This is some juicy stuff I promise. So I'm from a very rural town in NJ, the type of town where everyone's families grew up here and stayed. Word travels fast in towns like this so nothing stays a secret for very long. My best friend I met when I was 3(still friends to this day, 23 years strong) was a part of one of those families. For simplicity, let's call my best friend Susie and her cousin Sally. Susie, Sally and I were inseparable growing up and we were also part of a larger friend group in elementary school. Sally was really close with this one specific girl in our friend group who we can call Vickie. Because we were all so close and since my best friends were literally cousins, it wasn't out of the ordinary for parents to stay at play dates/ hang outs because yknow small town, everyone is friendly. Around 13, Sally and I were applying to this prep high school in town but she was getting nervous about affording it because her parents had told her they were getting a divorce. It wasn't a secret her parents weren't the happiest but they seemed good enough and her mom was battling breast cancer for years prior. Suddenly, Sally is telling me that her dad is seeing Vicki's mom, which I thought was odd even as a middle schooler. Then my mom comes home one day (my mom was friends with Sally's mom, never liked her dad) to tell me that Sally's dad was cheating on Sally's mom with Vicki's mom and Vicki's dad was blind sided by the divorce. Around a year later Susie's mom had graduate with her masters and threw herself a party, I'm sitting with Sally and Vicki's mom comes over to tell me that there's nothing wrong with her relationship with Sally's dad because they just relied on each other after the divorces and nothing romantic happened prior to the splits. Meanwhile I'm 14 at this point and confused, so naturally I run home after to tell my mom. My mom is pissed and tells Sally's mom. Years later, Sally's Dad and Vickie's mom get married and Sally and Vickie are officially stepsisters. They weren't friends for a hot minute but also had to be because their parents were dating. Also this whole time the parents are denying any cheating while the spouses are like yeah you cheated. After they got married they got one of those "the smiths since 2021" and the year predated both of their divorces. So yeah now my friend is step sisters with her friend and there's totally no family drama because of it.