Chapter 1I Was Just My Sister's Marriage Test Subject

Three years into my relationship with Gavin, I came home with a heart full of light, ready to sit down with my mother and pick a wedding date.

The sharp crack of her palm across my face echoed through the foyer before I even had time to take off my coat.

The impact knocked my head back, my cheek burning hot and stinging instantly.

"What wedding?" my mother snarled, her breath raspy with venom. "How shameless can you be? He’s your sister’s boyfriend!"

I stood there, paralyzed, my hand flying up to cover my throbbing cheek. "Mom, what are you—"

"Men these days are too good at faking it!" she cut in, her eyes wide, glittering with a terrifying sort of righteousness. "I was terrified Haley would pick the wrong guy, so I set him up with you first! I gave him to you for three years so you could test him out!"

She stepped closer, her voice dropping into a firm, unyielding hiss. "Gavin was reserved for Haley from the very beginning. You don't get to steal what belongs to your sister."

I stared at her, my vision blurring, completely unable to process the absurd, grotesque truth unfolding in front of me.

I wasn't a daughter bringing home her future husband. I was a guinea pig. A trial run.

A terrible, suffocating clarity washed over me.

Suddenly, the last three years made a twisted kind of sense. My mother—who had ignored me for most of my life—had been strangely insistent after I started dating Gavin. She constantly demanded that I bring him over for dinner, weekend brunches, family barbecues.

For three long years, she had put Gavin through a brutal, invisible pressure test. She nitpicked his manners, scrutinized his background, pried into his finances, picking him apart inch by inch. I had thought she was just being a protective mother to me.

It had all been for Haley.

My mother was already pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor, muttering to herself in a high-pitched, excited blur. She was rambling about what a match made in heaven Gavin and Haley would be.

"Honestly, at first, I wasn't satisfied with Gavin at all," she fussed, smoothing down her sweater with trembling fingers. "He was a bit too arrogant, didn't know how to take care of anyone. A man like that was nowhere near good enough for Haley."

She stopped and looked at me, a proud, sickening smile touching her lips. "Thank God I was smart enough to steer him to you first. Three years by your side, and you smoothed out all his rough edges. Now he knows how to talk to women, how to cater to them, how to show affection. You broke him in nicely."

I bit the inside of my lip so hard I tasted copper, desperately fighting back the tears threatening to spill over.

"Mom," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Gavin loves me. We’re getting married. I am not handing my fiancé over to Haley."

The room fell dead silent.

My mother’s face transformed, contorting into pure, unadulterated rage.

SLAP.

The second blow hit the exact same spot on my cheek, harder this time. My vision flickered black for a second, a sharp ringing filling my ears.

"Are you deaf?" she screamed, towering over me. "I said Gavin is Haley's! He was only beside you because of your sister’s grace! The timing is right now—Haley is getting older, and it's time you return him to her!"

She grabbed my shoulders, shaking me violently. "Grow up for once in your life! Pick up your phone right now, call Gavin, and break it off!"

Something inside me snapped. The years of quiet obedience, of trying so desperately to earn a shred of her affection, crumbled into dust. I opened my mouth to scream at her, to tear down the walls of this house with my rage—

She turned her back on me, completely unbothered, and dialed her phone.

"Brenda? Hi, sweetie!" Her voice instantly shifted into a cheerful, melodic sing-song as she talked to my aunt. "Oh, yes, yes! Haley’s finally dating someone wonderful... My heart can finally rest easy..."

Every word out of her mouth was about Haley. She didn't spare a single glance for the daughter standing two feet away, bleeding from the lip, her heart shattered into pieces.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stay in that house for another second.

I turned and bolted through the front door into the brisk afternoon air, the cheerful murmur of her phone call following me all the way down the driveway.

Running down the sidewalk, surrounded by the cold autumn wind, I finally let out a ragged, ugly sob.