Ten minutes before the ceremony, I shoved a handful of condoms into my best friend’s chest. Dustin caught them with a grin, making a crude joke about how he wasn't going to survive the honeymoon at this rate. Beside him, Carlin didn't say a word. But there was a shift in her eyes—something dark, something I couldn't quite read. Once Dustin walked out to join the groomsmen, she turned to the vanity mirror, adjusting her diamond drop earrings. Her voice was terrifyingly casual when she finally spoke. She told me she was the one marrying him today. She added that they were going to use every single one of those condoms tonight. I just stood there, the air knocked out of my lungs. Seeing my frozen expression, she laughed, a breezy, practiced sound, and told me she’d explain everything after the ceremony. The next hour felt like someone had hit fast-forward on my life, blurring the edges of my reality until nothing made sense. I stood in my tailored suit, anchored to the spot of the Best Man, and watched the two most important people in my world walk down the aisle together. Under the glow of the stained glass, the officiant spoke. They exchanged rings. They became husband and wife. … 1 I had imagined a million different endings for me and Carlin. This wasn't one of them. Which was why, after the reception, when she and Dustin knelt on the carpet of the bridal suite, I felt entirely hollow. Carlin was still in her wedding gown, a faint, angry hickey blooming just above her collarbone. She was begging for my forgiveness. Looking down at her, a memory crashed into me. Ten years ago. She had dropped to her knees just like this, refusing to get up until I promised I wouldn't leave her. Ten years. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days. That’s how long I spent pulling her out of the suffocating, catatonic trauma that had locked her inside her own mind. And this was how she repaid me. By kicking me out of my own life. The door clicked shut. Dustin shifted his weight, kneeling right beside her. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. I could read the quiet, sickening triumph in his eyes. "How long?" I asked. My voice sounded flat. Foreign. Like I was asking about the weather. "Dustin’s fiancée bailed on him," Carlin said quickly, her hands twisting the expensive lace of her skirt. "I was just doing him a favor. The invitations were sent. His parents flew all the way to Boston for this, Wes. He couldn't bear to break their hearts…" Right. So my parents and I had to be the ones to take the hit. "Wes, come on, man. We’re brothers. Just do me this one solid." Dustin reached out, tugging at the crease of my slacks. His eyes were red, playing the pathetic victim to absolute perfection. "There's nothing going on between me and Carlin. I swear." I tuned out the pathetic whining. I pulled out my phone and opened his Instagram. Thank you, C, for keeping me grounded... The caption sat below a photo of two silhouettes tandem bungee jumping. That was posted the weekend I got into that minor car wreck. The weekend Carlin told me she was at a medical conference in Chicago. I scrolled down. Two glasses of red wine, dim candlelight, and two hands intertwined across a linen tablecloth. She hadn't even bothered to take off the engagement ring I gave her. Swipe after swipe, the digital footprint pieced together a version of Carlin I didn't even know. Bubble tea runs. Viral downtown bakeries. Gourmet chocolate tastings. Whenever I suggested those things, her brow would furrow, and she’d brush me off with a sharp, “I don’t like sugar, Wes.” But for Dustin, she tried it all. Carlin was a notoriously brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon at Boston General. She treated her hands like million-dollar assets. She despised dirt, germs, and anything domestic. Yet, there was a photo of her wearing a flour-dusted apron, standing by a stove. My face flushed hot, a phantom fever burning beneath my skin. Two winters ago, I had the flu so bad I couldn't stand. I asked her to make me some soup. She had stood in the doorway of our bedroom, completely detached. “I’m a surgeon, Wes. My hands don't belong in a kitchen. Just Postmates something.” I had accepted it. I had spent ten years accepting her cold, clinical nature, assuming that was just who she was. So I ordered delivery, shivering under the duvet, listening to her murmur on the phone in her home office. Her tone had been so soft. So careful. I thought I was hallucinating from the fever back then. Now I knew I was just a blind idiot. The shock had burned off, leaving behind a vast, numbing wasteland. I shoved the phone screen inches from Dustin's face. "You call me your brother," I whispered. "And this is how you repay me?" I didn't wait for him to scramble for a lie. I turned my