My Wedding Dress In The Garage His Widow In My Home Chapter 01
Before the wedding, my fiancé’s brother’s widow moved my wedding dress into the garage.
I was the one who put it back.
Not because I’d forgiven her.
I just suddenly realized it didn’t belong in that house anymore.
A crumpled strip of white tulle peeked out from the corner of the garage.
My wedding dress.
The hem was coated in dust, and the garment bag was leaning against a damp wall.
When my fiancé, Owen, saw it, he apologized immediately.
“Her pipes burst. She’s just staying here for a few days.”
“We were in a hurry to make space, so we had to move the dress.”
“I’ll take it to the cleaners tomorrow, I promise.”
He said it as if it were a given that my things should make way for hers.
I carried the dress toward the study.
He was still talking behind me. “Really, it’s only for a few days.”
I pushed open the door.
The room was completely transformed.
My desk was gone.
My bookshelves were empty.
The walls were covered in cartoon drawings.
A child’s bed and a mountain of toys had taken the place where I used to work.
They had already cleared out my space for me.
Then the woman herself stepped out of the room. Paige.
She was wearing Owen’s T-shirt.
She wasn’t the least bit flustered. She just smiled. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
In that moment, I finally understood what was wrong.
It wasn’t just my desk and my wedding dress that had been moved out.
It was me.
But Owen was still trying to explain.
“She’ll be leaving soon.”
I looked at him. I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask a single question.
I just carried the wedding dress back downstairs.
I set it down in its original corner in the garage.
“Just leave it.”
“I’m not dealing with it right now.”
He thought I was only talking about the dress.
…
After the engagement party, I didn’t go back upstairs with the others.
The night wind in the parking lot was cold. I stood under a streetlamp and opened my Uber app.
I couldn’t bear to go back inside just yet.
I didn’t want to see Paige sitting on my couch again, telling Owen to fetch her daughter, Sadie, her pajamas and a glass of warm milk, as if they were the real family of three who lived there.
“Nora?”
Mark, one of Owen’s oldest friends, came out of the building and froze when he saw me.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Getting some air.”
He nodded, a look of understanding on his face.
“Tonight was… a little awkward.”
I just looked at him.
He didn’t seem to notice my silence and kept going. “The way Paige had Owen carrying Sadie, the way she was intercepting drinks for him all night like it was second nature… They looked more like a married couple than you two. And when Sadie called out ‘Daddy,’ nobody knew who they were supposed to be looking at.”
“So it’s not just me? You all think it’s strange she’s living with us?”
Mark hesitated.
A few seconds passed before he said quietly, “People have mentioned, in private, that Owen treats her better than he treated his own brother when he was alive.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“And some people say they look more like a family.”
The second the words left his mouth, he stiffened.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
His phone suddenly lit up.
I caught the group name at a glance—
Reed Family Crew.
Paige had just posted a photo of Sadie sleeping.
She’d tagged Owen.
The message read: *The kid’s asleep. Let’s talk about the new house.*
Several likes popped up underneath, along with a heart emoji.
Mark quickly turned the screen off.
“Why don’t we head back inside? Paige hasn’t had it easy. We all just think of her as family.”
I shook my head and turned toward the street corner.
I was Owen’s fiancée.
But in their circle, I had always been the outsider, the one expected to step aside for “family.”
As I walked out of the parking lot, I glanced at my phone.
The screen was still open to the message Owen had sent ten minutes earlier.
*Baby, wait for me. I’ll come down and keep you company as soon as I get Sadie to sleep.*
But Sadie was already asleep.
He was upstairs with Paige, talking about their “new house.”
Ten minutes had passed.
He still hadn’t come.