My Groom Sprinted Out of Our Wedding to Save His “Childhood Friend” Who Faked a Suicide—He Never Knew I’d Already Seen the Medical File That Said He Was Dying

PART 2: THE “PICK-ME” GIRL

As soon as I got home, I opened my banking app and transferred the $15,000 engagement fund back to Julian. I wanted a completely clean break.

Less than five minutes later, my phone rang. It was Julian, his tone dripping with accusation. “Lily, how much longer are you going to throw this tantrum?”

I was speechless. “Is there something wrong with your brain? Who is throwing a tantrum?”

Julian hit me with his signature impatient sigh. “First you cancel the wedding, then you kick my mother and my entire family out of the venue. And now, just to show how ‘above it all’ you are, you send the money back? Aren’t you just trying to get a reaction out of me?”

Get a reaction out of him? Please. I just wanted to be rid of him.

But he didn’t give me a chance to explain. He kept preaching from his moral high ground. “I know you’re mad that I left to save Serena. But Lily, can you stop being so selfish? Do you know she took a whole bottle of pills? She was hanging by a thread! If I hadn’t gotten there, she would have died! It was just a ceremony. I told you I’d make it up to you. Why did you have to humiliate my mother like that? Honestly, Lily, you really disappointed me today.”

He was disappointed? I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “I’m selfish? Oh, are you joking? I literally stepped aside and let you have her, and you’re calling me selfish?”

Julian paused, clearly confused. “Lily, what are you talking about? I only see Serena as a little sister! She’s younger than you, why are you being so petty over a younger girl?”

“Can you drop that disgusting narrative?” I sneered. “She’s exactly three months younger than me. Stop calling her a ‘little girl’.”

Julian choked on his words but stubbornly continued, “So what? We grew up together. In my eyes, she will always be my sister. But you’re different. You’re my wife. You’re supposed to be Serena’s sister-in-law.”

Before he could finish, I cut him off. “Stop right there. The wedding is off. Don’t force me into a fake family tree.”

Julian sighed heavily, playing the exhausted victim. “Stop saying it’s off. I didn’t agree to it. I said I’ll throw you another wedding later. Just stop being mad, okay? Serena is still in the hospital. She just got her stomach pumped and barely survived. Why do you have to be so relentless? God, my chest hurts just arguing with you.”

I nodded quietly to myself. I knew it wasn’t just his chest hurting—it was his lungs. The pain wasn’t from my “relentlessness”; it was from the cancer cells slowly eating away at his respiratory system. But in his eyes, I was a cold-blooded monster. So, I wasn’t going to do him the favor of warning him.

If he wanted to use morality to guilt-trip me, I’d use it right back.

I feigned shock. “Julian, what do you mean? Are you planning to abandon Serena after this? She literally tried to kill herself for you, and she hasn’t even recovered yet. And you’re still calling her a ‘sister’? Don’t you think you’re being a scumbag to her?”

That hit his weak spot perfectly. Stunned, he stammered, “I have to take responsibility for her… but what about you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Me? I wish you two a hundred years of happiness. Go ahead and have eight kids together for all I care.”

This time, I actually managed to infuriate him. “Fine, Lily! If you want to break up, then we break up! Don’t come crying to me later!” He hung up violently.

Cry to him later? The only one who was going to be crying was him.

Julian was so confident I’d regret it because, in the past, I had always been the one to compromise after an argument. He assumed I just needed time to cool off before I came crawling back. But he miscalculated. In the past, I forgave him over trivial things because I valued the relationship. But this? This was a betrayal of my boundaries. I am a highly capable, independent woman. Why on earth would I waste my life on a cheating man with a terminal illness?

I blocked his number and moved on.

To help me decompress, my best friends took time off work and flew me out to Miami for a girls’ trip. A few days later, while I was sitting on the beach, eating seafood and laughing with my friends, I received a text from Serena.

It was a photo. In the picture, Julian was sitting on a stool, washing her feet in a basin of warm water. The look on his face was so incredibly tender—like he was holding a priceless treasure instead of a pair of smelly feet.

Right under the photo was a mocking text: You lost. Julian loves me.

Perhaps afraid I would screenshot it, she quickly unsent the message, replacing it with a simple smiley face emoji.

If this had happened a week ago, I might have been furious. But sitting on that beach, I just found it hilariously pathetic. I typed back a quick reply: He really loves you. But then again, a dog will always go back to the garbage.

I hit send, then blocked her number too. The two of them were officially erased from my digital life.

My friends, however, were absolutely furious. “What kind of pick-me, homewrecking psycho is she?! She steals a groom and then has the audacity to brag about it? They are both absolute trash!” Rachel, my best friend, yelled.

I laughed, taking a sip of my cocktail. “Exactly. One is a psycho, the other has terminal cancer. Honestly, they’re a match made in heaven.”

My friends stared at me with wide eyes, making sure I wasn’t joking. When they realized I was dead serious, they erupted into laughter.

“Oh my god, karma is real! He totally deserves it!” Rachel cackled. “Honestly, we should be thanking that pick-me girl. If she hadn’t called him right at the ceremony, you would have been dragged down with that sinking ship for the rest of your life. She’s a hero!”

Serena probably never imagined that in our circle, she was being celebrated as a lifesaver.

Unfortunately, vacations end, and I had to return to reality. The worst part of reality was that Julian and I worked at the same corporate firm.

On my first day back, I bumped into him right in the lobby. He looked awful. His eyes were sunken, he had lost weight, and he looked utterly exhausted. Taking care of Serena clearly wasn’t a walk in the park. Or maybe the cancer was advancing faster than he realized.

The moment he saw me, he immediately put on his arrogant, self-righteous mask. “Lily, we already broke up. Why are you still bullying Serena?”

I rolled my eyes so hard they almost got stuck. “What fresh hallucination are you having today?”

Julian sneered. “A few days ago, you called me a dog and called her garbage! You made her cry so hard she almost took pills again! I had to beg her to calm down. Lily, you can be as mad at me as you want, but please leave Serena alone! She can’t handle any more trauma!”

I actually burst out laughing. Was this guy incapable of critical thinking? “Yeah, I said that. But she provoked me first.”

Julian looked doubtful but immediately fired back, “You’re lying! Serena isn’t like that!”

I looked at him like he was a toddler. “Oh really? So she didn’t send me a picture of you washing her feet, bragging that I ‘lost’ and that you loved her? I was minding my own business on vacation, she tried to bite me, so I kicked her back. What’s the problem?”

Julian froze like a statue. It was like he had been hit in the face with a brick. Then, panicking, he started stammering, “No, it’s not what you think! She asked me to get her a basin of water to soak her feet, and she said it was too hot, so I was just testing the temperature! I wasn’t washing her feet!”

Oh, how funny. He was actually giving a serious explanation. For a second, I almost believed that in his delusional mind, he genuinely thought he was just being a “brother.”

But I didn’t care either way. I just wanted to stab him with his own logic. I feigned confusion. “Wait, so you didn’t wash her feet? That means Serena lied to me to make me jealous?”

Julian hesitated, then nodded slowly.

I smirked, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “But didn’t you say she was just an innocent little girl? A pure, naive younger sister? How could such a pure angel lie and manipulate like that? Julian, how dare you accuse such a sweet girl of lying!”

Julian’s face went from pale to beet red. His brow furrowed so deeply it could crush a fly. My counterattack left him completely speechless. Hoist by his own petard.

I didn’t waste another second on him and walked straight into the elevator.