My Sister’s Substitute

Neo, would you stop pacing the freaking room?” Sasha asked, laughing her guts out.Her big brother had grown more hyperactive as his wedding with Anna Sabalenka drew nearer and nearer. It had started with Neo waking earlier than normal and sleeping for only 3-4 hours a day, and had slowly transcended into him drinking more fluids than usual because he was constantly parched by sheer panic, and now the 28 year old couldn't sit his butt down. Sasha had watched, with glee, as he transformed into this frantic being. Was this what marrying the love of your life did to you?“I've handled pressure before, Sasha.. My first day in business school, the first time I pitched a business proposal, my first public speech.. I've handled situations with actual implications.. But I can't seem to get a fuckin grip because of my own wedding, Sasha,” He said.He was pacing the exquisite McKinney living room, his hands behind his back, in his sparkling white shirt, suit pants and shiny brogues. Sasha, who

“And, what's the problem with that?”“Allison, what do you mean ‘what’s the problem with that’? Neo is Anna's husband to be! They're supposed to be married in two damn days! Me taking her place doesn't feel right! It feels like betrayal!”“You didn't put your sister in a coma, did you? And you weren't the one who proposed the idea, were you? So why should it even feel like betrayal? If anything, it should feel like a chance to ‘hold the fort’ for Anna until God knows when. Look at it this way: Anna wakes up and sees you with Neo; you'd simply explain and step aside. But if she sees someone else with Neo, who neither knows nor cares about her, Neo's gone forever.. By marrying Neo, you're actually helping Anna, Irina!”Allison Shultz had been Irina's best friend since she (Irina) moved to the United States at age 14. They'd gone to middle and highschool together and knew everything about each other. Allison, the German American, was a tall, assured blonde who had a thriving career as a

The silence in the Rolls Royce had stretched long enough that Irina had started counting streetlights just to give her brain something to do.Neo's question still hung between them like smoke that refused to clear.Sex?He'd said it so casually. Like he was asking if she wanted cream in her coffee."Look," she started, stopped, then started again. "I think we should keep things.. clean."Neo glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Clean.""Yeah. Separate and clean.""You said clean twice.""I know what I said, Neo."She caught the faint curve of a smirk at the corner of his mouth and wanted to throw something at it."Separate works for me," he said. No wounded ego, no argument. Just separate works for me, like she'd suggested they use different TV remotes."And separate bathrooms," she added."Irina." He said her name like he was physically restraining a laugh. "The master suite has three bathrooms."She blinked. "Three.""Three."She turned to look out the window so he wouldn't s

Irina woke up to an empty mansion and a text from Neo. Left early. Board prep. Car is available if you need it. — NShe read it twice. Not because it was complicated but because she was still half asleep and her brain needed to run everything through twice before committing to being awake. She set the phone down. Picked it back up.He'd signed it N.Not Neo. Just N. Like they were people who texted each other casually. Like this was a thing they did now.She put the phone face-down and got up before her brain could make anything of it.Breakfast was quieter without Margaret's surgical pleasantries and Sasha's performative disinterest. Irina ate at the kitchen island rather than the dining room because sitting alone at a table designed for twenty felt like a specific kind of sad she wasn't prepared to experience before nine in the morning.Mrs. Paulson didn't comment on the location change. She simply set the plate down and poured the coffee with the composure of a woman who had worke

Zachary called at eleven-fourteen that night.Irina was already in bed, halfway between awake and gone, when her phone lit up the ceiling. She stared at it for two full rings before picking up."Hey," she said. "Hey yourself." His voice had that particular texture it got when he was trying to sound casual and wasn't quite pulling it off. "You just get in?""A little while ago, yeah.""How was it?""Fine. Dinner with some of Neo's people. You know, the whole performance."She didn't know why she said it like that. Like the evening had been a chore. Like she hadn't laughed three times without meaning to or gotten genuinely heated about jollof rice with a man she'd married less than a week ago."Right, right." A pause. "You doing okay though? For real?" "For real, Zach, I'm fine."Another pause, longer this time, and she could hear him breathing and thinking and whatever else Zachary did in his silences. "I just miss you, man. This whole thing is funky as hell.""I know.""Like I'm sitt