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My Fiancée Faked My Terminal Illness—Then Planned a Wedding Without Me
Novelix
new
已完結
Three days before his wedding, Aaron finds a spreadsheet documenting five years of elaborate pranks played on him by his fiancée Chloe, his oldest friend Ryan, and even his sister. They forged a term...
章節（3）
第1章
Three days before my wedding, I opened my fiancée's laptop and found a shared spreadsheet.
The title was: *Operation: Prank Aaron Mercer.*
There were five years' worth of entries, all checked off.
A forged medical report saying I had a terminal neurological condition. A stolen scholarship opportunity. A promotion I'd turned down because they convinced me my health was failing. A house I'd transferred into my childhood best friend's name.
Then a new row appeared, typed in real time.
*Fake wedding.*
In a group chat I had never been invited to, my best friend Ryan joked, *How long until Aaron figures out his diagnosis was fake?*
My sister replied, *He's too stupid to figure out anything.*
My fiancée, Chloe, wrote, *Even when he learns the ceremony's fake, he'll just think he's dying and ask Ryan to look after me.*
They were laughing. Every person I'd trusted for years was in that chat, discussing my life as if it were a reality show.
Ryan video-called me moments later, holding up a diamond wedding band.
"Aaron, your ring's stuck on my finger. You don't mind, do you?"
Chloe leaned into the camera. "With your condition, that ring would be wasted on you anyway."
I looked past them. They were at my bachelor-and-bachelorette celebration, surrounded by everyone we knew.
There was no seat for the groom.
"I don't mind," I said.
I meant it. I wouldn't be at the wedding.
After the call, the chat exploded again. Ryan admitted the ring had been sized for him all along. Chloe sent a kissing emoji and told him to check the box on their spreadsheet. They had reached a round number of pranks, which meant another group vacation.
Four tickets. None for me.
Pictures covered the wall: Chloe, Ryan, my sister, and her friends in Iceland, on fishing boats, in beach resorts. I'd been told each trip would be too hard on my health. I remembered crying at home over a travel itinerary I'd planned for us, not knowing someone had uploaded the security-camera footage for the others to enjoy.
Chloe stumbled home at dawn smelling of Ryan's cologne.
"You waited up for me? How sweet."
She set out the odd little pills she'd insisted I take for years, along with a takeout meal full of flavors she knew I hated.
"Don't forget your medicine, Aaron."
I looked toward the hidden camera above the living-room shelves. Everything I said would be turned into entertainment.
I knocked the pills away.
"We're done, Chloe. I'm not playing your game anymore."
第2章
"You're breaking up with me over a wedding ring?" Chloe stared as if I'd lost my mind.
It wasn't the ring. It was every prize Ryan had stolen from me since childhood, every time Chloe looked at him instead of me, every occasion they told me to stop being sensitive because it was "just a joke."
"I'll buy you another ring," she said. "But the wedding is in three days. Don't do anything you'll regret."
She walked out, expecting me to apologize before morning.
Instead, I packed. I threw away the hair ties I used to keep for her and tore up the only framed photograph of the two of us.
My phone rang. It was the tailor.
"Mr. Mercer, a Mr. Ryan Brooks just asked us to alter your wedding suit to his measurements. We need confirmation."
For a moment I pictured myself standing beside Chloe years from now, both of us gray-haired and still holding hands. I'd wanted that since the day we met.
"Go ahead," I told the tailor. "Make it fit Ryan."
That suit would never belong to me.
第3章
I went to the house I'd saved for years to buy, the one I'd trusted Ryan to hold in his name after they convinced me I was dying.
When I opened the door, dust floated through the air. Cement bags and broken tiles littered the living room. Cigarette burns ruined the shirts I'd carefully hung in the closet. My cat hid in the bathroom, one paw injured.
Ryan had been using my home as a playground.
When I demanded to know what had happened, he arrived with Chloe and acted offended.
"I told you I was renovating. You should be grateful I took over."
"You hurt my cat."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "Ryan didn't mean anything by it. Don't be so dramatic."
The house was in Ryan's name. My savings had paid for it. Now I wasn't even welcome to be angry about what he'd done.
"Come stay at the wedding hotel," Chloe offered, looking relieved when I nodded. "We can talk when you've calmed down."
In the car I booked a one-way flight overseas.
I'd missed the northern lights. I'd missed the coast. I'd missed so much because they persuaded me I had no future. I wasn't going to miss another thing.