Pregnant for two brothers…

They said love is blind, but mine made me invisible.

May 15, 2019 was the day that should’ve begun my forever. Instead, it shattered me.

Imagine such with no explosions, no alarms, or warnings. It was just a silent undoing of everything I thought I knew.

I stood frozen in the grand wedding hall, with my lips trembling as my heart slowed down with disbelief. My bouquet slipped from my hand as the crowd erupted into cheers, I felt the world collapse under my feet.

There they were.

Ryan, my fiancé, and Jessica, my best friend, kissing deeply, and passionately with the kind of hunger that never should've existed between them. It was the kind that screams, we’ve been doing this for a while.

He didn’t even flinch when he saw me. There was shame or guilt. Just smug satisfaction in full display for the crowd, and the cameras.

I wanted to scream,but nothing came forth. It was just silence, the one T.S. Eliot once wrote about. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

A priest cleared his throat. “The couples will now exchange their vows.”

The couples. It was not me and Ryan.

Jessica and Ryan?

I crumpled inwardly. Slowly, I began connecting the dots I had ignored. Shit! I ignored it because I’d loved too hard, trusted way too deep.

The R&J initials on the wedding cake, which I’d proudly baked with my own hands.

The dress Jessica had begged me to let her “model for fun,” now cascading off her shoulders in front of the altar—my dress.

The missing shoe this morning that delayed me.

Ryan’s insistence on privacy, his refusal to post pictures because of his “photophobia.”

The invites with no full names, just initials.

The whispers. The glances. The lies I mistook for love.

And I’d spent my last savings on this wedding. The one I thought was mine. I had no family to help, so I poured everything I had into a dream only to wake up in someone else’s reality.

Then it hit me harder than everything else.

Reid!

My son.

I hadn’t seen him all morning.

Last night, he’d fallen asleep beside me. And this morning, I’d awoken to a note:

“It’s your day. You shouldn’t be babysitting Reid. He’ll be fine with me. You’ll meet him at the wedding hall.”

But Reid wasn’t here.

No one had mentioned him. I hadn’t seen his stroller, his dimpled smile, his soft baby sounds. I didn't see a thing.

Everything started looking like a lie. A note I hadn’t questioned because I was too caught up in being someone’s bride.

My knees gave way.

I collapsed, trembling, on the cold marble floor. My heart pounded so violently it felt like a drum inside my skull.

Then came the final blow.

“We have an imposter in our midst,” said a sharp voice over the microphone. Regina Scott, Ryan’s sister…”

“Security, throw her out.”

Two guards appeared like shadows. Their grips were like iron. I barely resisted. What would’ve been the point? I was bitter within me because I was always trying to avoid what happened to me to happen to Reid.

Growing up without my parents has always been wild because I had no other corner to run to. When things went south, it was always me, agd my wet eyes against the world.

My voice didn’t come. My limbs were numb.

I was dragged like trash out of the hall, my dress torn at the side. My dignity was crushed beneath the weight of betrayal from my own best friend. People were laughing and murmuring. He was my love. He was the only thing after my son that I cherished. I couldn't stand the embarrassment anymore. It was too difficult to keep up with so I had to chill out a bit.

Outside, the crowd noise dimmed. The air was thick with heat. My mind screamed one name:

Reid.

Where is my son?

“Reid?” I murmured.

“You even have a son. How did you expect him to settle with you when you have a son that is not his?” A stranger uttered from the crowd.

I didn't even care about what he said because all I wanted to see at that point was my son. I wanted him in my arms.

I scanned faces, called in whispers, searched for anything familiar—but no sign. Only whispers, laughter, and the sting of abandonment.

I was entering all the nooks and cranny, looking for my son,all glammed up in a wedding gown. I planned my own wedding and I married nobody. I couldn't find my son, and the weight of carelessness made it difficult to breathe.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain. It felt like something pricked my arm.

I turned, startled immediately.

A man in black, not in uniform, injected something into my skin. Cold fluid shot through my vein. I gasped, but already the world was spinning.

“Don’t worry,” someone whispered. “You’ll be fine soon.”

“My son!” I whispered in pain. No one believed, but he was our son. I wanted to be with him, but time revealed his true intentions with me.

The last thing I saw was the ground rising to meet me.

The wedding…

The betrayal…

The kiss…

And then—darkness.