Chapter 7 - The Wedding That Never Started
Sloan's shouting was loud enough for me to hear from Thatcher's phone.
“You're choosing her over me?”
“I'm asking you to explain why you pushed her.”
“I didn't push her!”
“I watched the video.”
Silence.
Then Sloan's voice changed.
“What video?”
Thatcher looked at me.
“The one Alina recorded.”
“You showed him that?” Sloan demanded, realizing I was there.
I took a breath.
“Yes.”
“You vindictive little—”
“Sloan,” Thatcher interrupted. “Stop.”
“You know what? Fine. She wants an audience. Let her have one.”
She ended the call.
Thatcher stood beside my bed, staring at his phone.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I don't know yet.”
He sounded exhausted.
“I don't want to marry someone who thinks hurting people is funny. But I also need to stop pretending this is only about one terrible moment.”
He left for Seacliff House.
At 2:14, he texted me.
I spoke with Sloan privately. She still says you deserved to be embarrassed for refusing to remove the brace.
A few minutes later, another message arrived.
I'm canceling the ceremony.
I read it three times.
Then I put my phone down.
I didn't feel victorious.
I felt sick.
A marriage was ending before it had begun, and although Sloan's actions had caused it, I knew exactly whom my family would blame.
At 3:06, Dad called.
“You've destroyed your sister's life.”
I let him talk.
“Her guests are here. The flowers are paid for. The photographer is booked. Do you have any idea what this is costing us?”
“Yes,” I said. “Forty-two thousand, five hundred dollars of it is on my corporate card.”
“Don't be clever.”
“I'm not joking.”
“You have always resented Sloan.”
I looked toward the hospital window.
Outside, people were walking through the parking lot carrying coffee and shopping bags.
Ordinary Saturday things.
Things I would have given anything to be doing.
“Dad,” I said, “if your daughter had been injured by someone else, would you still be yelling at the person in the hospital?”
He ignored the question.
“Thatcher's family is furious.”
“At Sloan?”
“At all of us!”
I closed my eyes.
“Then maybe you should talk to the person who pushed me.”
He hung up.
At 4:32, a message from Thatcher confirmed that the guests had been informed there would be no wedding.
He'd returned Sloan's engagement ring to her and was staying elsewhere.
Then my phone began vibrating with notifications.
Sloan had posted a photograph of the rehearsal staircase.
Underneath it was a long statement.
Today should have been the happiest day of my life. Unfortunately, a close family member deliberately created a medical emergency to ruin our celebration.
The final sentence made my chest tighten.
Some people can't stand seeing anyone else receive the love and attention they think belongs to them.
May you like
She hadn't used my name.
She didn't need to.
