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Impossible Choices

last update Last Updated: 2025-04-07 19:19:17

Tiara

I know it.

Seeing Ciara in her messy-girl outfit with the wild look in her eyes, I know something is wrong.

I don’t have to take in the confused expression on Ryan’s face to confirm what I already feel.

They are standing in the middle of the aisle, close to the make-shift alter and I walk up to them, hoping against all odds that the word ‘wrong’ has a different context to them than it has to me.

“What’s going on, Ryan?”

Ryan yanks his hand away from Ciara’s touch, meeting me halfway, “Tee—”

“We were just talking about you, sis,” Ciara drawls.

Ryan glares at her, “Shut up,” to me he says, “we need to talk.”

She chortles, “We’ve already had the talk, babe.”

Babe?

“Do you guys maybe want to this. . .” I gesture behind me to where a handful of people are standing, “somewhere else?”

“This is the perfect place, Tee,” Ciara looks smug, too smug and I can feel a tightening around my throat, “I was just telling Ryan about the deal with Thomas.”

“Um…” her deal or my deal? I have to be sur
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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Not Think

    RyanI need to think.Or not.Ciara is still with me as I make my way back into the suite and I whirl at her before she crosses the doorway. “What are you doing?”She gives me an obvious shrug, “Staying with you?”“Cut it out.”“Babe what are you—”“Oh my fucking god, Ciara, cut it out,” my nerves are raw, and I’m too pissed from everything that just happened to try and be a gentleman to my ex, who just turned my world upside down, “you do realize that this doesn’t mean we are together right?”She blinks. “What? You just said –”“I didn’t say anything back there.”“Well,” she throws her hands, “You didn’t stop me either.”“It doesn’t matter,” I need a fucking break! “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have it in me to. We are going to find a way to compromise, because of the baby. I can’t turn back on an innocent child,” the ultra sound sheets are still burning a hole in my pocket, “this is about me and you and our child, not you. So don’t think for a second I’m getting back with

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Sulking Mess

    Tiara“I guess you were right,” Melody plops on my bed, “Danny is gay.”I grump into my pillows.“Taylor really was a guy’s name,” she ponders.“Go figure,” I mutter.“Gurl, you’ve gotta admit – Ocean City was a blast. That was like a honeymoon experience for me and I ain’t even kidding about it.”“Well,” I raise my head just enough to look back at her, “I’m glad one of us enjoyed it.”“Oh come on, babe, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”If only she knows how much the word ‘babe’ repulses me right now.“Yeah I know,” I sink my face back down on the silky pillows, “I know.”She pulls the covers off my body, “Come on, Tee, you’ve got to get up.”“Why?”I don’t have to turn around to see her obvious shrug, “Because it’s been a week,” she turns me over so I am staring up at her, “Listen, If it’s meant to be, there’s no stopping it from happening.”My head cocks to the side as I regard her, “Are you quoting me?”“I’m quoting a girl I once knew who would never spill a tear over a guy.”

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   A walk in the city

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Oblivion

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Not a Landscape

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   The Gallery ‘Thingy’

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Stay Away

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Dust

    TiaraThe beach house reeks of settled dust.And the salty, tangy scent of the beach.During the springs and summers we spent here, my mother always had the cleaners in and out before we moved in so we never had to do any sort of clean up.Hell, I didn’t even know there could be so much dust down here – fine, powdery coating that settles on the surfaces and dances in sunbeams streaming through the windows I just opened.Pulling up the cleaning gears from the broom closet immediately after I drop my bag in the room assigned to Ciara and I upstairs, I set to the task of cleaning up – dusting off surfaces, airing out the rooms, and basically just shaking of the stagnation of a long absence.In a weird way, this act of dusting feels a lot like my life. Like I am dusting away all the old things – the tears, the pain, the inferiority – and letting this new phase begin. I am having a child now, a child that I’m beginning to put above everything else, a child that has come to mean the utmost

  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   A Little Disappointment

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  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Instincts

