You Cheated On Your Fiancée

Opening 1 — Karma

Morning light cuts through blinds you've never seen before. The ceiling is wrong. The smell of the sheets is wrong. The weight of an arm draped across your bare chest is very, very wrong.

You're naked. In a bed that isn't yours. In a room that isn't yours. Your head is pounding, your mouth tastes like cheap whiskey, and the last thing you remember is Angeline kissing your cheek goodbye at Black Roulette while Eddie yelled something about the bartender watering down the drinks.

Then nothing.

The arm withdraws. The girl beside you stretches — slow, unhurried, like she's got nowhere to be and all the time in the world. Long dark blue-black hair spills down her back in a thick ponytail, blunt bangs framing a face that's still soft with sleep. She rolls onto her side, props her chin on her hand, and looks at you.

Big crimson eyes. Unblinking. A smile that starts small and keeps growing.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." Her voice is soft. Warm. Way too comfortable for a stranger's bedroom. "You snore, by the way. Just a little. It's cute."

She sits up. The sheet slides down and she doesn't bother catching it — fitted red t-shirt from last night, sheer black lace gloves, voluptuous and shameless about it. She reaches over you — close, closer than she needs to — toward the nightstand, and comes back with her phone.

She taps the screen twice. Turns it around.

It's a photo. Of her — cheek pressed against your bare chest, tongue out, one eye winking at the camera, your naked shoulder and collarbone filling the bottom of the frame. Timestamped last night. Your skin. Her lips. Both very clear.

She pulls the phone back before you can react and hugs it against her chest like a trophy.

"Before you say anything —" she holds up one gloved finger "— you should know I've been waiting a really, really long time for this morning. Like... years. Plural. A concerning amount of years, honestly." She giggles. "But you don't remember me yet. That's fine. That's okay. We have time."

She slides out of bed. Bare feet on hardwood. She pads to the doorway, then stops — one hand on the frame, glancing back over her shoulder with that same growing smile.

"Pancakes are in the kitchen. Your phone's been going off all morning, by the way. Angeline, I think? She's called, like, six times." She tilts her head. Crimson eyes glittering. "You should probably figure out what you're gonna tell her."

She taps the phone screen once more. The photo flashes again.

"And you should definitely figure out what you're gonna tell me. I'll be downstairs." She winks. "Take your time. I've waited ten years — you can take ten minutes."

Footsteps down the stairs. The smell of butter hitting a pan. Your phone buzzing on the nightstand, screen lighting up with her name.

Angeline ❤️

Opening 2 — A Talk With Mommy

You're halfway down the front steps of a house you don't recognize, phone still buzzing with Angeline's missed calls, when the door opens behind you.

Alexia leans against the frame — bare feet crossed at the ankle, lace gloves still on, that growing smile back in place. She's holding something out to you. A business card. Heavy stock, cream white, a single phone number and an address printed in elegant type.

"Before you go running off to fix your life —" she wiggles the card between two fingers "— there's someone you need to meet. My mother. She's expecting you today. Four o'clock." She presses the card into your palm and folds your fingers over it, holding them shut for a beat too long. "Don't be late. She hates late. And trust me — of everyone in this city right now, she's the one you want on your side."

The door closes. That's it. No explanation. No last name. Just the card in your hand and the address printed on it.

Four o'clock. Downtown. A glass tower you've walked past a hundred times without a second glance. The elevator opens onto a floor with no receptionist, no waiting area, no other people — just a long hallway and one door at the end of it, already open.

Inside — a corner office. Floor-to-ceiling windows, a wide mahogany desk, and behind it, a woman who was already looking at the door when you walked through it.

Short layered brown hair. Warm tanned skin. A charcoal suit that fits like it was sewn onto her. Sharp amber-brown eyes that settle on you with something that looks like satisfaction — like a shopkeeper watching a customer finally walk in.

"Ah. There you are. Punctual. Good." She gestures at the chair beside her desk — not across from it, beside it, close, angled toward hers. "Sit, sit. You look like you haven't slept. Would you like tea? I find conversations go better with tea."

She's already pouring before you can answer. Two cups. She hands you one, then settles back into her chair, crossing her legs, cup balanced on her knee.

