Stand In For My Sister As Mrs. Weston Chapter 07
The moment the recording started playing, Jodi’s mask of gentleness shattered.
All the color drained from her face. Her lips quivered, but no words came.
Raymond just stared at her — stunned, then furious, like he was seeing her for the first time.
He was finally seeing his so-called good friend for who she really was.
Under the weight of everyone’s contempt, Jodi scrambled out of the Weston’s villa, humiliated beyond words.
Raymond walked up to me, guilt written all over his face.
He lowered his head. For the first time, he apologized to me on his own.
“I’m sorry, Beth.”
Things between us had finally started to shift.
What I didn’t know was that humiliation hadn’t made Jodi back down.
If anything, her rage only drove her to dig faster into my past.
That very night, she got her hands on an old set of family records through some backdoor channel.
Two identical faces. Two names.
Kimberly Lopez. Bethany Lopez.
She stared at the documents, a cold, venomous smile spreading across her face.
Things at home had thawed a little.
But the peace didn’t last. A couple of days later, the school called.
“Hi, is this Jessie Weston’s mother? She pushed a classmate. He fell and cut his forehead pretty badly. He needs to go to the hospital.”
I rushed to the school.
In the principal’s office, Jessie stood there radiating defiance.
“He wouldn’t let me play with his toy. So I pushed him.”
She had no remorse at all, pinning it all on the boy.
I didn’t tear into her.
I just took her with me to the hospital.
I wanted her to see it with her own eyes — the boy with his head wrapped in bandages, blood still seeping through the gauze.
I wanted her to see his parents — the worry carved into their faces, the helpless heartache.
I apologized to them sincerely and covered the boy’s medical bills in full.
Then I gave Jessie an assignment.
“You’re taking care of him today. Until he falls asleep.”
Of course, Jessie didn’t want to. But she caved under the weight of my stare.
Clumsily, she fetched water and pills for the little boy.
As his sobs of pain reached her ears, the impatience on her face slowly gave way to guilt.
That evening, she read him a story until he fell asleep.
When she stepped out of the hospital room, her head hung low.
She said to me, “I was wrong.”
By living through it herself, she finally understood what it meant to stand in someone else’s shoes.
For the very first time, she cried tears of real regret.
On the way home, Raymond drove. I caught him glancing at me in the rearview mirror more than once.
He probably never imagined I would teach the kids this way.
The atmosphere in our family was getting better, little by little.
But at the same time, a huge crisis was looming.
With those twin records in hand, Jodi had found an “ally” she needed to destroy me completely.
One day, she rang the doorbell at the Weston’s villa.
Darla answered.
After Jodi left, Darla wasn’t herself.
The nitpicking stopped. The snide remarks vanished.
She was completely out of it.
A couple of times, I caught her sitting alone on the sofa, staring blankly at her phone.
The faint tracks of tears were still visible on her face.
But whenever she saw me, she’d put the phone away and act like nothing was wrong.
I knew how vain she was. There were only two things that could make her cry in secret.
Her pride. Or her money.
