My husband wanted my sister to be his wife for a day. His brother wanted me for life.
My husband, Damen, had this way of dropping bombs like he was asking me to pass the salt. We were eating dinner—pasta I’d made after a 12-hour day at the firm because Damen said he was too tired to cook, even though he’d been home since three. I was twirling spaghetti around my fork when he said,
“So, my ten-year reunion is next month, and I need Nikki to come with me.”
I kept chewing because I assumed I’d misheard him. Nikki was my younger sister—prettier than me by conventional standards, thinner than me by fifteen pounds, and unemployed by choice for the last two years because she was “finding herself” on my dime. I paid her rent. I paid her car insurance. I paid for the highlights she got every six weeks because she said dark roots made her feel less confident. I didn’t realize I was also paying for her to attend my husband’s high school reunion, too.
I swallowed my pasta and said,
“Why would Nikki be coming to your reunion?”
Damen didn’t even look up from his phone.
“Because I need her there,”
he said like that explained everything.
I set my fork down and waited for him to elaborate, because surely there was more to this sentence. There wasn’t. He just kept scrolling through whatever app had his attention more than I did.
“Damen,” I said.
He finally looked up with that expression he always wore when I was about to inconvenience him with questions.
“Why do you need my sister at your high school reunion instead of your actual wife?”
He sighed like I was being exhausting, like I was the one who just said something insane over pasta.
“Because I told everyone I married her,”
he said.
“Back when we first started dating, my buddies met her once at that barbecue and they assumed she was my girlfriend. I never corrected them.”
I stared at him. I kept staring at him. I was waiting for the part where he laughed and said he was kidding, where this became some weird joke I didn’t find funny but could at least categorize as humor.
That part never came.
“You told your friends you married my sister,” I repeated slowly, making sure I understood the words coming out of his mouth.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, picking his fork back up like we were done discussing this. “It was easier than explaining. And honestly, babe, you know how those guys are. They’re shallow. They remember Nikki being hot and they’ve spent ten years thinking I locked that down. I can’t show up with someone different and explain that actually I married the other one.”
The other one.
I’d graduated top of my class at law school. I’d made partner at thirty-three. I’d bought us this house, the cars in our driveway, and every piece of furniture Damen was currently sitting on. And I was the other one.
I could feel something cold spreading through my chest, but I kept my voice steady because that’s what I did. I stayed calm. I was reasonable. I didn’t make scenes.
“So your solution,” I said, “is to bring my sister as your fake wife to a reunion full of people I’ll never meet, and I’m supposed to just be okay with that.”
Damen reached across the table and grabbed my hand like he was comforting me through my own confusion.
“It’s one night,”
he said, squeezing my fingers.
“Nobody will ever know. These people don’t matter. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. We’ll do a nice dinner after. Just us. Whatever restaurant you want.”
He smiled at me with those blue eyes that used to make my stomach flip.
And I realized something that should have been obvious years ago.
He thought I was stupid. He thought I was so desperate to keep him happy that I’d agree to anything if he just promised me a nice dinner afterward.
And the worst part? He was probably right. He’d been training me to accept less since the day we met.
“I don’t know, Damen,” I said, and I watched his face change from charm to irritation in half a second. “It just feels weird. Why can’t you just tell them the truth?”
He pulled his hand back.
“Because I’ve been lying for ten years, Carissa. What am I supposed to say now? Hey guys, funny story—I actually married her boring older sister who works all the time. That’s humiliating.”
Boring. Older. Works all the time.
Each word landed like a small punch to the chest, but I didn’t react because I never reacted. I just absorbed it and kept functioning. That was my role in this marriage: provider, absorber, the other one.
“Besides,” Damen continued, “Nikki already said yes. She’s excited about it. She said it sounds fun.”
I blinked.
“You already asked her before asking me?”
He shrugged.
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