My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 02

My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 02

In the cab, the driver glanced back at me, surprised.

“You’re gorgeous. Where’s the groom?”

Something tightened in my throat.

Six months ago, headquarters had sent down the transfer offer for the first time.

Preston had held me all night with red eyes, talking me into staying.

“We’re already planning the wedding. How could you leave me now?”

And now he had handed a wedding we’d spent a year planning to somebody else without blinking.

Back at the rental, I started packing.

Preston’s things and Phoebe’s things had been moved into the new house a long time ago, and only mine were still in the old place.

Maybe I had never belonged in that new life with them.

In the study, Preston’s safe was still there, the one he’d never given me the code to.

Without really thinking, I typed in Phoebe’s birthday.

It opened.

Inside was a prenatal test result, and whatever hope I had left died right there.

The date on it was the same day my mother had gone in for surgery three months ago.

The surgery ran ten hours, and five separate times they came out to tell me she might not make it.

I cried until my eyes swelled shut, and I called Preston more than twenty times.

All I got back was four words. Preston: [Busy. I’ll come later.]

He hadn’t been busy. I had been behind Phoebe in line.

Another message from Preston came in.

Preston: [I ordered you medicine and some soup. Be mad if you want, but don’t take it out on your body.]

Preston: [I’ll explain the Phoebe situation when I’m back. I only looked out for her because of you.]

No amount of looking out for a friend ended with a baby.

That evening, I dragged my suitcase out the door.

A tube of burn cream sat on the step, and the soup in the takeout bag beside it had gone cold.

It was shrimp bisque, Phoebe’s favorite.

And it wasn’t only the soup. Everything in that new house, from the whole design down to the color of the toothbrushes, was what she liked.

Even the smart lock had her fingerprint in it before mine.

It was as if she were the woman of that house.

Downstairs, Phoebe stopped me. She was wearing the reception dress I had picked out myself.

The dress had never fit me right, and on her it fit perfectly.

“Serena, do you have to be like this? Preston and I hate seeing you this way.”

Once, I would have believed her.

When Preston and I first got together, I took three part-time jobs to save up for a trip.

I handed out flyers on the street through a blizzard in the middle of winter, and that night I spiked a fever.

Phoebe stayed up all night taking care of me, and then she pushed her scholarship money into my hands for the trip.

I found out later that the money was almost everything she had to live on.

She ate one meal a day after that, and her blood sugar dropped so low that she fell down a flight of stairs. She still had the scar at the corner of her eye.

So no matter how much of Preston’s attention went to Phoebe, I swallowed it.

Looking back, I had been an idiot.

I’d been stupid enough to let every one of them play me.

I stood where I was, said nothing, and booked the flight I’d been looking at.