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 4: THE ULTIMATE REVENGE

Julian’s mother, Eleanor, eventually found out about everything. She wasn’t willing to give up on me. She shamelessly tracked me down, apologizing and begging me to give her son another chance. She even promised that if I married him, she would give me a $300,000 settlement as a wedding gift, and promised she’d never bother me again.

Hilarious. I saw right through her. She wanted to use $300,000 to buy a full-time, unpaid nurse for her dying son, while treating my wealthy parents as a walking ATM to pay his exorbitant medical bills. A $300,000 bribe for millions in healthcare costs? It was a steal for her.

I rejected her bluntly. “Eleanor, I’m not a recycling bin. I don’t take out the trash just to bring it back inside.”

After hitting a brick wall with me, she tried harassing my parents, who refused to even open the door. She camped outside our gated community for days until she finally gave up and left, cursing our names.

Realizing that the bridge with me was permanently burned, Eleanor pivoted to her backup plan: Serena.

Serena’s family wasn’t wealthy, but for Eleanor, a cheap nurse was better than no nurse. She ordered Julian to take Serena to the courthouse and legally marry her immediately.

Julian was completely blindsided. From the beginning, he had only viewed Serena as a backup, a “sister” to stroke his ego. He never intended to actually marry her.

The night before the courthouse appointment, he got blackout drunk and called me from an unknown number. His speech was slurred, but his intentions were crystal clear.

“Lily… I’m marrying Serena tomorrow. My mom is forcing me. She said she’d kill herself if I didn’t. But… I swear I only see Serena as a sister. I’m losing you, aren’t I? But you have to know, the person I love most is you. No matter who I marry, in my heart, you are my only wife. Just wait for me, Lily. My mom is old, she won’t live much longer. Once she dies, I’ll divorce Serena and win you back. Don’t marry anyone else. Wait for me.”

I replied with a single word: “Rot.”

Then I hung up. But I made sure to save the audio recording of the voicemail. You never know when trash might come in handy.

The next day, Julian and Serena officially got married. At first, Serena was over the moon, posting her marriage certificate all over social media, acting like she had secured the perfect billionaire husband. But her victory lap didn’t last long.

Because Julian had a decent resume, he quickly found a new job. However, during the mandatory onboarding medical checkup, the doctor found massive shadows on his lungs and sent him to a specialist.

That was how Julian finally discovered he had terminal Stage 4 lung cancer.

Furious and terrified, Julian confronted his mother. “Why did you tell me it was just a minor lung infection last month?! How did it turn into Stage 4 cancer in four weeks?!”

Knowing the jig was up, Eleanor didn’t bother hiding it anymore. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to handle it! The doctor said keeping a positive mindset is crucial! Besides, you weren’t married yet! If Lily found out you had cancer, she would have run away immediately!”

Julian’s eyes widened in realization. “So… you forcing me to marry Serena so fast… that was also because…”

Eleanor sighed in frustration, wishing she could knock some sense into her son. “Yes! If you hadn’t run away on your wedding day, you wouldn’t be stuck with Serena! You only have yourself to blame. I know you two grew up together, but her family is poor and useless. Trading Lily for Serena was the stupidest thing you could have done. But at this point, beggars can’t be choosers. At least she’s cheaper than hiring a live-in hospice nurse.”

Hearing this, Julian teared up, completely moved by his mother’s manipulation. “Mom… I finally understand your sacrifices. I blamed you for forcing me to marry her, but you were just planning for my future. You’re amazing, Mom.”

The two of them hugged and cried together.

But what they didn’t know was that Serena had heard every single word.

She had just come home, holding a custom-made wedding ring she had bought, a sweet, triumphant smile on her face. And then she stood in the hallway and listened as her entire reality shattered.

She heard about the terminal cancer. She heard Eleanor’s vile calculations. She heard the sheer contempt they both held for her. She had held onto a sliver of hope that Julian would at least defend her, that he loved her. Instead, she heard the man she had obsessed over for years admit he never wanted to marry her, agree to use her as an unpaid maid, and weep tears of gratitude for his mother’s cruel plotting.

