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After My Best Friend Accused Me of Cheating, They Regretted It
NovelShort
new
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The day before the wedding, my best friend Eugenia pulled out a lie detector in front of everyone. "To make sure this marriage is built on honesty, I need to run a test on tomorrow's bride and groom." She pressed my hand onto the machine first. "Sandra, have you been cheating on Otto behind his back?" The sharp question came at me out of nowhere. I had barely shaken my head once when the device under my hand blared, and a violent current shot through my palm.
Chapters (4)
第1章
The day before the wedding, my best friend Eugenia Henson pulled out a lie detector in front of everyone.
"To make sure this marriage starts honest, I need to run a little test on tomorrow's bride and groom."
She pressed my hand onto the machine first.
"Sandra, have you been cheating on Otto Delgado?"
The question came at me sharp and without warning.
I'd barely finished shaking my head when the device under my hand let out a loud shriek, and a hard jolt of current shot straight through my palm.
The private room erupted.
I fought through the pain and got the words out fast. "It's rigged."
But no one believed me.
Even Otto pulled his hand away from mine.
"Don't touch me. You disgust me."
Eugenia looked at me, a smug little smile at the corner of her mouth.
Then she had Otto put his hand on the machine, and the question she asked left me stunned.
"Otto, the truth is, the one you really love is me, isn't it?"
Otto froze for a second. Then he actually gave a small nod, twice.
A full minute passed. The device stayed silent.
I stood there, my mind gone blank.
The crowd started clapping and egging them on.
"Kiss her! Kiss her!"
Eugenia leaned in happily and pressed her lips hard to the corner of his mouth.
Otto didn't pull back. He even slid a steadying hand to her waist.
The current had ripped through my flesh, and my fingers were still trembling from it, but the pain had cleared my head completely.
So it wasn't just the machine that was rigged.
This whole relationship had been rigged from the very start.
1.
Eugenia reached over and switched off the device, but her mouth kept going.
"Sandra, best friend or not, I am not going to help you play two men at once."
Her tone was heavy.
"Sleeping around might be fun, but it's still wrong."
The burn in my palm still stung, a reminder of everything that had just happened.
My boyfriend and my best friend had been crawling into bed behind my back.
I tugged at the corner of my mouth, and something bitter rose in me.
"And the two of you weren't doing it behind my back?"
Otto frowned and cut me off, hard.
"Watch your mouth. Eugenia and I are nothing like you."
He tossed a stack of photos onto the table.
In them, a man was holding an umbrella, carefully pulling open the passenger door for me.
Same location, snapped from every angle.
His finger landed on the little smile at the corner of my mouth in the photo, his voice all mockery.
"Just finished, were you? Look how happy you are."
Everyone in the room broke into laughter, and the way they looked at me turned suggestive.
"Come on, why not treat the boys first? We wouldn't mind getting in on it too."
"Right, if Otto alone can't satisfy you, surely all of us together could?"
Otto leaned back into the couch, calm, completely unbothered by the filth.
I bit down on the soft flesh inside my cheek, forcing back the sting climbing up my nose, and I didn't deny it.
"That's right."
His face changed, the smile at his lips wiped flat.
"Sandra Matthews, you really have no shame."
I really had just finished something.
The president of Mindware had asked to meet with me. He said he wanted to open a branch office overseas, and asked whether I'd be interested in going out to run it.
A promotion. Double the salary.
The terms were more than tempting.
Last night I'd held up the ring on my finger for him to see, smiling with my whole face.
"Sorry. I'm about to get married."
"A long-distance start to a marriage doesn't really work."
Today, reality had slapped me hard across the face.
On the table, Otto's phone buzzed.
He swiped it open. It was the wedding coordinator.
"Mr. Delgado, I've sent over the full run of tomorrow's ceremony. Could you look it over and confirm everything's right?"
Otto gave it a careless glance.
"It's fine."
Then his tone shifted, cold and thin.
"But there's one thing I need changed."
"Change the bride's name to Eugenia Henson."
He said it clearly, word by word, like he wanted me to hear every syllable.
The person on the line knew better than to ask, and only promised the change would be done before the ceremony started.
Eugenia sat with a smile on her lips, leaning her whole weight against Otto's shoulder.
I gripped my glass and tipped my head back, finishing the last of the wine.
When I stood and walked over in front of her, everyone held their breath, watching us.
I'd barely lifted my arm when Otto seized my wrist.
His grip was crushing, his knuckles grinding into my bone.
"Anything you've got, take it up with me. Don't touch her."
He shielded Eugenia with his body, like a knight guarding his princess.
Whatever warmth was left in me went out for good.
Right in front of him, I bent down and slipped the ring off my finger.
I slid it onto Eugenia's hand. No resistance at all. It fit her perfectly.
"I only wanted to wish you both a happy marriage."
The door of the room opened, and the draft from the hall swept over me, turning me cold all the way through.
I sank down slowly against the wall, pressed my lips together, and tapped open a chat.
【That offer to go out and run the branch, from yesterday. Does it still stand?】
The reply came quickly.
【Of course.】
【I've booked you a flight for eight tomorrow night. You go on ahead.】
第2章
Only after I got the confirmation did the knot in my chest loosen a little.
