The Day My Husband Called Me His Sister Chapter 07

The Day My Husband Called Me His Sister Chapter 07

It took one week to put together Adrian and Evelyn’s wedding.

A dress. A venue. Flowers.

The night after the wedding, Adrian came back to the apartment looking lighter than he had in weeks.

I looked at the photos.

The sky had been overcast that day.

Evelyn had gotten so thin. Her collarbones jutted against the neckline of the gown, sharp enough to cut. She

looked like she’d shatter if you touched her.

Adrian stood next to her in a navy suit, staring into the camera like a man running on fumes.

Neither of them was smiling.

The next day, Adrian picked me up after work like always.

The engine wasn’t on yet.

I stared through the windshield.

“I’m pregnant.”

Adrian’s hand was still on the seatbelt buckle. He went completely still.

Then he turned to face me, and his whole face changed.

“…What? Say that again.”

His voice was shaking. He couldn’t keep the hope out of it.

“How far along? Are you feeling okay? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

His hand was already on my stomach. His palm was warm.

“No, you need to quit. Quit tomorrow. Actually, no, I’ll call Nolan tonight. You should be home resting. I’ll take

care of everything…”

“I already got an abortion.” I let the words land.

The sound died in his throat.

While he’d spent the week planning a wedding, I’d spent it going back and forth to the hospital.

Adrian’s eyes went glassy. He couldn’t breathe.

I looked him in the eye and smiled.

“The brother thing is cute as a fantasy. But nobody actually dates their brother in real life. Let alone have his

baby.”

Adrian’s hand slid off my stomach and dropped to his side.

Everything in his face collapsed at once. What was left was nothing.

“…No.” His voice was wrecked.

“I’m not your brother. I’m not your brother.”

“That baby… it’s mine. It’s ours. I’m your husband.”

His eyes filled.

“Listen to me. You don’t remember because of the amnesia, but we’re the ones who are married. Three years. We’ve never fought. We’re good together. We’ve wanted this baby for so long. That was our baby. You just

don’t remember…”

Adrian started the car.

“We’re going home. You’ll see. Once we’re there, you’ll believe me. Our wedding photos are there. Your clothes, your things, everything. It’ll all prove I’m your husband.”

He turned the wheel sharply. The car lurched onto the main road through a curtain of rain.

At the house, Adrian dragged me to the bedroom and pointed at the photo on the wall.

“Look.”

We stood in front of it. The two of us, standing there like a warped reflection of the happy couple in the

frame.

“This is our home. That’s you in the white dress. You’re my wife.”

“Evelyn isn’t my wife. I was just… I was going along with her. I’d already turned her down, over and over. She took pills. She hurt herself. I didn’t tell you because I was scared it would upset you. Scared it would ruin

what we had. Scared she’d completely fall apart and come after you.”

“The day of your accident, I was at the hospital with her for a checkup. And when you woke up and said you

didn’t remember me, I thought…”

He closed his eyes.

“Maybe this was my only chance to let Evelyn have some peace at the end. And as long as you didn’t

remember, you wouldn’t have to be hurt.”

I watched his face. He was barely holding himself together.

“I know.”

Adrian froze.

“You… you remember?”

“I didn’t remember. I never forgot.” I held his gaze. “You knew that better than anyone. Didn’t you?”

“You’re so smart. And you’re better than anyone at lying to yourself.”

Neither of us had ever been good at pretending.

He’d just chosen to believe it.

Because as long as the lie held, he could have it both ways and pretend nobody was getting hurt.

If nobody said it out loud, the lie could pass for the truth.

“Adrian, in your life, I come after your debt. After your guilt. After your duty. After everything I can’t see or fight, everything that matters more to you than I do.”

“I’ll always come last, right?”

“No.” Adrian was shaking his head before the word was even out. “No, you don’t come last.”

“Then why have you never chosen me?”

Adrian’s eyes shut. A sound came out of him, barely human.

“Because I don’t have a choice. Evelyn is dying, and Mr. Hawthorne…”

“Then you’ve already chosen.” I cut him off. “Because I’m not dying, I don’t matter? Because I’m the one who’ll

survive, I’m the one who has to suffer?”

“You think I want to be this person?”

His voice cracked open, raw and ugly, nothing like I’d ever heard from him.

“You think I like this? Being torn between two people every single day? You think I don’t hate myself? I know

what I am: a hypocrite, a coward, a man who pretends he’s decent. I know all of it. But I have never, not for

one second, stopped loving you. Why can’t you see that?”

I was shouting now too. “You hid her from me. You hid the apartment. You hid five years of taking care of an

ex who could die any day. Is that love? Is that what love looks like to you?”

“Then tell me what does!”

“Tell me at the start. Say, ‘There’s something in my life that comes before everything: before marriage, before

us, before all of it. Can you live with that?’ And then let me decide. Give me the choice!”

“But you decided for me. You decided when it started and when it stopped. I was never part of the

conversation. I was just told what was happening after the fact.” My voice broke. “Do you actually love me?

Or do you just think I’ll never leave?”

The argument ran out of air. All that was left was the sound of two people trying to breathe.

It was the first time we’d ever fought.

There was so much more we could have said. So many ways left to hurt each other.

When Adrian finally spoke again, his voice was barely there.

“Is it because of him?”

I stared. “Who?”

“Nolan. He’s younger than me. More fun than me. Freer than me.”

Adrian looked up at me, eyes wrecked. “You like him better. Don’t you? But he’s known you for a few weeks. How much of that is real? How much is just… new?”

“What if it isn’t?” I smiled, exhausted. “Wouldn’t it be something if the fake thing turned out to be real?” I looked at him. “And wouldn’t it be worse if the real thing turned out to be full of fakes?”

Adrian’s whole body trembled.

He sank to the floor. Covered his face with both hands.

“I’m sorry… You went through that alone… It must have hurt so much…”

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t have the strength to read his face anymore.

The love and the resentment were tangled in the same knot. I couldn’t cut one without destroying the other.

Adrian looked up at me. His face was wet.

“I love you,” he said.

I nodded. “I know. That’s why I have to go.”

“You love me this much, and you still put me through hell.”

“What happens the day you stop?”

“Adrian, I’d rather die than look stupid. You know that about me.”

There were red flags for everything. The universe had already shown me mine.

So I left early. While I still had my dignity.