Mark remained seated.
Emily’s voice sharpened.
“You’re canceling our wedding because my sister got offended about a seat?”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
He looked at me, then at Margaret, then finally at Emily.
“I’m stopping because when you thought the people who mattered would let you get away with humiliating her, you did it.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“So you’re choosing her?”
“No,” Daniel said. “I’m choosing not to marry someone while I’m finding out who she is.”
That distinction mattered.
He was not making me the prize in some contest between sisters.
He was taking responsibility for his own decision.
Emily turned toward me anyway.
The look on her face was pure betrayal.
I had seen it before when we were younger, whenever something she wanted disappeared and she needed someone to blame.
“This is what you wanted.”
I stared at her.
“I was halfway to the back of the church because you told me to go there.”
She opened her mouth.
I continued before she could answer.
“I was willing to disappear from your wedding so you could have exactly what you said you wanted.”
That was the fact she could not rewrite.
I had not exposed her.
I had not confronted her.