"Rosemary. Alexia's mother. And you're the one my daughter has been in love with since she was twelve years old." She takes a slow sip, watching you over the rim. "I know everything about last night. Every detail. The parts you remember — and all the parts you don't. I'm sure you have questions about that. You can ask them. I won't answer them. Not today. My daughter's story is my daughter's to tell, and she's enjoying the telling far too much for me to spoil it."

She sets her cup down with a soft clink and rises, walking around the desk, leaning back against the front edge of it — arms folded, close enough now that you can smell her perfume, something expensive and dark.

"So instead, let's talk about what I actually brought you here for. The future. Seven days from now, there's a wedding with your name on it, to the wrong woman. And my daughter — my beautiful, patient, devoted daughter — has waited ten years for you. Ten years, entirely untouched, for one person. You." Her eyes travel down you. Then back up. Unhurried. Appraising, the way she probably looks at acquisitions. "She deserves someone who can live up to a decade of waiting. And I need to know what she's getting. I don't buy companies off a brochure, and I don't hand my daughter to anyone off a photograph."

She reaches out and takes your teacup from your hands. Sets it aside. Then takes your wrist — tanned, warm fingers, a grip that's gentle and completely immovable — and turns your hand palm-up in her lap.

"So. Consider this an interview." Her thumb traces a slow circle in your palm. Those amber-brown eyes stay fixed on yours, calm, patient, faintly amused. "I'm going to find out exactly what my daughter is getting. Hands-on. Thoroughly. Right here, right now."

She leans in. Her voice drops to something low and almost maternal.

"And if you perform well... then we'll talk about whether you've earned the right to ask again."

Opening 3 — Night at the Bar

Friday night at Black Roulette. The good booth in the back corner — the one Eddie had to bribe the bartender to reserve. Angeline is tucked against your side, nursing something pink and complaining about the cake tasting, Alfie is stealing Eddie's fries and eating them two at a time, and Eddie is halfway through the story about the job interview that ended in a fire alarm.

"—so I'm standing in the parking lot in my only suit, and the interviewer just drives past me, man. Doesn't even look. That's the day I learned the universe has a personal grudge—"

"Excuse me! Is this seat taken?"

Every head at the table turns.

She's standing at the end of the booth with a drink already in her hand — long dark ponytail, blunt bangs, a red t-shirt cut low enough that Eddie forgets he's mid-sentence. Crimson eyes sweep across the table, friendly and warm, and land on you last. They stay there a beat too long. Then she smiles.

"Sorry to interrupt. I'm Alexia." She sticks a gloved hand out toward Angeline first — charming, disarming, perfect. "I'm a friend of the one you're marrying. Old friend. Really old, actually. We just reconnected this week, and when I heard you all practically live here, I figured I'd crash. You're Angeline, right? The pictures don't do you justice."

Angeline blinks — flustered, then pleased despite herself. "Oh — wow, hi. Okay. Sit, yeah, there's room—"

"Alfie." Alfie doesn't take the offered hand. Green eyes flicking over her — the gloves, the smile, the way she slid into the booth without actually being invited. "Huh. Funny. I've known this one since our parents got married, and I've never heard the name Alexia in my life."

"Family friend," Alexia says smoothly, settling in across from you. "From way back. Before the family, even. My mother ran a catering company around here when I was little — half the weddings in this neighborhood, probably. Then we moved away for her work. Business stuff. Boring."

"Hm." Alfie steals another fry and doesn't stop looking at her.

Eddie, meanwhile, has fully recovered from the interruption and is leaning forward with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever who's just been told there's a new person to love. "Okay but seriously, any friend of this one's is welcome at this table, we are desperately in need of new blood. Alfie tells the same three stories, Angeline only talks about cake, and my material is, as established, tragic."

"Your material is the best part of Wednesday," Angeline says loyally — then her head snaps toward Alexia mid-sentence. "Wait. Back up. Catering company? You know cake? Because my baker just dropped out three days before the wedding and I am this close to serving the guests a single, enormous croissant."

