We Both Broke Rule No.1

My Step-sister, My Enemy

"Why? Why did you agree to marry him?" Betty stood in my doorway, her arms crossed, her face already red.

My step-sister has had a crush on Lucian since elementary school. She used to draw their wedding in the back of her notebooks. Now she'd heard I was the one taking her place, and she looked like the world was coming to an end.

"Betty, I know how you feel. I do. But this is for our family. We will lose everything if I don't marry him." I kept my voice steady, even though nothing inside me felt steady at all.

"You should have told me. I would have married him instead. You don't even love him."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

I looked at her and saw something break behind her eyes. Her greatest fear was standing in the room with us and I guessed it was me.

"He chose me, Betty. I begged, I cried but it didn't matter. The contract was already signed." My voice shook now too.

"You always take everything from me. You're always the favored one." She stepped closer.

"Back in school you hated him. Now you agree to marry him like you've had feelings for him this whole time."

That was a lie, and she knew it.

My parents were the ones who favored her, not me. They called her weak. Fragile. A girl with nobody left in the world. Her parents died in a crash years ago, and no one ever knew what hsppened. She was found in the back seat, alone, crying, covered in glass.

My parents took her in and gave her everything. Gifts they never once considered buying me. They said I was used to a comfortable life already, so it was her turn.

When she cried, they scolded me. When she went hungry, they scolded me. When she failed a class, somehow that was my fault too.

"You need to teach her better." They'd say while pulling my ear, tossing me aside like I was the problem in the room.

But the moment Lucian's family came asking for a bride, they handed me over first. Fast. Like I was spoiled stock they were relieved to unload.

"It's not my fault I'm more reasonable than you, Betty. It's not my fault I'm more favored. It's fate. You should already know that by now." My eyes burned as I said it.

"How dare you." She crossed the room in two steps and slapped me.

My cheek burned hot. My eyes watered, but I didn't let a single tear fall.

"I don't want him, Betty. It's a five-year contract. After that, you can have him." I turned and walked out before she could see my hands shaking.

— — —

Anna was waiting for me in the hallway, already dressed in her bridesmaid gown, her arms crossed the same way Betty's had been. But her face held something different. Worry.

"I heard yelling." She reached for my hand.

"Did she hit you?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have to.

"Hetty." Anna turned my face gently toward the light so she could see the mark on my cheek. Her jaw tightened. "You don't have to forgive her for this. Not today. Not on your wedding day."

"She's hurting, Anna."

"So are you." Anna's voice dropped low, careful, like she was choosing every word.

"You're marrying a man who's humiliated you since you were children, to save a family who's never once protected you. And the one person who should be standing beside you today just slapped you across the face."

I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say that wouldn't make me cry, and I refused to walk into that church with ruined makeup and red eyes.

Anna pulled a small compact from her bag and dabbed color onto my cheek, covering the mark without a word. Her hands were steady even though I could tell she was angry.

"I'm right here." She said quietly, fixing a loose strand of my hair. "Whatever happens today, whatever he does, whatever she does. I'm right here."

For the first time all morning, I believed something good was still possible.

—

The church was dressed in gold from ceiling to floor.

Curtains swept across the pulpit in soft folds, catching the light every time someone moved.

The guests looked flawless, every eye bright with joy that wasn't mine to feel.

I found my mother near the entrance. She took my hands, and the first notes of the processional began.

I walked forward slowly, gracefully, gratefully, at least that's how it must have looked from the pews. Inside, there was nothing. No joy.

Just a low, steady ache and something close to hatred sitting behind my ribs.

We reached the altar. I was turned to face Lucian. The second his eyes landed on me, he winked.

"You disgust me." I whispered it low enough for only him to hear.

The priest began the ceremony.

"Do you, Hetty Lin, accept Lucian Williams as your husband, for better or worse?"

I looked at Lucian. My eyes begged him silently. Reject me. Say no. End this before I have to say the word.

He blew a small breath toward my face instead, almost playful, like none of this mattered to him at all.

"I... I do." The words came out unsteady. My chest ached with the weight of every year left in this contract.

"Good. Now, do you, Lucian Williams..."

Lucian didn't wait for the priest to finish.

"I do."

"Very well. Does anyone here object to this union?" The priest glanced across the crowd, more formality than question. "I'll continue, then."

"I DO."

A voice cut through the church from somewhere from the back.