Chapter 3: Small Town, Big Rumors

“I heard Tessa Sanders is back!”

Their voices echoed down the plush-carpeted hallway of the country club, too bright and a little too loud. I hung back out of sight, clutching my purse and wondering if I should’ve picked something less showy. The scent of lemon polish and strong coffee drifted from the lounge, mixing with the sharp sting of their laughter.

“I remember, she was the one who asked for the divorce, right?”

A woman with the kind of drawn-out vowels you only get after years in the Midwest said it, her tone a cocktail of curiosity and spite. I could picture her: lips pursed, eyes gleaming with the thrill of someone else’s mess.

“Now that Derek is head of the Mitchell family, I wonder if she regrets it!”

There was a snort, the kind you hear at a church bake sale when someone’s pie wins unfairly. The Mitchells owned half the town—of course people kept score.

“What’s there to regret? She stole her sister’s marriage in the first place. Now she’s just giving it back to its rightful owner!”

Laughter followed, sharp as a slap. It stung, like a mosquito bite in July—persistent and impossible to ignore.

…

Just as I reached the door of the private dining room, I heard people talking about me.

I paused, heart racing. The voices on the other side painted a version of me I barely recognized—a cautionary tale in heels. For a split second, I wanted to run, but pride nailed my feet to the floor.

Over the past three years, there have been plenty of rumors about me.

I’d become the town’s favorite mystery, a story told at every baby shower and book club. My choices dissected and reassembled in whispers, no matter how hard I tried to be invisible.

They said I was playing hard to get.

Apparently, my silence was some clever strategy—never mind I was just trying to breathe. Even my absence became a story people told to make themselves feel better.

Even my own parents believed it!

The sting of that betrayal never faded. It ached in a way only family can make you ache—knowing your own blood would rather believe the noise than your truth.

On the day of the divorce, Mom specifically reminded me:

Her words still ring in my ears, sharp as the slap of a screen door: “Since you two are already divorced, don’t contact him anymore! Your sister hurt her leg, and this is exactly when she needs Derek. Don’t upset her!”

Seeing me lower my head in silence, she added:

She never missed a chance to remind me where I stood. “This marriage was supposed to be your sister’s. If she hadn’t gone off to college in New York, it never would have been your turn!”

My sister, Lillian Sanders, and Derek Mitchell were the couple everyone in our circle envied!

They were the golden couple, the ones grinning in every prom photo, year after year, those pictures stuck on everyone’s fridge. Even now, their old Instagram posts popped up in my feed—a highlight reel I couldn’t escape.

But on the eve of their wedding, Lillian ran away!

It was like a Netflix drama: dress steamed, cake ready, and the bride gone with nothing but a half-scrawled note. The town buzzed for weeks—was it love, ambition, or just cold feet?

By then, news of the two families’ union had already gone public.

There were articles in the local paper, the kind you frame and hang at the bank. The Sanders and Mitchell names were basically stitched together by expectation.

Facing pressure from all sides, the elders of the Mitchell family immediately decided to switch the bride to me!

It wasn’t a choice, really. It was a business deal, made at a table covered in legal pads and half-empty coffee cups, where feelings came last. I remember the stunned silence when my name came up, like a last-minute trade in a high school football draft.

I don’t know how they convinced him, but Derek eventually agreed to marry me.

He showed up at my door with a single red rose and apology in his eyes. We both knew it wasn’t romance—it was damage control. The kind of arrangement that looks tidy on paper, but leaves a mess in the heart.