My Best Friend Took My Man. I Gave Her the Whole Ceremony Chapter 08

My Best Friend Took My Man. I Gave Her the Whole Ceremony Chapter 08

She remembered the way I’d looked at her, soft and knowing, like I was savoring something for the last time.

A sealed white envelope was pinned to the dress. My handwriting on the front.

For Ethan and Valerie. No one else.

Ethan pulled it free. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold it. It took him three tries to rip it open.

The first lines were steady, careful. By the end, the handwriting had fallen apart, shaky and barely legible, like I’d used the last of my strength just to finish.

[If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. Please don’t be angry that I did it alone. I didn’t want anyone watching me at the end. I know about the two of you. Please don’t feel guilty. I mean that. I want you to grow old together. I’ve donated half the Albright estate to charity and left the other half to you and Valerie. This makes us even.]

The last line was pressed so hard into the paper it nearly tore through. [We owe each other nothing.]

Grief slammed into Ethan like a wall. His throat locked. The only sounds that came out were broken and guttural—not words, not even close.

“Clara.” Valerie’s voice was barely a whisper.

Ethan’s eyes drifted to the dress, and the memory of that day at the bridal shop came crashing back.

He’d screamed at me. Defended Valerie. Lost his mind over a dress.

And the whole time, he hadn’t seen what was right in front of him—my bone-thin wrists, my face draining whiter by the day.

The reunion. That was the last time. The realization hit him like a blow to the chest. That was the last time he ever saw me.

And he hadn’t even spoken a kind word. He’d hit me.

The room tilted. Something in his chest felt like it was being crushed, slow and deliberate, and there was no way to make it stop.

His body gave out before his mind did. He collapsed.

When he came to, he was in a hospital bed. Valerie was beside him.

Ethan shoved her aside, shattered the water glass on the nightstand, and took a jagged edge to his wrist.

Blood spattered across Valerie’s face. She screamed.

“Ethan, stop! What are you doing?”

She clamped both hands over his wrist, screaming for a nurse.

Ethan stared at the ceiling. His face was gray, his eyes empty, like everything that had ever kept him here had snapped.

“Ethan, Clara’s still in Oakhaven. She’s waiting for us to come get her. We have to bring her home.”

Something flickered behind his dead eyes. Faint. But there.

I never imagined the three of us would make it here like this.

We’d made a promise once, a trip, all three of us, together. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

When they were handed my urn, some part of them was still bargaining. Still hoping.

Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t really me.

Then the facility director played my final recording, and whatever they’d been holding together shattered.

I was lying in the bed, looking straight into the camera. My voice was steady. “My name is Clara. I’m here by choice.”

Midway through, my face contorted on screen from a sudden surge of pain, I think. I remember the pain almost broke through, almost pulled a sob out of me.

“I don’t want to spend whatever’s left just surviving. I want to go while I still get to choose.”

“If you can, bury me under my mother’s white roses. It’ll be like she’s holding me again.”

The IV carried the medication into my arm, slow and steady.

“Goodnight.”

The last thing I did, as the warmth started pulling me under, was answer Valerie’s call.

Valerie broke. She threw herself at the wall, screaming, clawing at her own arms until someone pulled her back.