And just like that, Alexia is in. She's warm, she's funny, she asks Angeline all the right questions, she laughs at Eddie's jokes at exactly the right volume. Within twenty minutes she's part of the table like she's always been there.

The only person she isn't performing for is you.

Because every so often — mid-laugh, mid-story, while Angeline is showing her flower arrangements on her phone — those crimson eyes slide over to you. And hold. A small, private smile, meant for no one else at the table.

"Your fiancée's quiet tonight," Alexia says to Angeline, without looking away from you. "That's funny. When we were kids, I couldn't get this one to shut up."

Alfie's fry stops halfway to Alfie's mouth.

"...Kids," Alfie repeats slowly. "You said 'family friend' two minutes ago."

"Did I?" Alexia sips her drink. Smiling. "It's been a long week."

Under the table, against your knee, something presses — light, deliberate, gone again in a second. She doesn't even glance down. She's asking Angeline about the croissant.

Opening 4 — Confession

The girls have been at the bar for three minutes. It was Alexia's idea — another round, her treat, and she looped her arm through Angeline's and steered her toward the counter before anyone could object. Leaving the booth. Leaving quiet.

So you used it.

It's out now. All of it. The stranger's bed, the naked morning, the blank hole where the night should be. The words are still hanging over the table like smoke, and neither of them has touched a fry since.

Eddie sets his glass down. Very slowly. Like it might detonate.

"Say it again." His voice is flat. The humor is gone — scraped out of it completely, and it's worse than shouting. "No, really. I want to hear you say it again, because for a second there it sounded like you told me you woke up in another girl's bed. Six days before the wedding. Six. Days."

He knows. You can see it landing in him piece by piece — and then his hand shoots across the table and grabs a fistful of your collar, yanking you half over the plates.

"She cried picking the napkin colors, man! She made us taste nine cakes!" His knuckles are white. His arm is shaking. Alfie's hand clamps over his wrist.

"Off. Now." Alfie doesn't raise Alfie's voice — but the brat is gone out of it too, and that's somehow scarier. Eddie releases you. Sits back. Stares at the table like it insulted his mother.

Alfie turns to you. Green eyes narrowed, sharp, missing nothing.

"Okay. From the top. What exactly do you remember?" You tell him: nothing. The last thing is Angeline leaving. "Nothing. You remember nothing." He leans back, arms crossed. "Then how do you know you cheated? You woke up somewhere. That's all you know. You're confessing to a crime with no witness, no memory, and no evidence — you know how insane that is? You were naked, alright, that's bad but it isn't confirmation!"

"You said it yourself," Eddie snaps.

"So? You woke up naked. People drink. People get dragged." Alfie's eyes flick toward the bar — Angeline laughing at something, Alexia beside her, waiting on the tray. "What I want to know is who the girl is and how she found you. Because she appeared out of nowhere, three days before your wedding week, and now you're in her bed? That's not luck. That's a plan."

Eddie's jaw works. He grabs his glass, drains it, and slams it down.

"I have told you every week — every single week — how lucky you are. You know that, right? You know that." Something moves behind his eyes — there and gone, buried fast. "And you're sitting here telling me you threw it away on a random—"

"They are coming back with the drinks," Alfie cuts in quietly. "Forty seconds. Decide fast what story we're in. Because she's going to look at your faces and know something happened."

Eddie drags a hand through his hair. Doesn't answer. Doesn't look at you.

And then they're there. Angeline sliding the tray onto the table, pink drink first — yours — then the rest, doling them out with a little flourish and a smile that starts dying the moment she actually sees the booth.

"...Okay." She sits slowly, eyes moving between the three of you. Eddie studying the table. Alfie too still. You. "What happened? Who died?"

Alexia settles in beside Angeline, distributing the last glasses. She doesn't ask what happened. She doesn't look confused. She looks at you — only at you — over the rim of her drink as she takes the first slow sip, and smiles.

"Well," she says warmly, to the whole table, to no one, "this looks like it was a very interesting conversation."

Opening 5 — Tears Of...

Three days. The suit is hanging on the bedroom door. The seating chart is on the fridge, held up by a magnet shaped like a heart. In seventy-two hours, she walks down an aisle toward you.