Once the alcohol had cleared a bit from my head, I hailed a cab and went back.
I switched on the lights. Everything in the wedding house was exactly the way I'd left it that morning.
On the entryway wall was a sticky note in Otto's own handwriting.
【It's raining today. Don't forget your umbrella, dummy.】
Beside the TV stand sat a photo of the two of us.
His arm was looped around my neck, and he was flashing a peace sign at the camera.
The throw pillows on the couch were still pushed together. Just yesterday we'd leaned against them watching the World Cup, arguing our heads off because we were rooting for different teams.
All of it felt like a dream.
Now the dream was over.
I opened the cabinet and started packing.
The phone in my pocket buzzed.
My mom had sent a photo.
"Sandy, what do you think of this outfit for tomorrow?"
She scrimped and saved on everything and never spent more than a hundred dollars on clothes, but the dress she had on now still had its tag showing: $1,888.
I thought for a moment, then typed back.
"Mom, don't come tomorrow. The wedding's off."
"I'll book you a tour package. Go away for a couple of days, clear your head."
The next second, the phone rang.
There was something careful in my mom's voice.
"Why is it suddenly off? Is it because our family's not well-off enough, and the Delgados backed out?"
I kept my head down, thinking of the first time our parents met.
My mom dressed plainly, but she was neat and clean.
Joan Delgado kept turning the jade bangle on her wrist, her eyes cutting my mom over, head to foot, like a knife carving her up.
"A wild hen that flew out of some dirt-poor village, and now she wants to perch on a golden branch and play the phoenix."
"Fooling around is fine. But marriage? No."
Otto had held my hand then, standing firmly in front of me.
"Mom, Sandra isn't the type to climb for money."
To make the Delgados give in, I worked myself to death, saved, and clawed my way up.
Pulling all-nighters, drinking at business dinners until my stomach bled, shoving supplements into my mouth by the handful.
Finally, at the start of this year, on the strength of one million dollars in my bank account, I pried open the Delgados' door.
A million isn't much, but it proved I could live without leaning on Otto's money.
And now the place I'd traded my health for, he'd handed to Eugenia with a single sentence.
The thought made my nose sting.
"Something just came up between us."
"Don't worry. I can handle it."
After I hung up, I stuffed the last piece of clothing into my suitcase, peeled the sticky note off the wall, and threw it in the trash.
Last of all I took the wedding photo down from the headboard, wrapped it up, and wheeled it on a cart to the garbage station.
Just as I finished all of it, Otto opened the door and came in.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking out the trash."
He glanced at my suitcase and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
"Trying to threaten me by running away from home?"
I stopped and looked up at him.
"You're overthinking it. I'm just clearing space for the newlyweds."
He gave a short scoff and threw out an arm to block me.
"Since you want to leave, shouldn't you leave behind everything I gave you?"
"I don't want you and your lover getting anything cheap out of me."
I stood where I was, gripping the handle of the suitcase.
"I didn't cheat. That night——."
Otto didn't believe it.
"A machine isn't a person. It can't lie."
"But the person running the machine can fake it."
His face went cold.
"Eugenia is your best friend, not some scapegoat you can throw under the bus to save face."
In the end, I crouched down in front of him and pulled the zipper open.
Inside there was nothing but everyday items and a change of clothes.
"Done checking?"
Otto walked up to me and tipped his chin at me from above.
Following his gaze, I saw the red string on my wrist.
He'd gone to a temple to get it back during the pandemic, when my fever wouldn't break. For that, he'd willingly climbed nine hundred and ninety-nine steps.
When he tied it onto my wrist, his eyes were frighteningly red, and he was still murmuring under his breath.
"Sandra, you have to get better. Healthy and well. We're going to live to a hundred together."
Now he wanted even this back.
I clicked the zipper into the suitcase's lock, walked to the entryway, picked up the scissors, slid them into the gap between my wrist and the string, and pressed down hard.
The red string was cut clean through, and it dropped heavily to the floor.
第3章
When the call came through while I was still at the hotel, I hadn't expected Eugenia to want to meet me at all.
In the coffee shop, she sat across from me.
I recognized the necklace at her throat. Otto had ordered it last week, two hundred grand, and told me it would be my birthday present the following week.
At the time he'd said, “I'm going to give my wife everything, all the best things in the world.”
Eugenia stirred the coffee in her cup, and the first thing out of her mouth was an order.
“Sandra, let me have this one more time.”
I took a sip of the coffee. Too bitter.
Bitter enough that all my years of kindness to Eugenia felt like they'd been thrown to a dog.
“How much more do I have to give up for you?”
From the tutoring slots with the top instructors before the SATs, all the way to my grad-school recommendation in college.
Every time she said the same thing, “Sandra, you're so brilliant, just let me have this one.”
And every time I agreed, because she was a friend I'd known for over a decade, and I was willing to spare her a little hardship.
But now she even wanted to take my boyfriend.
Eugenia's eyes slowly reddened.
“You have your own talent to fall back on. I don't.”
“I'm slow. I learn everything slowly. I need someone to lean on.”