head, locking eyes with the woman I had built my entire twenties around. "If you two want each other so badly, fine. You can have him." 2 I ignored Carlin shouting my name. I walked out of the hotel, the heavy Boston rain hitting the pavement and my phone buzzing incessantly in my pocket. Every chime felt like a hammer taken to the last fragile pieces of my sanity. Years ago, Margaret Olivia—Carlin's grandmother—had bailed my father’s firm out of bankruptcy. Ever since I was a kid, the narrative was drilled into me: We owe the Olivias. When Carlin’s mind fractured in her teens, when she violently pushed everyone away, I was the one who stayed. I would plaster on a smile, sit outside her locked door, and say, "I’m not going anywhere, C. I promised your grandmother I'd stay." But I couldn't stay anymore. [Wes, I already explained everything. What more do you want?] [Please don't be mad. You’ve been wanting to get married, right? We'll go to City Hall tomorrow. Just us.] The burn in my throat hit faster than the tears. My vision blurred. Her mental health had stabilized years ago. She became a doctor, a prodigy in the OR. She’d press her warm face into my neck in the middle of the night. She’d buy me expensive watches. I thought those were the signs that I had finally won her heart. I started bringing up marriage. [Give it time, Wes. My family is a medical dynasty. I need to become Chief of Surgery first.] [I just made attending. I barely have time to sleep, let alone plan a wedding. Next year, okay?] She had even grabbed my shoulders once, looking at me with pure frustration. "Dustin is your best friend. He’s out there grinding, trying to get his fellowship, trying to make a real mark in medicine. Why are you only obsessed with a ring?" I hadn't thought it was strange back then. I thought it was nice that two people I loved, who usually bickered, were finally getting along. I had even smiled like a fool and said, "Dustin grew up with nothing, C. Look out for him at the hospital for me, will you?" She hadn't said yes. But behind my back, she gave him everything. In just two years, Dustin’s career skyrocketed. He somehow afforded a luxury condo in the Seaport District on a resident's salary. I had actually bought a bottle of Macallan and dragged Carlin over to his place to celebrate. God, I was stupid. I scrubbed my face hard, trying to wipe away the wetness on my cheeks and the pathetic memories of the last decade. I pulled up a text thread and typed a message to Margaret Olivia. "Mrs. Olivia, the Gustave family’s debt is paid in full. I am leaving Carlin." When I finally got back to our apartment, Carlin was already sitting on the leather sofa. There was a velvet box resting on the coffee table. A diamond ring inside. Our eyes met. She stood up, exhaling a soft, tired sigh. "Wes, Dustin is up for a massive promotion. We’re going to get our license tomorrow. I even bought the ring. Just... stop throwing a tantrum." Not 'marry me.' But 'stop throwing a tantrum.' I looked at the ring. It was a custom Tiffany setting. The exact one I had seen sparkling in the background of Dustin’s Instagram posts. She gave him the wedding of a lifetime. She gave me the leftovers. I stared at her. Looked at the face I had secretly painted a hundred times, the face I had carved into my heart since I was eighteen. I let out a soft, broken laugh. "I'm not throwing a tantrum. I won't get in the way of his promotion, either. Because I’m not marrying you. Get out." Carlin only heard the first half of my sentence. She stepped into my space, wrapping her arms around my waist, pressing her chin against my chest. Her voice held that familiar, confident hum—the sound of a woman who knew she always won. "Let's just go to sleep. Tomorrow, wake up and post something on your socials. Clear the air for Dustin." I froze. "Clear what air?" Her arms didn't loosen, but I felt her brow furrow against my shirt, as if calculating the easiest way to manipulate me. "Just put out a statement saying Dustin and I have been dating for a while, and that you... well, that you were the one who got in the middle of it. It’s the only way to save his reputation." A violent shudder ripped through my chest. I stared blindly at the wall behind her. Those red lips had kissed me a thousand times. They had whispered things in the dark that made my heart race. Now, every single syllable she spoke was a scalpel gutting me alive. I choked back the bile rising in my throat, grabbed her arms, and shoved her away. "What about my reputation? Does that mean nothing to you?" She stumbled back, blinking in genuine surprise. She wasn't used to me saying no. She let out a small, condescending chuckle. "Wes, Dustin isn't like you. He grew up in foster care. He had to claw his way up from the bottom. You’re his best friend. You