3. Cami
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Cami
The smile.
That was the thing that broke me. Not the wrong name. Not the way he’d looked at her. Not even the realization that my sister had been sleeping with my fiancé for God knows how long.
It was the smile.
The way his whole face lit up when he heard she was pregnant. The way his eyes went soft and hopeful and full of something I’d spent four years trying to earn and never once received.
He’d never looked at me like that. Not when I said yes to his proposal. Not when we found our apartment. Not when I walked down the aisle toward him five minutes ago in a dress that cost more than most people’s cars.
He’d never looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d ever asked.
But he was looking at Rosalie that way now.
And suddenly every memory I had of the last eighteen months was rewriting itself in my head.
Every late night at the office. Every business trip that ran long.
Every time he checked his phone and smiled at something he wouldn’t show me.
Every time Rosalie came over for dinner and Logan found excuses to be in the same room as her.
The way they laughed at jokes I didn’t understand.
The way she touched his arm when she talked to him. The way he watched her leave.
The texts. Oh God, the texts.
Three months ago. His phone buzzing on the nightstand while he was in the shower. I’d picked it up without thinking, expecting a work email, and instead I’d seen messages from a number with no name attached. Can’t wait to see you. Miss you already. Last night was incredible.
I’d confronted him when he came out of the bathroom. I’d shown him the phone with shaking hands and asked him to explain.
And he had.
Wrong number, babe. Someone spoofing my phone. You know how these scammers work. Why would I cheat on you? You’re the only woman I want.
He’d held my face in his hands and kissed my forehead and told me I was being paranoid. He’d made me feel guilty for even asking. He’d turned it around so smoothly that I’d ended up apologizing to him.
I’d apologized for catching him cheating on me.
And I’d believed him. I’d chosen to believe him because the alternative was too painful. Because I loved him. Because I’d built my entire life around him and I couldn’t face the possibility that it was all a lie.
But it was a lie. It was always a lie. And I was the only person in this church who didn’t know it.
My mother’s voice cut through the roar in my head.
“Camellia.” She was pushing through the crowd, her face flushed, her hands reaching for me. “Camellia, please. Stop this. Whatever you think is happening, we can discuss it privately. We don’t need to air our dirty laundry in front of everyone.”
I stared at her. At my own mother, standing in front of me with her hands out like she was trying to calm a wild animal, telling me to be quiet about the fact that my sister had been fucking my fiancé.
“Don’t make a scene,” she hissed. “Think about Rosalie. She’s pregnant. She can’t handle this stress. You need to calm down and think about someone other than yourself for once.”
Someone other than myself.
The laugh that came out of me was broken and bitter and didn’t sound like me at all.
“Someone other than myself,” I repeated. “Mom. My fiancé just said my sister’s name at the altar. He’s been cheating on me. With Rosalie. And you want me to think about her feelings?”
“We don’t know that for sure.” My mother’s voice was desperate. Pleading. “We don’t have all the facts. Logan could have just misspoken. It could be a misunderstanding. We need to talk about this calmly, as a family, without...”
My hands moved before my brain caught up.
The phone was out of my pocket before I’d made a conscious decision to reach for it. The email was still there. Still waiting. That string of nonsense characters and those seven words that had been burning a hole in my consciousness since I read them.
See who your husband really is.
My thumb pressed down. The email opened.
And the world stopped.
Photos. Dozens of photos. Screenshots of text messages so explicit they made my stomach turn.
Hotel receipts with both their names on them.
Logan and Rosalie in what I recognized as my kitchen, her sitting on the counter with her legs wrapped around his waist. Logan and Rosalie in my bed, the same bed I slept in every night, tangled together in sheets I had picked out.
Logan and Rosalie at a restaurant I recognized. The corner booth. The one with the view of the city lights. The one where he’d gotten down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him.
She was sitting in the same seat I’d been sitting in when he proposed.
And the last photo. The one that made bile rise in my throat. Rosalie in Logan’s bed, wearing his shirt, smirking at the camera like she’d won something. Like she was proud of what she’d done. Like destroying my life was a game and she was keeping score.