She said it with such conviction, as if I'd owed her from the day I was born.
She pushed the wedding invitation across the table toward me.
The iris design Otto and I had settled on together had been swapped out for roses.
I like every flower there is. The only one I'm allergic to is roses.
“Will you come be my bridesmaid?”
“I need to watch you see me and Otto get married with your own eyes. Then I can rest easy.”
I didn't answer.
She kept going.
“When it's over, I'll give the bracelet your mother gave me back to you.”
She let her wrist slip out. A jade bracelet swung there.
It was the one she'd asked my mother for the first time they met.
“Ma'am, this bracelet of yours is so pretty. Can I try it on?”
And Otto had said, too, “It's just a bracelet, Sandra. Don't be petty.”
It was the only thing my late father had left me, kept for me by my mother.
My mother's hands had trembled as she handed it over.
Eugenia put it on and never took it off again.
I nodded and agreed.
On the wedding day I set out from the hotel early.
At the bridal suite, the custom gown that had been made for me was now on Eugenia's body, a little tight at the waist.
When the groom's party came to collect the bride, Otto was the first to rush into the room.
When he saw me, his expression went guarded and his face went cold as he warned me.
“Today matters. Don't cause trouble.”
“And Eugenia's carrying now. If anything happens, you can't answer for it.”
Eugenia lowered her head and stroked her belly, a smile on her face.
“I forgot to tell you that day.”
“I'm pregnant. The baby's already three months along.”
I froze where I stood, my nails digging into my palm.
Three months ago was exactly when the hurricane made landfall.
That day, Otto, who had promised to pick me up after work, never came.
He didn't answer his phone. He didn't reply to my messages.
Later, the whole city's traffic ground to a halt.
I was trapped at the office the whole night, no power, no food.
In the middle of the night, a window shattered, glass drifted in and cut into my arm, and blood pooled across the floor.
So that was the night he'd spent locked in a warm bed with another woman.
I stepped back a few paces, making sure I was far away from the two of them.
I thought that would keep anything from going wrong.
Until the ring exchange, when someone came running up onto the stage in a panic.
“The rings are gone. There's only an empty box up there now.”
第4章
The guests below stirred.
Eugenia's eyes fixed on me, precise as a needle.
She stroked her belly, her voice pitiful.
"Sandra, I know you're bitter that Otto chose me."
"But everyone's here today. You can't drag all these people into a scene with you."
Two short lines, and she had me pinned in front of the whole room.
I stood and emptied every pocket I had.
I laid each thing out in plain sight.
"It wasn't me. I didn't take it."
Otto helped Eugenia down from the stage.
When they reached me, her legs buckled as if she meant to kneel.
Otto caught her before she could.
"Stand. She isn't worth it."
"Just because you're soft doesn't give her the right to bully you."
Once she was steady, Eugenia took hold of my hand.
"If you'd really hidden something, why would you ever bring it out yourself?"
"You were the one who cheated first. Why are you the one making trouble for Otto at his wedding now?"
The words landed, and the whole room drew a sharp breath.
I looked at Eugenia. She lowered her head and twisted the glove in her hands.
"You can check the security footage instead of standing here threatening me."
She bit her lip and added, "The cameras have been down for maintenance these past few days. They're not running."
I let out a cold laugh.
"How convenient."
Otto shot me a glance.
"Whether you took it or not, one test and we'll know."
That lie detector was set in front of me again.
This time I put my hand on it without hesitating.
"I didn't take the ring."
The red light flashed a few times.
"Lie!"
"I didn't cheat."
The red light flashed again.
"Lie!"
I lifted my head and looked at Otto.
"Eugenia is the one who told me to come to this wedding."
"Lie!"
"I'm leaving. My flight's tonight. We won't see each other again."
"Lie!"
The disgust in Otto's eyes was so full it nearly spilled over.
"Sandra Matthews, is there a single true word left in your mouth?"
"Hand over the ring. Stop wasting everyone's time dragging this out."
Eugenia knocked the bracelet on her wrist against the table.
"Sandra, stop clinging to this delusion."
Under the current's repeated strikes, blood ran down my palm and dripped to the floor, drop by drop.
A few people crowded in, grinning cruelly.
"Otto, hand her to us. We'll straighten her out nice and quiet and get the ring's whereabouts out of her."
Through the crowd, Otto stood where he was and said nothing.
He gave a nod. Consent enough.
As they pinned my arms and dragged me off, he was steadying Eugenia by the waist, asking if she was in pain.
To keep the ceremony on schedule, the host invited the couple back onto the stage.
He smiled and asked Otto.
"Mr. Delgado, do you take Miss Henson to be your wife?"
"I do."
A cold mechanical voice sounded under his hand.
"Lie!"
"I'm not lying."
"Lie!"
The current jumped. Otto flinched at the pain and flung the thing to the floor.
The lie detector rolled a few times and came to rest in the corner, but the voice didn't stop.
"Lie, lie……"
Below the stage, a server came running with a tray held up.
"The ring's been found."
"No one took it. It was wedged in the crack between the table and the corner."
On the stage, Otto's hands shook, and all at once the color drained from his face.