should be willing to take a hit for him." Should? On what grounds? When Dustin’s undergrad tuition bounced and the university was going to expel him, I drained my savings to pay it. Senior year, when he got mixed up with local dealers and owed money, I was the one who took the beatings to protect him. I brought him home, fed him, and introduced him to everyone as my brother. When no residency program would take him because his test scores were trash, I swallowed my pride and begged Carlin to pull strings at Boston Gen. Dustin had cried that night, burying his face in his hands. "You’re my savior, Wes. I owe you my life." I didn't realize paying me back meant sleeping with my fiancé. I exhaled a ragged breath, lifting my chin to look the woman I loved dead in the eye. "Carlin. I don't owe you. And I sure as hell don't owe Dustin. Walking away quietly and letting you two have each other is the absolute limit of my grace." "I will never admit to being the other man. Ever." 3 I turned on my heel, ready to pack a bag and leave. Her voice pinned me straight to the floorboards. "Think about the photos, Wes. Do you really want those seeing the light of day?" The silence in the apartment became deafening. I turned around slowly, looking at the ice-cold mask on Carlin’s face. Instantly, my mind violently dragged me back to when I was nineteen. I remembered her holding my bruised, bleeding body, shaking uncontrollably as she cried into my hair. Her mental breakdown had been at its worst that year. I spent my days chasing her around the house, trying to force her to eat, to take her meds. One afternoon, she bolted out the front door. I chased her for blocks into a bad neighborhood. Someone grabbed me from behind. Dragged me into an alley. A hand clamped over my mouth. The tearing of clothes. The suffocating weight. I never saw their faces. I couldn't count how many there were. When Carlin finally found me, she lost her mind. She held me tight, chanting apologies, promising she would fix it. Later, holding my trembling hand, she swore she had used her family’s money to bury the attackers. She swore she had bought and destroyed the photos they took. She looked into my eyes and promised that her entire life belonged to me now. And now, for the sake of another man's career, she was holding my deepest, ugliest trauma over my head. Seeing the blood drain from my face, a flicker of hesitation crossed Carlin’s eyes, but she ruthlessly buried it. She softened her voice, stepping back into the role of a soothing doctor. "Just post the statement, Wes. I’ll handle the rest. We’ll get married. We’ll have kids. I will be your wife…" "And if I say no?" "Think of your parents. Your father’s heart condition can’t handle a public scandal…" She didn't finish the threat. She didn't need to. We spent the rest of the night in suffocating silence. She went to bed, confident I would cave. I always caved. Every argument we ever had ended with me swallowing my pride and crawling back to her. When I turned on my phone the next morning, my notifications exploded. Dustin was trending locally. Boston surgeon exposed in shocking love triangle. Before I could even process the headlines, Carlin kicked the bedroom door open. "Wes, Dustin is your brother! How could you smear him like this? You ruined his name!" Her eyes were bloodshot. She didn't give me a chance to speak. She grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me down to the parking garage, driving us straight to the hospital. When I stumbled out of her Porsche, my knee smashed into the heavy car door. I gasped in pain. She didn't even turn around. I watched her sprinting toward the hospital entrance, and a broken laugh bubbled up in my chest. Her hand had always felt so tight, so warm in mine. But now, I felt like I was free-falling into a black void. The main lobby of Boston Gen had been turned into an impromptu press pen. Dustin sat at a folding table, his shoulders slumped, his eyes red-rimmed and tragic. Carlin rushed past the cameras, shoving me straight into the swarm of reporters, and ran to his side. A dozen microphones were shoved into my face. "Mr. Gustave! Dr. Dustin claims you suffered severe sexual trauma years ago, leading to psychological instability. Is that why you lashed out at his wedding yesterday?" "Is it true you’ve been stalking Dr. Olivia, despite knowing she and Dr. Dustin have been deeply in love for years? Were you trying to break them up?" "You two grew up together. How do you justify trying to steal your best friend's fiancée? Have you no shame?" The blood roared in my ears, hot and violent. I stared at Carlin in pure, unadulterated horror. She promised me. She swore on her life she would never breathe a word of the alleyway to anyone. How did Dustin know? Before the math could click in my brain, the "brother" who swore he owed me his life looked up from the table. A vicious, phantom smile ghosted across his lips. A second later, the large digital display behind the reception desk flared to life. It was my face. Pale, terrified, tear-streaked. And my body. Covered in dark, violent bruises and dirty handprints. 