Chapter 3

By the time I made it home, I was running a fever and barely conscious.

I didn't know how much time had passed before Lydia hurried through the door. The moment she saw me curled up on the couch, her expression changed.

"Julian?"

She touched my forehead, then immediately reached for the thermometer.

It read 103 degrees.

"I told you to text me when you got home. Why didn't you?" she asked. "I took your parents and Heath home, then went back to the airport to look for you."

A restrained edge of anger tinged her voice, but her hands were gentle as she brought over a dry towel and carefully wiped my hair. Then she crouched beside the couch and began disinfecting the raw blisters on the back of my heels.

The alcohol stung, and I flinched.

Lydia immediately stopped.

"If it hurts, tell me," she said gently. "We took the joke too far today. I've already spoken to the wedding planner. We'll set everything up again for next week. For the next few days, just rest. I'll take care of everything else."

I looked at Lydia as she tended to my wounds, and I suddenly remembered another time she'd taken care of me.

Back in college, I'd come down with a high fever during a heavy storm. Lydia had braved the rain for nearly two miles to get me to the hospital, then stayed by my side all night.

The next morning, Heath had laughed at her. "One little rainstorm and Julian's already burning up. Don't tell me he's pretending to be sick just to get you to stay with him."

Lydia's expression had darkened.

"He's running a 103-degree fever. You think that's funny?" she'd snapped. "Don't ever joke about his health again. I don't want to hear it."

Afterward, she'd tucked the blankets around me and quietly asked if I was still feeling unwell.

Back then, she couldn't even bear to let Heath make an offhand joke about my health. Yet now, she was the one turning my suffering into entertainment for everyone else.

My phone suddenly buzzed.

Heath had posted a new video.

"I Tricked the Groom Three Times on His Wedding Day—and He Fell for It Every Single Time!"

It opened with footage of me sitting alone at home, waiting for everyone to come pick me up for the wedding.

Then came clips of me rushing into the empty hotel with my wedding suit, followed by footage of me running from one airport terminal to another, dragging the garment bag behind me.

The final clip showed the moment Heath told me Lydia was pregnant with his child, capturing the instant all the color drained from my face.

They'd apparently had someone filming me in secret since five that morning.

Every moment of my panic, fear, and humiliation had been turned into carefully edited content for Heath's account.

Less than 30 minutes after he posted it, the video had already racked up more than 100,000 likes.

People were laughing at me in the comments.

"The groom's an idiot. How does he believe everything they tell him?"

"If you can't take a joke, don't hang out with fun people. His face at the end literally looks like his soul had left his body."

"The bride and Heath look so much better together. One's funny, and the other actually gets the joke."

Just minutes earlier, I'd received a message from my company.

The video revealed my name and where I worked, so one of our clients demanded a new project lead. The project I'd spent three years working on had been put on hold.

I slammed my phone down in front of Lydia.

"Make him delete it."

Lydia's face fell, and she immediately called Heath.

There was a long silence on the other end before he finally spoke.

"I didn't think people would actually go after Julian," he said, his voice tinged with anxiety. "But the video has already been sponsored. If I delete it now, I'll have to pay 400,000 dollars in damages, and the platform might bury my account."

Lydia's grip tightened around her phone.

"Don't delete it yet," she finally said after a long silence. "Let me talk to Julian."

Something inside me finally snapped.

"My job's already been affected," I spat, unable to hold back the emotions I'd been bottling up all day. "What is there left to discuss?

"I gave up the wedding for him. I gave up everything—Mom, Dad, and even you. And now you want to sacrifice my career, the only thing I have left, just to protect him?"

"You can always find another job," Lydia cut me off, clearly irritated. "You're always complaining that everyone favors Heath. Why don't you ever stop and ask yourself why everyone likes him but doesn't want to be around you?

"He's fun to be around, but you can't take a joke. You always turn the smallest thing into a problem and ruin everyone's mood."

Then, right there beneath the video, she replied, "Julian isn't angry. We're doing perfectly fine, so please don't blame Heath."

Just like that, she'd defended Heath against the accusations that he'd done it out of malice. And in doing so, she'd forgiven him for everything he'd done to me on my behalf.

I pushed her phone back across the table.

"Get out."

Lydia stared at me in disbelief, her expression turning cold. "Julian, are you seriously asking me to leave over something this trivial?"

She grabbed her coat and stormed toward the door. But before she left, she still placed some fever medicine and a glass of water in front of me.

"Remember to take your medicine. This will all be over by tomorrow."

The door slammed shut behind her.

She still cared about my health, but she didn't care how long it would take me to reclaim the dignity she'd trampled.

She was willing to drive back to the airport for me in the middle of a hurricane, yet she wasn't willing to make Heath delete a viral video built entirely on my humiliation.

Once the door closed behind her, I pulled the suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. I slipped my passport and the rescheduled flight ticket inside.

Lydia said that by tomorrow, everything would be over.

I supposed she was right.

She and these seven years we spent together would both become part of my past.