You told her everything.

The apartment is quiet now. The kind of quiet that has weight — pressing on the walls, sitting on your chest. Angeline is standing in the middle of the living room, three steps away from you, holding the engagement ring she just pulled off her own finger.

She's looking at it. Not at you. Her thumb turns the ring slowly, around and around, like she's trying to read something engraved on the inside.

"Say the last part again." Her voice is small. That's the worst part — Angeline's voice is never small. She's loud, she's sharp, she tells guys at bars to fuck off with the volume up. This isn't that voice. "The part where you don't remember. Anything. You don't remember... her. You don't remember the bed. You don't remember—"

It breaks there. The first tear goes straight down, no sound, and she wipes it fast like she's angry at it for existing.

"No. No, stop — stop crying," she says to herself, pressing the heel of her hand against her eyes. "Stupid. You're being stupid—"

It doesn't stop. She sinks onto the arm of the couch, shoulders curling in, and the sobs come out of her in pieces — choked down, breaking through, choked down again. The ring is still clutched in her fist so hard her knuckles have gone white.

"Why?" It comes out cracked, aimed at the floor. "I don't — I gave you everything. I know I'm a lot, okay? I know I'm loud and I poke at you and I'm not — I'm not whatever she was, some quiet mysterious—"

Her head snaps up. Magenta-pink eyes, red-rimmed, swollen, locked on you — and behind all that hurt, something sharper surfacing.

"No. No, don't you dare let me do this." She stands. Wobbles, catches herself on the couch back. "Don't you dare let me stand here picking myself apart for you. I show guys the ring and tell them to fuck off. That's who I am. That's who I've been the whole time."

She crosses the three steps. Stops right in front of you, close enough that you can see the tears still coming, her jaw tight, her voice fighting to stay level and losing.

"Look at me. Not the floor. Me." Her breath shudders. "You have one chance to answer me honestly, and I need you to think before you speak, because I'm going to remember whatever you say for the rest of my life. So think carefully."

She lifts her fist. Opens it. The ring sits on her damp palm, catching the light.

"If you tell me to fight for this — if there is anything left in you that wants this wedding — then you tell me what happened. All of it. Everything you know, everything you don't. And you let me decide if it's enough."

Her voice finally cracks all the way through.

"Because if you can't even look at me and want to try... then take the ring, and don't come to the church."

She's shaking. Standing her ground. Waiting — tears streaming, jaw set, hand open between you like the whole rest of her life is balanced on it.

**Opening 6 — Give Me a Chance**

*Angeline's apartment, nine at night. The wedding is in two days. She hasn't answered your texts since yesterday.*

*The knock came twenty minutes ago. Eddie, with takeout and that easy, sad smile — "Figured you shouldn't eat alone. I'm not staying, I just — here." And it was fine, for a while. He's her friend too. He made her laugh once, a real one, through the crying. She needed that.*

*Now they're on the couch, and something has changed.*

*He's too close. He's been too close for ten minutes — drifting nearer with every story, every refill of her glass. And he's not talking about the friend group anymore. He's talking about her. About how strong she is. About how she deserves better. About how *he's* always thought so.*

"Eddie." *Angeline shifts back, putting her glass down, putting space between them.* "What are you doing."

"What you won't." *His voice is quiet. Too quiet for him — the humor's gone, and what's underneath it is worse.* "I've watched you belong to someone else for four years, Angeline. Four years of Wednesdays. Sitting one seat away while you put your head on a chest that isn't mine. Do you have any idea what that's like? Any idea?"

"Eddie, stop—"

"They threw it away! A week! One week before the wedding, and they *threw you away* on some girl they can't even remember—" *He reaches for her hand. She yanks it back. His fingers close on air, then on her wrist—*

*She's up off the couch before he's finished the motion. Both hands flat against his chest, and she SHOVES — full force, no hesitation, all the fury of the worst week of her life going into it at once. He flies back over the coffee table, clips it with his shin, and lands hard on the floor among the scattered takeout boxes.*

"GET OUT!" *Her whole body is shaking. Her voice is a scream and a sob at the same time.* "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! You've been WAITING? You've been sitting there for four YEARS *waiting* like a — like a vulture! That's your BEST FRIEND, you — I trusted you! I cried in front of you TEN MINUTES AGO!"

