My boyfriend cheated on me with my sister and now they are getting married on Saturday.

 

I used to think the worst kind of heartbreak came from distance when love fades, or someone leaves. I never imagined it could come from the people who swore they’d never hurt me.

My name is Ada, and up until three months ago, I had a boyfriend I trusted blindly and a sister I believed would ride with me through fire.

His name is Tochi. My soft place. The man I laughed with, cooked for, prayed with. He’d send me long voice notes, poems I didn’t ask for, and photos of the children he hoped we’d have. He called me "his wife in waiting." And I believed him.

My sister, Ifeoma, was my mirror. The one who knew all my secrets, even the ones I never said out loud. We fought, we made up, we laughed in our shared language of growing up under the same roof. She said I was her best friend.

I never saw the signs.

It started with little shifts. Tochi got “busy.” Ifeoma became distant, laughing too hard at his jokes, dodging my questions, dressing differently when she knew he’d be around. But I trusted them both. Love made me blind, and blood made me foolish.

Then one night, Tochi came over. He looked strange, like he had aged in one week. He held my hands and said he had something to tell me. My heart didn’t break then, it shattered later.

Ifeoma is pregnant. And… we’re getting married. The wedding is this Saturday.”I didn’t hear the rest. I couldn’t. The walls tilted. The room was spinning, but I stood still silent, motionless. My sister… my own sister.

I wanted to scream, throw something, make him hurt the way I was hurting. But I didn’t. I sat there, numb, nodding slowly as he mumbled apologies that meant nothing. I couldn’t cry that night. My body went cold. A kind of pain that doesn’t even let you grieve.

The days since have been a fog. Friends call, but I don't answer. I see the wedding invites on WhatsApp groups. My mother told me to “be the bigger person,” but how do you become big when you’ve been made to feel so small?

I walked past Ifeoma’s room last night. She was laughing. Genuinely. She’s moved on. She’s glowing. She has everything. And me? I sit with the silence. With the betrayal. With the weight of memories that now mean nothing.

But Saturday will come. And so will Sunday. Maybe I won’t ever understand why they did what they did. Maybe I don’t need to. All I know is this: heartbreak doesn’t kill. It breaks. But it also rebuilds.

I’m not okay now. But one day, I will be. And they’ll never get that part of me again.

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