In that moment, Serena finally saw the Miller family for the monsters they were. Her “childhood love” wasn’t a romantic hero; he was a cowardly, selfish mama’s boy. All her manipulation, her fake suicide, her obsession—it all turned into a pathetic joke.

For the first time in her life, Serena woke up. She quietly pulled out her phone and recorded the rest of their conversation through the crack in the door. She gathered evidence of their medical fraud and their plot to trap her. Then, she immediately filed for an annulment and a lawsuit for emotional and financial damages.

Eleanor, of course, absolutely refused to let her go. She had finally trapped a scapegoat to care for her dying son; how could she let her leave after only a few days?

The Miller household devolved into a living hell.

Because Julian’s type of cancer didn’t respond to chemo, he had to rely on targeted oral medication. But because Eleanor had hidden his diagnosis initially, she had been putting his cancer meds into a generic vitamin bottle, telling him they were just supplements. As a result, Julian didn’t take them seriously. He skipped doses constantly. By the time he realized he needed them, his body had developed a severe resistance to the drug.

Combined with the extreme stress of his ruined career and the daily screaming matches at home, his health deteriorated rapidly. One afternoon, Julian coughed up a massive amount of blood and was rushed to the ER in an ambulance.

While Julian was being resuscitated inside, Eleanor sat outside the emergency room, howling in grief. She turned her rage on Serena. “If my son dies, I won’t let you get away with this! I’ll drag you to hell with me!”

But Serena was no longer the fragile, weeping pick-me girl. She transformed into a feral banshee. “Your son has lung cancer because of your family’s rotten genetics! What does that have to do with me?! You hid his disease and trapped me into a marriage! You old hag, if you want someone to die, you can go die first!”

Neither woman backed down. Right there in the hospital corridor, they launched at each other. They scratched faces, pulled hair, ripped clothes, screaming obscenities and completely abandoning any shred of dignity. It was so violent that nurses had to call hospital security to pry them apart.

The tragic, comedic spectacle couldn’t be contained. Bystanders filmed the epic brawl between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and within hours, it was trending all over social media.

The internet quickly dug up the backstory. Serena faking suicide to ruin a wedding. Eleanor hiding terminal cancer to trap a bride. Julian abandoning his fiancée only to get stuck with his psychotic mistress.

Netizens roasted them alive. “No innocent victims here, they all deserve each other!” “The cancer was just instant karma.” The video of the catfight was dubbed “Trash fighting trash.”

A few days later, Julian woke up. Pale, skeletal, and hooked up to machines, he begged his mother and his wife to stop fighting. He knew he didn’t have much time left, and he just wanted peace. He apologized profusely to Serena, saying that the cruel things he said to his mother were just a misunderstanding, and promised that if she couldn’t handle it, he would sign the divorce papers.

He then begged his mother, “Stop making things hard for Serena. She’s already suffering enough being tied to a dying man.”

Hearing his weak, pleading voice, Serena’s heart finally softened. She sighed, exhausted. “Forget it. You’re already like this. What’s the point of divorcing now? I’ll stay with you for whatever time you have left.”

It sounded like a tragic but touching conclusion. A peaceful, forgiving end.

But to me, letting Julian die in peace with two women caring for him was entirely too easy.

So, I sent the audio recording of Julian’s drunk voicemail to both Serena and Eleanor simultaneously.

The audio was crystal clear: “The person I love most is you… My mom is old, she won’t live much longer. Once she dies, I’ll divorce Serena and win you back.”

He had offended everyone perfectly. A single phone call managed to wish death upon his mother and promise betrayal to his wife. Everyone got a piece of the pie.

Julian probably never expected that his own mouth would dig his final grave. With both his mother and his wife knowing exactly how he felt about them, the rest of his short life was guaranteed to be an absolute, agonizing nightmare.

As for me? My best friends kept their promise. They said they would introduce me to a man a hundred times better than Julian, and they delivered. Ever since the canceled wedding, they had been setting me up on dates.

Until one weekend, they ambushed me with a surprise blind date at a high-end café.

“Lily, you have to go,” Rachel insisted, pushing me toward the table. “This guy is literally god-tier.”

I thought it was just going to be another funny, awkward date to laugh about later. I had no idea that when I walked up to the table and saw the man smiling warmly at me, it would be the beginning of my real happy ending.