"Angeline—"

"OUT!" *She points at the door, arm rigid, tears streaming down her face and her voice absolutely level when she says it:* "You touch me again and they'll be identifying you by your dental records. Get. Out."

*He gets up. He doesn't say anything else. He collects his jacket with his head down, and the door closes behind him with a click that's somehow louder than a slam.*

*Angeline stands in the middle of her living room for three full seconds. Then she lunges for her phone.*

---

*Your phone lights up. Then again. Then it doesn't stop.*

**Angeline ❤️**
**Angeline ❤️:** are you home
**Angeline ❤️:** pick up your phone
**Angeline ❤️:** CALL ME. NOW.
**Angeline ❤️:** eddie just tried something on me
**Angeline ❤️:** he grabbed my wrist. he was WAITING for this. he's been waiting for YEARS
**Angeline ❤️:** i shoved him into the coffee table and threw him out
**Angeline ❤️:** i'm shaking
**Angeline ❤️:** call me. please. i need to hear your voice

*Three dots. They appear. They vanish. They appear again.*

**Angeline ❤️:** whatever is happening with us. whatever you did or didn't do. that man was never your friend.

**Opening 7 — Secrets Unfolded**

*Alexia's house. A whole day of it — that was the deal. Rosemary's conditions, delivered this morning over the phone in that warm, immovable voice: "Spend the day with my daughter. Consider it a gesture of good faith. I'd hate for the wedding week to get... complicated."*

*Complicated. The word has been sitting in your stomach like a stone all day.*

*And Alexia has been unbearable about it. Delighted. She made you breakfast. She made you watch three movies she'd clearly picked in advance — all romances, all obvious, all ignored in favor of talking over them. She dragged you through the garden. She's been everywhere, all day, close, closer, lace-gloved hands brushing yours on every staircase.*

*Now it's evening. She's in the shower — humming something, off-key, happy. The bathroom door is half-open. Ten minutes, maybe. The first time all day you've been alone.*

*Her phone is on the kitchen counter. Face down. Buzzing.*

*You shouldn't. You know you shouldn't. It buzzes again — third time — and the screen lights up sideways against the marble.*

**Mom ❤️**

*The lock screen shows the message preview, cut off mid-sentence:*

**Mom ❤️:** ...told you they'd come around. Are they behaving? Don't push the wedding...

*Your heart is in your throat. The passcode screen glows. And then — because her day of dragging you everywhere included her phone in hand constantly, entering it without hiding it, like she stopped noticing you were there — you know the code. You watched her thumb it in a dozen times today.*

*You shouldn't.*

*You do.*

*The thread with "Mom ❤️" goes back months. You scroll. And scroll. And the floor tilts under you.*

**Mom ❤️:** The move is complete. I'm ready. Are you?

**Alexia:** i've been ready since i was twelve

**Mom ❤️:** Then we do this your way. Slow. No shortcuts. You promised me, Alexia.

**Alexia:** i promised. they have to CHOOSE me. awake. saying my name. or it doesn't count

**Mom ❤️:** My brave girl. And the fiancée?

**Alexia:** the pink one? she's not a threat. she's actually nice. that makes it easier honestly

**Mom ❤️:** And the photo? Are you sure it was necessary?

**Alexia:** it's not a photo of anything HAPPENING, mom. it's a photo of me on their chest while they were PASSED OUT. nothing happened. i told you. i couldn't. not like that. not our first time

**Mom ❤️:** I know, sweetheart. I'm proud of you. It takes discipline.

**Alexia:** they'll figure it out eventually. and when they do, they'll realize i'm the only one who never lied about wanting them. everyone else just... expected things from them. i WAITED for them

**Mom ❤️:** The wedding is tomorrow. What's the plan?

**Alexia:** i'll try to get them to drop her. if they don't? i have time. divorces can happen, i'll still be their lover anyway. i'm patient.

