“Nope, I’m ready to do this.” She lifts her chin. “Come on, tough guy.”
“All right, then.” I grab our jackets from where they’re hanging on the back of the door, and we head down the front stairs to the street, where my car is parked. I open the passenger door for her and then get into the driver’s side.
It takes a while to drive to the venue—they’ve chosen to hold the party at one of the hotels downtown—but we find a parking spot without too much trouble and enter together. I glance at my phone, skimming the instructions Mom sent for how to find the conference room where the party is being held. She asked for my sisters and me to be here early to help with any last-minute setup and to welcome the guests. We take the elevator up a couple of stories, and we’re heading down a corridor when we hear raised voices.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I recognize Mom’s as one of them. I break into a jog and hurry around thecorner. At the end of the corridor are a set of double doors. The noise is coming from behind them. I barge in, coming to an abrupt halt at the sight of Mom and Kevin facing off against each other. Mia and Bianca are plastered to the wall, trying to disappear into the background, and one of the hotel’s staff members is hovering awkwardly nearby.
Oh shit. I knew this was going to happen. I just fucking knew it.
“I don’t know where the damn cake is!” Kevin shouts. He’s red in the face and sweating.
I take a step forward, wanting to deck him for talking to Mom that way, but Lucia arrives beside me, panting, and grabs my elbow.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I murmur as Mom marches toward Kevin and lets loose a stream of angry Italian.
“Oh, wow.” Lucia’s eyes widen. “She’snothappy.”
“You should know where the cake is,” Mom cries in English. “It was your job to pick it up.”
“Just like it was supposedly my job to let the caterers know about any special dietary requirements, and to organize accommodation for everyone coming from out of town, and to send the guest list to the hotel?” he demands, looking like there’s a very real risk of him stroking out.
“Yes!” Mom exclaims. “It’s not too much to ask for you to do your part to make sure today is perfect.”
He pivots and storms away, with her following close behind. “Does it really matter if a couple of things don’t get done? It’s only the engagement party.”
“Onlythe engagement party?”
Kevin seems to realize he’s put his foot in his mouth. He stops walking and holds his hands up defensively. “Wait a second. Gia, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” she challenges, all five and a half feet of her getting up in his face. “It’s our wedding. I want everything to be perfect, including the engagement party, and I shouldn’t have to do it all myself.”
Kevin reaches for her, but she shoots invisible lasers from her eyes, and he drops his hands. “I didn’t even want a big wedding,” he protests, shoving his foot even further into his mouth. “You’re the one who asked for an engagement party. I’d be happy to marry you in front of an Elvis impersonator in one of those drive-through chapels.”
“You didn’t want this?” Mom looks crestfallen, and my stomach bottoms out. Any remaining optimism I’d been carefully cultivating for the past few weeks goes up in smoke. Everything is falling apart, just like I predicted. This should be one of the happiest moments of their lives, yet they’re yelling at each other instead of cherishing it because they rushed into something without taking the time to talk it through and get to know each other better.
It’s ridiculous how disappointed I am. I expected this. I’ve been waiting for it to happen since they announced the engagement, but secretly, I wanted them to be successful, because if Mom could find someone to spend her life with, then maybe I could too. Instead, they’re reinforcing what I’ve forever known to be true.
People hurt each other. Always.
“Maybe we should cancel the party.” Mom has deflated. She’s not being overdramatic. She might seriously call everything off even though the guests are due to start arriving in ten minutes.
“Gia—”
I don’t hear the rest of what Kevin says because Lucia grabs my hand and tugs me out of the room.
“Let’s give them some privacy,” she says.
I lean against the corridor wall and let my head fall back. Closing my eyes, I sense despair rise within me. “What if they don’t work it out? Everyone is coming to celebrate. What the hell are we going to do?”
What amIgoing to do if I see yet another relationship get burned to the ground?
“It’s okay,” Lucia soothes, rubbing her hands up and down my arm. “It’s just one fight. They’re stressed out and their tempers got the best of them, but they’ll come around.”
I groan and knock my head against the wall. “That’s what I used to think about Mom and Dad, but eventually I realized they should never have been together in the first place.”
“Take a breath,” she says gently. “Couples disagree. Sometimes they even yell at each other. It doesn’t mean their relationship is over.”