    RyanI hit the streets for a sunrise run as soon as I wake up and by the time I roll back into my apartment, Ciara is already gone.But barely.I can still smell the luxurious scent of her mist, a scent I was once in love with, lingering in the air as I make a strong cup of coffee and drown the hot liquid in one gulp.My guts keep eating at me as I reflect on my life.I’m an unhappy mess. A gloom-filled spark-less soul, a sadness that refuses to lift.No matter how much I try to block it out, Tiara’s words from last night are still stuck like a stubborn tumor in my head;“So what happens in the long run? You’re going to get married to her?”“In the long run? Very likely, yeah.”Would I marry Ciara in the long run? I try to picture it in my head.It’s not working out.I know how much I don’t want my child to be raised in a broken home like the one I grew up in, but if I let my child get raised in a home with Ciara and I co-parenting . . . I think of the exchange yesterday, I think of t

  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Not Another Me

    TiaraI grab my bag, shoving my phone inside it with a hurried thrust.“Are you sure about this?” Melody asks me.I nod. “Yeah.”“Tell me where you’re going to be at least.”I shrug, “I’ll tell you immediately I figure it out. I just need some time off, decide on things. I’ll figure it out and get back.”My mother was right. I can’t stay here and make any rash decisions regarding my child’s future when I just found out minutes ago. I need to be calm, I need to gather my nerves and I need to put everything in deep consideration.Melody stands to give me a hug. “Come back, okay. We can’t have you leaving New York. You’ve got everything here. So figure it all out and come back.”I can’t bring myself to tell her that I am willing to move to the end of the world and back for this baby growing inside me and not just out of New York. I love her too much to break her heart like that.“I’ll be gone for a few days,” I say instead, “weigh my options. I just don’t think I should be here, close to

  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Gut Response

    TiaraI gasp, getting up.“We don’t know how old the fetus is, we have to do a scan to be sure, but in my opinion, you’re only a few weeks gone.”Oh my God. Oh no! I start pacing around the room. How the hell is this happening?I’m panicking, right here, right now. I don’t know if I want this, I sure as hell don’t want to be the other woman in my sister’s marriage. I don’t even know if –Melody’s words break through my thoughts. “We need a minute, doc.”“Of course,” the door closes behind the doctor as she leaves and Melody comes up to put her arms around me.“Congratulations, babe,” she whispers in my ears.Easier for her to say, she’s not the one carrying her sister’s boyfriend’s child.I look back at my mother, all bandaged up, with tears welling in her eyes, “Come here, Tee,” she stretches her hand to pull me in a hug.How can they be happy about this? How can they see this as a good thing? I’m not ready, I don’t think I—Oh God!“Well, we’ve got to tell Ryan about this,” my mothe

  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Dumbfounded

    Tiara“I don’t think . . .” my mother trails off, her gaze pinging back and forth between me and the doctor, “I don’t think you got that right, she . . .”I’m still staring into space, wondering if I just fantasized the whole interaction. Not that I would want to fantasize about something like that anyway.“Tee?” Melody calls, reaching out to give me a gentle shake, “Tee?”“I. . .” shaken, I look up at the doctor, “something is . . . you’ve got to,” I shake my head, “I can’t be.”“Yeah, I mean,” Melody opens her palm in explanation, “you used protections and stuff.”I shoot her a look. “I did.”“I know. And pills work like eighty percent of the time. You took pills immediately you . . .” the back of her hand goes to her mouth as she trails of and I know what she is thinking about even before she says it. “Except that first time . . .”My mother jerks her head, “What?”The images hit me – the kiss on the yacht during the truth or dare game, then right after the truth or dare game, the

  • Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex   Ton of Bricks

    Tiara“The doctors said you’ll be fine.”Grace nods her bandaged forehead, “I know.” Her tired eyes search the room, “Where is Ciara?”I wonder if she’ll still search the room for her if she knew Ciara deemed it right for Donald to hit her, “She went to get some clothes,” I say instead, “she’ll be back in a while.”“But I’m here,” Melody announces, tramping inside the hospital room with three bars of chocolate in her hand, “and I brought snacks.”I roll my eyes at her. “I don’t think she can eat that, Mel.”“Why not?”I give her my best are-you-kidding-me look, struggling to hide my smile. “Because she is recovering.”“Oh she definitely can eat these,” she plops on a seat beside the bed, opposite me on the other side, “it’s nutritional and besides, I saw a super cute doctor downstairs who gave me the go ahead . . . and his number,” she winks.That gets my mother to chuckle, “Well, it’s a good thing I ended up in the hospital then.”“Definitely,” Melody jokes.“Right. I’ll keep that in

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