Chapter 3 Joined Togwth

CHAPTER THREE — Layla’s POV

Maybe the wedding had already started without me fully understanding when everything turned into this.

The hall was filled with many people I could not fully recognize, yet I could feel every eyes were on me as though I was something being examined, something being measured, something no one truly accepted as belonging there.

I stood in the center while two women kept adjusting my dress again and again, their hands moving over the fabric as though fixing it could somehow fix what my life was becoming in that moment.

The dress felt too heavy on my body, too perfect in a way that did not belong to me, and at the same time so wrong, like it was made for someone else and I was only standing inside it by mistake.

The door opened behind me.I did not need to turn to know who had entered. My parents walked in.

My father looked at me first, then slowly shook his head, as though I was something disappointing that refused to disappear quietly from his sight.

My mother’s lips tightened before she spoke, her voice calm but cutting.

“So this is where you ended up,” she said. “Standing where your sister should be.”

I swallowed slowly. “I am not replacing her,” I said quietly. “I am only here because you told me to stand in for her until she is found.”

My father let out a short laugh, empty of any warmth. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” he said. “To stand where she stands. To wear what she wears. To take what belongs to her.”

My chest tightened immediately.“That is not true,” I said a little faster. “I never wanted any of this.”

My mother stepped closer, her eyes moving over me slowly, cold and certain.“You always looked at her life like something you were waiting to take,” she said. “Do not pretend otherwise now.”

I shook my head slightly. “I did not take anything. I did not even choose this.”

My father’s voice dropped lower, heavier. “You should be grateful we even allowed you to stand here,” he said. “Without Aria, you are nothing.”

Those words struck harder than I expected not because they were new, but because they were spoken so easily, as though my worth had already been decided long before I ever stood here.

I looked down at my hands for a moment, trying to steady my breathing, trying not to let their words settle too deeply inside me.

Then the doors opened again.Everything in the room shifted at once.

Whispers spread immediately, rising and falling like a wave that could not be controlled.

He had arrived, Jake.The man everyone had come to see, the man I was never meant to stand beside like this. My heart tightened as I slowly lifted my head, he walked in with steady steps, his presence changing the entire atmosphere without effort. People straightened their posture. Voices lowered. Even my parents stepped back slightly.

But his eyes did not rest on them, they moved to me but for a brief moment.

Then away again, as though I was not something worth holding his attention.

The ceremony began soon after that.Everything moved too quickly, too formally, too unreal, as though I had stepped into a life that had already been written without my voice in it. I was led forward until I stood beside him.

Close enough to feel his presence, yet distant enough to feel completely alone.

The voice filled the hall. “Today we join Jake and Layla in union, in the absence of Aria.”

My fingers tightened at my sides.Absence of Aria, even in her absence, she remained the center of everything spoken in that room.

Jake stood beside me without movement, no expression, no emotion. As though everything happening was only a task he needed to complete, nothing more.When the ring was brought forward, my heart began to race without permission.

My hands felt cold, my throat tightened. This was really happening, I was truly being placed into something I never agreed to.

The ring was lifted toward me first, then toward him.The moment felt heavier than anything I had ever experienced, and then, suddenly, just as he was about to place the ring on me, his phone rang.

The sound cut through the hall sharply, everything went silent. Jake paused. For the first time, something changed in his expression.

He looked at the screen. Something shifted in his eyes, something I could not fully understand, but I could clearly see that it mattered.He lifted the phone slowly.“It is Aria,” he said.

The name struck the hall instantly.l, voices broke out at once.“Aria… she is back?”

“Is she alive?” “She called him?”

Whispers spread through the hall like fire, uncontrollable and fast., my chest tightened painfully, Aria again. Always Aria.

Jake looked around briefly.“Hold on,” he said simply, then turned away. “I need to take this.”

And just like that, he walked out, leaving me standing there.In the middle of the ceremony, in front of everyone.My heart sank slowly as silence turned into confusion, then into something heavier..

Voices came from behind me.“She really thought this was real.” “So she is only a replacement.”“This is embarrassing.”

My face burned, but I forced myself to remain still, because moving would make it worse. Because reacting would make it real. Minutes passed like they had lost meaning, then the doors opened again.

Jake walked back inside, the hall went silent immediately. He stopped at the front as though nothing had changed. As though I had not been left waiting.m, as though I was not still waiting.

He spoke calmly.“It was a scam call,” he said. “We can continue.”

A few people nodded quickly, accepting it without question. The people adjusted themselves, the ceremony resumed but something inside me had already broken.

Because I understood something very clearly at that moment. I was not part of this wedding, I was only part of what was convenient for it.The ring was brought forward again.My hands felt even colder this time.

He stood beside me once more.

Close enough to be present, yet far enough to remain unreachable.

And as the ceremony continued, I realized I was not walking into a marriage but I was walking into a silence where I would never truly be chosen, even while standing right there.