“I’m sorry, Miss Nadine Smith, but we can’t issue a copy of this marriage certificate because you were never legally married to Mr. Scott Jones.”
I blinked at the woman behind the counter. I clutched my hands together until my nails dug into my palms.
“That’s… that’s not possible. I’m Mrs. Nadine Jones. I just need a reprint. I accidentally spilled coffee all over the old copy when I was cleaning my husband Scott’s office.”
The clerk’s polite smile never faltered. She pushed her glasses up her nose, tapped a few keys, and turned the screen slightly my way – a blur of lines and legal text I couldn’t focus
- on. “Miss Smith. ”
I felt my breath catch. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. “No. You don’t understand. He told me he registered it after the church ceremony was postponed. He showed me the certificate. I’ve been living with him for three years. We’re married.”
Her voice softened, like she was explaining something to a child who couldn’t grasp their numbers yet. “Miss Smith, I can’t change what the records say. Mr. Jones is married but not to you. He’s been legally married for three years to a woman named Jasmine Rivera. Does that name mean anything to you?”
My knees nearly buckled. Jasmine. Of course I knew her. How could I not? She was my best friend. So, how come?
I stumbled away from the counter, mumbling something that probably sounded like thank you but tasted like acid in my mouth.
my world I don’t even remember how I got home. One moment I was standing there with split open like rotten fruit, the next I was climbing the marble stairs of Scott’s estate on autopilot, my palms still sticky from gripping the steering wheel too hard.
Three years ago, I was supposed to marry Scott in that white church on the hill. My mother had picked the flowers. Jasmine had helped me choose the dress. And then the news came: Jasmine had been pushed from a rooftop by one of Scott’s enemies who’d wanted to hurt him and they thought she was me. They thought she was the woman he truly loved. But she wasn’t supposed to be there. It was supposed to be me.
She survived, if you can even call it that. I still see her lying on those silk sheets, eyes half–open but never seeing. Her brother Condor moved into the estate too because he was also sick. Scott said we owed it to her. I believed him. I believed everything he told me.
I spent three years nursing my best friend, scrubbing her skin with warm cloths, combing out the tangles in her hair. Feeding her, talking to her, praying she’d come back to me. I cooked for Scott, smiled when he kissed my forehead, accepted that he couldn’t touch me more because he was stressed. I believed was his wife. I let him show me that piece of paper and never questioned it again.
Stupid. So stupid.
I was halfway down the hallway when I heard their voices – Scott’s low, calm baritone and
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hat need the house we dress, All then the new- came: Jasmine had been pushed from a rooftop by one of Scott’s enemies who’d wanted to hurt him and they thought she was me. They thought she was the woman he truly loved. But she wasn’t supposed to be there. It was supposed to be me.
She survived, if you can even call it that. I still see her lying on those silk sheets, eyes half–open but never seeing. Her brother Condor moved into the estate too because he was also sick. Scott said we owed it to her. I believed him. I believed everything he told me.
I spent three years nursing my best friend, scrubbing her skin with warm cloths, combing out the tangles in her hair. Feeding her, talking to her, praying she’d come back to me. I cooked for Scott, smiled when he kissed my forehead, accepted that he couldn’t touch me more because he was stressed. I believed I was his wife. I let him show me that piece of paper and never questioned it again.
Stupid. So stupid.
I was halfway down the hallway when I heard their voices
–
Scott’s low, calm baritone and
Condor’s quieter hum. The door to the study was cracked open. I should’ve walked away. Instead I froze.
“…I really want to thank you for everything, Scott. For Jasmine. For me,” Condor was saying.
“Come on, Condor,” Scott said, that warm laugh I used to believe in. “You know how much I love your sister. Not a day goes by I don’t regret what happened. It wasn’t supposed to be her who got pushed. It was supposed to be Nadine. That’s why I married her – to fool them into thinking she was the one I loved. To keep the enemy away from Jasmine.”
My breath snagged in my throat. I pressed my back to the cold wall. My ears rang so loudly I almost didn’t hear Condor’s next question.
“What if Nadine finds out? What if she leaves?”
Scott scoffed. “Nadine? She’ll never find out. She doesn’t even know our marriage is fake. And even if she did… she loves me too much to ever leave. You know she followed me for twenty years? Like a lost puppy. I pitied her. That’s why I decided to use her. So I married her.”
I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough to feel my face go numb, my legs go weak. I stumbled down the hallway like a ghost in my own house. Not mine, I corrected myself. Nothing here was mine. Not even him.
When I reached my room, I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I picked up my phone, fingers shaking so hard I almost dropped it twice. I scrolled to the only number that mattered now.
My mother’s voice answered on the second ring. “Nadine? Sweetheart? What is it?”
“Mom,” I said, my voice so calm it scared me. “About the marriage you were arranging for me before… the one I turned down because I said I loved Scott?”
“Yes…?”
‘Arrange it again,” I whispered, my throat raw, my heart breaking wide open for the last time. “I’m coming home. Please. I’m done here.”
CL–41