My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone.
The church had a projection screen behind the altar. We’d set it up for the slideshow. The one that was supposed to play at the reception, showing photos from our relationship. Our first date. Our first vacation. The engagement. All the moments that were supposed to mean something.
The projection system was wireless. I’d helped set it up myself because Logan couldn’t figure out how to connect his laptop. The password was still saved on my phone from the rehearsal.
Three seconds to connect.
Two more to select the photo of Rosalie in his shirt.
The screen behind the altar flickered. And then the image appeared, ten feet tall, impossible to ignore. My sister. In my fiancé’s bed. Smirking at the camera like she owned the world.
Gasps turned to screams. Someone in the back started crying. Glass shattered somewhere, probably a champagne flute slipping from shocked fingers. The church erupted into chaos, a crowd all talking at once, all staring at the screen, all seeing the proof of what Logan and Rosalie had done.
I turned to face him.
“What the fuck is that?”
My voice sliced through the noise. The church went quiet. Every eye shifted from the screen to me, to Logan, waiting to see what would happen next.
Logan’s face had gone gray. He was staring at the screen like he’d never seen it before, like he couldn’t understand how it had gotten there, like maybe if he looked long enough it would disappear.
“Cami.” His voice cracked. “Cami, please. You don’t understand. It’s not what it looks like.”
“Not what it looks like?” The laugh that tore out of me was sharp enough to cut glass. “That’s my sister. In your bed. Wearing your shirt. What exactly am I supposed to think it looks like?”
“She came onto me.” The words tumbled out of him, fast and desperate. “I tried to stop it but she kept pushing and I was weak and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but it didn’t mean anything. You’re the one I love. You’re the one I want to marry.”
“Didn’t mean anything.” My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking. “There are dozens of photos, Logan. Months of text messages. You fucked her in our bed. In our kitchen. At the restaurant where you proposed to me. And you’re telling me it didn’t mean anything?”
“I made a mistake.” He was reaching for me now, his hands grasping at air, trying to bridge the gap between us.
“People make mistakes. We can get past this. We can go to counseling. I’ll do whatever you want.
Just please, please don’t do this. Don’t throw away everything we have because of one mistake. ”
“One mistake?” I stepped back, out of his reach. “One mistake, Logan? You’ve been sleeping with my sister for over a year. You got her pregnant. You said her name at our wedding. That’s not a mistake. That’s a choice. A choice you made over and over and over again.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
The words hit me like another slap. So sincere. So earnest. Like he really believed that fucking my sister behind my back for eighteen months was somehow not supposed to hurt me.
“You never meant to hurt me.” The words came out slowly, each one dripping with disbelief. “Then what did you mean to do? What was the plan, Logan? Were you going to marry me and keep fucking her on the side? Were you going to let me raise your baby without ever knowing it wasn’t mine?”
His silence was answer enough.
The thing I’d been holding together through sheer force of will cracked open inside me.
All the years I’d spent being the good daughter.
The reliable employee. The supportive fiancée.
All the times I’d swallowed my doubts and ignored my instincts and told myself I was being paranoid because that was easier than facing the truth.
Done.
I was so fucking done.
“You’re a coward.” My voice was rising now, filling the church, bouncing off the stained glass windows.
“You’re a liar and a cheat and a coward.
You couldn’t even break up with me like a man.
You had to keep stringing me along, letting me plan this wedding, letting me believe we had a future, while you were fucking my sister in our bed. ”
“Cami, please.” Tears were streaming down his face now. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted it to happen this way.”
“Then how did you want it to happen?” The scream ripped out of me before I could stop it. “Tell me, Logan. What was your perfect scenario? Was I supposed to just never find out? Was I supposed to spend the rest of my life married to a man who was in love with someone else?”
Movement to my right. A flash of expensive perfume and cold fury.
Greta Caldwell crossed the aisle in three sharp strides and slapped me across the face.
The sound cracked through the church, sharp enough to make people flinch. My head snapped to the side. My cheek exploded with pain, hot and sharp and so unexpected that for a moment I couldn’t process what had happened.