could Steal My Fiancé. Chapter 08

Grandma Faked Dementia So My Sister Could Steal My Fiancé. Chapter 08

A month later, my company approved my overseas assignment.

London. Six months.

My palms started to sweat when I saw the email.

Before, my first thought would’ve been, What about my family?

Now I could think only one thing: I was finally going far away.

That afternoon, Ethan texted me.

“The wedding planner says part of the deposit can’t be refunded. They need your signature to close everything out.”

I replied, “Talk to my attorney.”

He called almost immediately.

I answered.

He sounded exhausted. “Claire, do we really have to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Put everything through attorneys. We were together five years. It doesn’t have to get this ugly.”

I looked at the project schedule on my computer screen.

“Did it feel ugly when you were sleeping with Lily?”

Silence.

After a long time, he said, “Lily and I are done.”

I didn’t answer.

He rushed on, “I mean it. After that night, I realized she’s not who I thought she was.”

“She cries, picks fights, goes through my phone. She wanted me to make us public immediately,

and I can’t exactly explain any of this to my parents.”

I laughed once.

“So you’re back because she stopped being convenient?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

His voice dropped.

“I miss you.”

I closed my eyes.

If he’d said it earlier, I might have softened.

Now it sounded empty.

“Ethan, you don’t miss me.”

“You miss the fiancee who planned the wedding, figured out the mortgage, remembered both families’ birthdays, looked after both families, and made you look like you had your life together.’

He cut in quickly. “That’s not true. I know I screwed up. I just… being with you felt like so much

pressure.”

“Pressure from what?”

He didn’t answer.

So I answered for him.

“I was saving for the condo down payment. I was planning the wedding. I was buying birthday gifts for your parents. And I was handling every mess in my own family alone.”

“The pressure was looking at me and realizing I wasn’t carefree.”

“Did you ever stop to wonder why?”

All I heard was his breathing.

I continued, “Lily seems carefree because someone else pays her tuition, gives her spending

money, and catches her when she falls. She doesn’t deal with bills. She doesn’t deal with an aging

relative.”

“You didn’t fall in love with her.”

“You fell in love with how it felt not to be responsible for anything.”

His voice went hoarse. “Claire, can I see you? Just once?”

“No.”

“I know I was wrong.”

“You know losing me makes your life harder. You still don’t understand how badly you hurt me.

I hung up.

Then I blocked his number.

That night, Lily texted me from an unfamiliar number.

“Claire, are you happy now? Ethan won’t even talk to me, Mom and Dad fight every day, and Grandma got sick because of all this.”

I stared at the message.

Then replied, “That’s your life.”

She sent another. “Are you really this cold?”

I typed, “Not compared to the circus you all have going.”

Sent.

Blocked.

Not long after that, Robert called from another number.

He said Grandma had fallen and told me to come home immediately.

I told him to send me the diagnosis from the hospital.

He hesitated, then admitted they hadn’t taken her to a hospital yet.

“Then call 911 first.”

He called me heartless.

I hung up.

Half an hour later, Diane sent a photo.

Grandma was sitting on the couch with her slippers beside her, looking perfectly fine.

I sent money for a caregiver.

Memo: Grandma’s care, this month.

Nothing else.

After I sent it, I didn’t feel relieved.

I didn’t feel triumphant either.

Just calm.

Like I’d finally drawn a clean line through years of tangled accounts.