“I didn’t cast myself,” I said. “Alex isn’t into that kind of thing. She asked me to do it for her. Since I am into that kind of thing, and she’s my sister, I’m doing it for her.”
“She should have hired someone,” Mum sniffed.
After saying that, her eyes got mean, so per usual, I braced, something I was very good at since Mum got mean a lot.
Alex learned early to check out.
I wasn’t that smart.
All my life (or, until recently), every sting from her hit its mark, releasing the poison.
I’d been infected with it for years.
It was only lately I’d started searching for an antidote.
That search, mind you, hadn’t been entirely successful.
But I was getting there (I hoped).
“You couldn’t even handle your own wedding preparations,” she noted snidely.
I wanted to bite, that bait was so juicy. I really, really did.
But, I told myself firmly, I was not that Blake anymore.
Helena Coddington-Sharp sure made it hard not to take a big bite, though.
With some effort, I changed subjects.
“The rehearsal dinner is for family and members of the wedding party,” I hissed. “They’re neither.”
“They’ve been family friends for decades,” she shot back. “Therefore, practically family.”
“Alex hasn’t seen any of them for years,” I returned.
“That doesn’t make them any less family,” Mum replied.
“Actually, it does. Newsflash, Mum, like my wedding wasn’t your wedding, even if you took it over, Alex’s wedding isn’t your wedding either.”
That made Mum mad, and she didn’t hide it. “I did everything as you’d wish it to be.”
“How do you know what I wished?” I asked. “You didn’t ask. Furthermore, you don’t know me. Back then, I didn’t even know me.”
“I know you made the biggest mistake of your life letting Chad Head slip through your fingers.”
I blinked, the shock I felt at her statement was so profound.
Then I stared.
“He cheated on me…a lot,” I reminded her.
“He didn’t put his ring on any of those women’s fingers,” she reminded me.
I knew she was crazy.
But that was insane.
“Mum, he cheated on me…even just days before our wedding. At a party celebrating our rapidly upcoming nuptials, he was fucking a friend of mine in a broom closet or something.”