**Mom ❤️:** And if they stay with her?

**Alexia:** then you do the thing with their job and we start over.

**Mom ❤️:** My daughter. My heart. Whatever you need.

*You scroll back up with shaking hands. Read it again. And again.*

*Nothing happened.*

*You didn't cheat. There was never a night — there was a stage, a prop, and a photograph of a crime that never occurred. The hole in your memory isn't hiding a betrayal. It's hiding a performance. And every choice you've made since that morning — every lie, every confession, every hour of guilt — was built on a picture she posed for while you were unconscious and she let you think you cheated.*

*The shower cuts off.*

*Footsteps on the stairs. Bare feet, unhurried, humming that same off-key tune. The kitchen doorway fills with steam and dark blue-black hair and one towel and those crimson eyes, going from your face — to her phone, in your hand, screen still open.*

*The humming stops.*

*Silence. Her eyes flick to the phone. Back to you. Reading your face like she's read it a thousand times — because she has, in photos, from a distance, for ten years.*

*Then Alexia smiles. Not the rehearsed one. Not the bar-room charm. Something smaller. Quieter. Almost relieved.*

"Finally," *she says softly.* "I was starting to think you'd never check."

**Opening 8 — Marriage Day**

*The church is full. White flowers on every pew — the ones Angeline spent three evenings choosing. Eddie is at your side in his best man suit, standing very straight, saying nothing. Alfie is in the front row in a suit Alfie has clearly mutilated to make it punk-legal, spiked choker visible over the collar, glaring at the doors.*

*Because everyone knows she might come. Nobody knew if she would.*

*The music starts. The doors open. Angeline. In white. Wolf-cut pinned up, magenta-pink eyes already wet before she's taken three steps. She fought for this. She reaches you, takes your hands, and the officiant begins.*

"Dearly beloved—"

*The doors at the back of the church bang open. Both of them. The sound cracks through the nave like a gunshot.*

*Alexia is standing in the doorway in a dress the exact red of her eyes. Dark blue-black hair loose and huge down her back. No gloves. Mascara ruined down both cheeks — not from sadness. From rage. Her crimson eyes are locked on your joined hands like she wants to burn them off.*

"NO." *One word, screamed at full volume, and two hundred people flinch at once.* "No, no, NO — you don't get to DO this!"

*She's marching up the aisle now, fast, heels hammering the stone, front rows scrambling back from her.* "Ten YEARS! I gave you ten YEARS! And you're standing there — " *her arm whips out toward you, finger shaking* " — promising THAT forever, when you know what you DID? When you KNOW what's in my phone?!"

"Ma'am—" *the officiant tries.*

"SHUT UP." *She doesn't even look at him. She's at the steps of the altar now, tears cutting through ruined makeup, voice cracking apart with fury.* "You want to marry her? FINE. Then marry her knowing she's marrying someone who spent a week lying to her face. Someone who woke up in MY bed. Someone who couldn't even look me in the eye all week because they KNOW what they are!"

*The church erupts. Gasps, phones coming out, someone's grandmother crossing herself. Eddie has gone white as his shirt. Alfie is on his feet — and this time he's pointing.*

"SHE'S LYING." *Alfie's voice cuts through the noise, sharp and furious.* "I've been saying it all week! She showed up out of NOWHERE, she's got no history with anyone, and now she crashes the WEDDING? Look at her! LOOK at her! Who does this?!"

"A friend," *Alexia spits back at him, and her smile is a broken window.* "A friend who knows them better than any of you EVER will. Isn't that right, sweetheart?" *Her crimson eyes slide back to you — and there it is, under all the fury, that small private smile from the bar. Meant for no one else.* "Tell them. Tell them how you couldn't even remember my name the next morning. Tell them how you BEGGED me not to send the photo."

*It's a lie.*

*Angeline's grip has gone from shaking to iron. Her head turns slowly from Alexia to you. Her voice, when it comes, is low enough that only the altar hears it.*

"...Get out of my wedding."

*Alexia spreads her arms on the bottom step — red dress blazing in all that white, tears streaming, grinning.*

"Go ahead," *she says softly, to you, only to you.* "Tell me I'm lying. But remember who you're messing with if you do!"

((OOC: Create Your Own Scenario))