All Chapters of Mom Faked My Wedding With AI: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

I checked my bank account.Eight thousand and change, exactly what had been there yesterday.Then I checked my payment app. Four dollars and sixty-eight cents.I screenshotted both and sent them to Mom. "The money never came through."Her reply landed within seconds. "What do you mean it didn't come through? I sent you the receipt. Are you blind? Banks are slow. You can't wait a day?""Mom, that isn't a bank receipt." I zoomed in on the image and sent it back. "An AI made it."She stopped typing and called me instead."What is this nonsense? I don't know anything about AI and I don't need to. The paperwork's sitting right there in black and white and you're telling me it's fake?"Adam James, if you don't want to marry that girl, then say so. Don't hide behind your mother."I pressed my knuckles into my forehead. "Mom, an AI makes pictures. Pictures aren't documents. It can't buy a house, it can't order a car, and it can't move a dollar of anybody's money.""Shut your mouth!"

Chapter 2

"Mr. Foster, that receipt is fake.""Fake." Frank laughed, and there was no warmth anywhere in it. "Your mother says the money went out. You say it never came in. The two of you running some routine on my daughter? One of you plays nice, the other plays broke?"Here's how it goes. Before the wedding date, the full hundred thousand lands in Emily's account. And I want to see the deed on that house and the title on that Mercedes, in my hand."Anything's missing, there's no wedding.""Sir, that's not enough time. If you could give me a little—""You've got the nerve to tell me it's not enough time?" He rolled right over me. "Emily's been with you three years. Three years, and you can't put together a down payment. My daughter clears five thousand a month. What do you clear? You can't even match her. What exactly are you bringing to this?"And my daughter's condition isn't going to sit around waiting for you to grow up. Think about that."Then he was gone, and the dead line hummed i

Chapter 3

"Emily, I can't come up with fifty thousand either."Her eyes went red. She glared at me."Then what am I supposed to do?" The tears came faster. "You say you're broke, and that's it, that's the whole answer? I'm pregnant. My mother calls me trash in my own kitchen every day of the week. My father keeps saying he'll put me out on the street. I'm stuck in the middle taking it from both sides, and all you've got for me is this."She dragged her sleeve across her face."I was so wrong about you. I don't even know who you are."Then she turned and walked off.After that the Fosters leaned harder.Frank called every couple of days. It started with me being dishonest and worked its way up to me keeping a woman on the side. One night he'd been drinking, and he was loud enough that I had to hold the phone away from my ear."I asked around about you. You sell building supplies. Thirty-eight hundred a month. Where were you ever going to get wedding money? Your mother's going to cover it?

Chapter 4

I stared at the screen and couldn't get a single word down.In the end all I sent was, "What about the baby?"A long time passed. Then two words came back."It's gone."And under it: "We're square. Don't contact me again."The baby. Three years. All of it cut out of my life along with three pictures my mother had asked a chatbot to draw.I didn't tell a soul in my family the wedding was dead.Mom was still holding court in the group chat about how she'd handled her oldest son's entire wedding — house, car, settlement, not one thing missing. Kyle was still dropping his little remarks about how lucky I was, how the whole family's money had gone into me.One night I opened the same app she'd used.I typed: "Reserve the Rosewood Ballroom at the Grand Meridian Convention Center this Sunday at noon for a thirty-person wedding reception. Generate a booking confirmation."The reply came in seconds. "Your reservation is confirmed. Rosewood Ballroom, Grand Meridian Convention Center, S

Chapter 5

"An AI?" She practically shrieked it. "How's an AI supposed to book a ballroom? It doesn't have the hotel's system! How's it going to hold a room for you? Have you lost your mind?"The relatives closed in around us.I looked at my mother, and out of nowhere I started to laugh."Mom. So you do understand."She was still boiling. "Understand what? It's obvious!"I nodded. When I spoke I didn't raise my voice, but I set every word down like a brick."Then here's what I can't figure out. You know an AI can't hold one ballroom for you, because it doesn't have the hotel's system."So tell me how an AI bought me a house outright. How it ordered a Mercedes. How it moved a hundred thousand dollars into Emily Foster's account."Her face locked up.I reached into my bag and pulled out a stack of printouts."These are my bank statements. From the day you say the money went out, right up through this morning. Not one dollar. Not from you, not from anybody."Then I held up the three image

Chapter 6

She had nothing left.Aunt Melissa let out a breath, and when she looked at my mother again it was with different eyes."Linda. You never wanted this wedding to happen at all. You were holding it for Kyle. Weren't you."Kyle jumped in fast. "Aunt Melissa, come on, don't start. Mom was only trying to—""Trying to what?" I turned on him. "Trying to put the house money and the car money and the settlement money away for you?"His face went red and he shut his mouth.I turned back to my mother."Fifty-some days, Mom. Fifty-some days of the Fosters calling me a liar. Sales all day, driving all night, under three hours of sleep. I wrecked my heart trying to produce money you'd already told the world you gave me. I passed out at a stoplight."I called you from a hospital bed and asked for help, and you sent me another picture. Three thousand dollars. And then you told me to pay you back."There wasn't even a stamp on that one."My voice was going rough and I let it."Frank Foster a

Chapter 7

"That slap wasn't because you think I failed you, Mom."It's because you've never once thought of me as your son."I'm the wallet you empty into whatever hole Kyle digs."I turned toward the doors.She yelled after me. "Adam! You stop right there! You can refuse to get married, but you're still my son. You're my flesh and blood. I raised you. You owe me a roof when I'm old. Your brother's going to need you too!"I didn't turn around.Not one of those relatives spoke up for her.Outside the Grand Meridian the light was going out of the sky. Across the street the whole face of the mall lit up at once, and the color came down over the sidewalk hard enough to hurt.I stood in it and opened my messages with Emily and scrolled all the way to the beginning. Then I deleted them, one at a time, until there weren't any left.The baby. Three years. A picture of a transfer that never happened. My mother's hand across my face.And twenty-six years of later, and your brother needs it more,

Chapter 8

"Changed how?""It was little things first." Emily's voice was pulled tight. "We'd be halfway through dinner and he'd put his fork down and go, 'Did you eat this with him too?' Or, 'How much did the two of you spend on motel rooms?'"Then he stopped letting me leave the house by myself. He said if I went out it was to find another man."Then—" She stopped and pulled in a breath. "Then he started drinking and coming home and breaking things. Standing over me calling me dirty. Saying I lied about my past and married him under false pretenses and made him the biggest fool in town."My knuckles had gone white around the phone."Adam." Her voice cracked open. "Say something to me.""What do you want me to say?""I keep thinking..." She hesitated. "If I hadn't listened to my father back then, would we—""Emily." I cut it off. "What do you want right now?""I want a divorce." It came out all at once. "I want out of that house. I can't do another day in it. But I don't have any money

Chapter 9

"Send me an account number. I'll move the money tomorrow.""Okay.""I'm going to let you go.""Adam.""Yeah?""I'm sorry."I pulled on the cigarette and let the smoke go. Outside, the sun was coming through the blinds and laying itself across the counter in strips."Emily. Look forward."Then I ended the call.I saved the number under one name. Emily. Then I blocked it.First thing the next morning I sent eight thousand dollars to the account she'd texted me. It was the commission off a subdivision contract I'd closed the month before.In the memo line I put: LOOK FORWARD.She never called again.I heard later she'd moved to the far side of Denver, that she was working retail, that she'd rented herself a studio. Nobody seemed to know whether the divorce ever went through.Aunt Melissa was the one who brought me the news. When she finished, she added, "She said to tell you thank you."I nodded, and deleted the message.As for my mother and my brother, everything I know c

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