It was Meryl who stepped in and rescued me. "You love wearing other people's rings that much, huh? Fine. Take it. Take them all!"
And with that, in a fit of temper, she slid her own ring onto Kate's finger too.
"Meryl! Have you lost your mind? Do this, and neither of us has an engagement ring left!" Walter's eyes went round with fury.
Meryl didn't so much as blink. "Your own brother said it. 'It's just a wedding ring.' It's an engagement party for two couples. I can hardly stand there flashing a diamond while my best friend's left standing there with nothing, can I?"
That was how fiercely she protected me back then.
Three years later, the one protecting me most was still her.
Only this time, the price she paid was far too high.
Meryl and I both had to stay in the hospital a few days for observation.
Once we'd poured out all our bitterness and bared our hearts, we lay there scrolling through TikTok.
And sure enough, Kate was showing off their "sibling bond" again.
A photo of the three of them, Kate in the middle, Bartholomew and Walter on either side, cheeks pressed to hers.
Exactly the way Meryl had once described them: conjoined twins.
【More than friends, not quite lovers. Whenever I'm at my lowest, you two are always by my side. Thank you to my two wonderful brothers!】
The two of us couldn't resist tapping into the comments, and they ran the whole gamut:
"Getting all the perks of love while calling it friendship. Genuinely jealous."
"Friends last longer than lovers. So jealous you've got two brothers like that!"
"You three are so close the whole world thinks you're the couple, and only you don't realize it…"
Before all this, Kate was forever posting photos like these, one after another.
At first Meryl and I would confront them and pick fights. Later, all we could do was swallow it ourselves.
Now, though, we just looked at each other and smiled.
"What are you thinking about?"
"How to word the divorce papers. How to split the assets. How to calculate emotional damages."
We might have been stuck in the hospital, but Meryl and I hadn't been idle.
We got in touch with the law firm, drew up the divorce agreement, and had someone deliver the papers to Bartholomew.
His call came in almost immediately.
On the line, he was practically hysterical. "Zelda Pruitt, you did this on purpose, didn't you?"
"What did I do?"
"You hired another lawyer to serve divorce papers on me, a lawyer. If that's not you deliberately humiliating me, what is it? Now everyone at the firm, top to bottom, knows about it. Happy now? Zelda, you won't rest until you've turned my whole world against me, will you?"
Being blamed by Bartholomew, having it all flipped back on me. Before, I'd have beaten myself up over it, apologized to him.
But this time, it wasn't a drill. It was the real thing.
I said coldly, "There's no need to turn anyone against you. Just agree to leave me, and I'll be lighting candles in thanks. Since you've already received the divorce papers, if there's no problem with them, go ahead and sign."
"Oh-ho. Zelda, quite the attitude on you these days. You really think carrying a Gray family heir means you can do whatever you please, don't you?"
From the other end of the line came Kate's simpering little voice.
Then, in an instant, she shifted her tone. "Oh, you're on the phone with your wife? Oops, did I say something wrong? She didn't hear that, did she?"
Bartholomew said, unbothered, "It's fine. So what if she heard? You're my sister. What's wrong with us living together?"
"Oh, brother, don't say it like that. She's always misreading how close we are, getting jealous over nothing. And now she's pregnant. As her little sister, I really should give her some slack."