4 The lobby erupted. The sound of camera shutters sounded like machine-gun fire, mixing with the sickening whispers all around me. "Jesus, he’s damaged goods. Using his family money to harass Dr. Olivia? Disgusting." "If he hadn't shown up and ruined the reception yesterday, Dr. Dustin wouldn't have been forced to expose him..." My throat felt like it was packed with broken glass. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I couldn't scream the truth. I couldn't scream that I was the one kept a secret in the dark. Carlin materialized beside me. Her voice was a soft, lethal whisper meant only for me. "It’s done. Just apologize." "Your reputation is already dead," she continued smoothly. "So protect Dustin’s. I keep my promises, Wes. I’ll still marry you." I stared at her for a long time before I managed to force a sound past my teeth. "He broadcasts my rape to the world... he destroys my life... and you want me to apologize to him?" Carlin frowned, shaking her head as if I was the one being unreasonable. "Dustin is just protecting his career. What else was he supposed to do?" "Besides, these photos are real. He didn't forge them. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at your own bad luck." Fury, suffocation, and a hatred so pure it terrified me collided in my chest. My knees buckled. I swayed on my feet, about to scream, when a sharp, desperate voice cut through the chaos. "Wes! Is this true? Have you been harassing Carlin and this doctor?" My heart stopped. My father stood at the edge of the crowd, clutching his chest. His face was ash gray. Before I could move, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. My mother shrieked, a gut-wrenching, animal sound. "David!" I shoved through the reporters, throwing myself onto the marble floor beside him. Before I could even touch him, a sharp slap cracked across my face, snapping my head to the side. My mother stood over me, her hand trembling. "This is your fault! If you hadn't done these vile things, your father wouldn't be dying!" She dropped to her knees, abandoning me to crawl toward Carlin, grabbing the hem of her lab coat. "Carlin, please! You’re a surgeon. Save him! Please save your Uncle David!" Carlin didn't move. She didn't call for a crash cart. She just stood there, her cold eyes locked onto mine. Dustin leaned in, whispering loud enough for the mics to catch. "Carlin, don't hold Wes’s psychotic behavior against his parents. Just help Mr. Gustave." Carlin looked at him, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "No. Wes has to publicly apologize first. He has to admit he tried to ruin our relationship. Otherwise, your reputation will be permanently scarred, and I won't allow that." She wouldn't allow his reputation to be scarred. But she would watch my father die on the floor. "Wes! What are you waiting for?!" My mother screamed, the sound tearing through the lobby. She grabbed my hair, shaking me. "Say it! Are you going to watch your father die?!" I looked at my dad. His lips were turning blue. White foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. We were out of time. I swallowed the metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry," I rasped. "I shouldn't have gotten between you two." "That’s it?" a reporter yelled from the back. "You drove Dr. Dustin to the brink of ruin, and you just say sorry? Get on your knees and show some remorse!" The crowd murmured in vicious agreement. Carlin stood completely still. Silent approval. My mother, frantic and terrified, kicked me in the shin. She slapped my face again, twice, the smacks echoing off the walls. "Kneel! Hit yourself! Do you want your father to die?!" she sobbed, completely unhinged by panic. I looked at her. I looked at the blue tint spreading across my father’s cheeks. I slowly closed my eyes. I raised my hand and brought it down hard across my own cheek. Then again. And again. My face was entirely numb. My soul was entirely numb. The only thing I felt were the hot tears hitting the back of my hand, dripping onto the marble floor. Drop. Drop. SMASH. A silver-headed cane came flying out of nowhere, cracking violently over Carlin’s skull. A voice, sharp as a guillotine and cold as ice, boomed through the lobby. "Carlin Olivia! Take your little homewrecker and get out of my hospital! Get out of my family!" "As of this moment, Wesley Gustave is my grandson, and the sole heir to the Olivia estate!"
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