Stuart’s words weigh on me like rocks. I got carried away last night, but who am I kidding? I can’t be there for anyone. Look at what I’ve done to Ethan, to Sophie. Look at what I’ve done to myself. How can I build a life with someone when mine is in such shambles? How can I give myself to someone, when I don’t know how to be myself? Angus needs someone settled. Someone sturdy.
I’m anything but that.
Heart heavy, I tiptoe out of Angus’ room and down the carpeted stairs. The house is thankfully quiet, the others asleep or already up and out, and I make it to my own room without encountering anyone and quickly change into my favourite washed-pink jeans and a blue T-shirt, pulling my hair into a high ponytail. I glance in the mirror: my make-up is smeared, and I look tired, but content. I grab a wipe and remove the worst. By the time I’m done, I’m more fresh-faced, less like I’ve spent the night in someone else’s bed.
“Sophie?” I ask with not a little trepidation as I knock on her door.
After yesterday, I don’t know if she’ll want me here. I’m not sure she’ll ever want me near her again.
What she said stung. But she wasn’t wrong.
I’ve been a bad sister, so focused on myself that I didn’t think about what it would be like for her, to be so completely abandoned. We aren’t close, we haven’t been close in years, but still, I owe her better than that.
I swallow and knock again. “Sophie, are in you there?”
“Come in!”
When I slip inside, she’s sitting in front of a vanity, long blonde hair spooling down the back of her sage-green dressing gown. The colour brings out the warmth in her cheeks, which I can see reflected in the mirror. We’re so similar, and yet so different: same wide blue eyes, same pointed chins, same small, neat noses, but where her hair is elegantly tamed, mine is wild with frizz.
Sophie takes a long sip from the blue-and-white striped mug she’s cradling to her chest. She looks sombre. Not the expression I expect from someone on their wedding day.
“How’s your head?” I ask.
“Actually fine. I swapped to water after the main course. So I’m tired, not hungover.”
“That’s good. Can’t imagine it would be fun to get married feeling like shit. Where’s Henry?”
“Soaking his head in a bucket of ice.” She makes a face.
“He didn’t get the water memo then?”
“No.” Sophie puts her mug down. “Look. Rowan. About yesterday—”
“You were right,” I interrupt her. “I’ve been a shitty sister, and I’ve made it all about me when it should have been about you. Ishould have been there for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why, or what was really going on.”
“What is going on?”
This is it. The moment of truth. “Ethan cheated on me.”
“What?” Sophie’s eyes blaze. “That prick! That utter fucking prick! How dare he do that to you? How dare he think he can show up here after doing that to you? If he was still here, I’d kick him in the balls myself. What the actual fuck?”
A laugh escapes me. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it isn’t this.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
“I was ashamed.”
“Why? It’s not your fault the arsehole decided to put his dick inside someone else.”
“It felt… Honestly, it felt like another way I’d failed. Sometimes I get so tired of being the family fuck up, you know? The useless one. The one who can’t do things. Who can’t cope. Mum’s always on at me, always worrying about me, and I didn’t want to give her one more thing to worry about – although in hindsight, that didn’t work out so well. She was so happy when I found a boyfriend. I didn’t want you both to know I’d failed. Again.”
“You’re not a failure, Rowan,” Sophie says.
I sink down onto the bed. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re perfect. And I’m… me.”
Now it’s Sophie’s turn to laugh: a sharp bark that surprises us both. She shakes her head. “Oh, Ro. There’s no such thing as perfect. That’s what you never seem to get. I’m certainly not perfect. Not even close. Most of the time I feel like I’m walking this tightrope, and if I take one wrong step, everything will fall apart. I know it looks like I’ve got it all together, but I promise you, I really don’t.” Her voice quietens, and she looks away. “You’d know that, if you ever let me in. For the record, I’m sorryfor what I said yesterday. All this – the wedding, and Mum, and worrying about you – it’s been a lot, but that’s no excuse for losing my temper.”
“It’s okay. I deserved it.”
