10. Charly
— ? —
Charly
I’ve been staring at the same spot on the ceiling for an hour.
The alarm went off at six. I turned it off and stayed where I was, running through every version of how today will go. The one where I go. The one where I don’t. The one where Rebecca listens, and the one where she throws me out.
The one where I stay in this guest house and let my sister marry a man who’s been lying to all of us, including her, because she made her choices and they stopped being mine to fix a long time ago.
That last one almost wins. Three separate times I decide I’m staying home.
And three separate times I land back on the same thing, that my sister knew what Adam was long before I stood at that altar, and she didn’t say a word to me.
Not before I said yes. Not before I handed him three years of my life and every dollar I had.
She let me walk into it with my eyes shut, and I swore I’d never be her.
So I shower, and I do my hair, and I put on the dress I packed for reasons I didn’t want to look at too closely, and by the time I’m done I already know I’m going.
Clarence is at the counter when I come out, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. He looks up when he hears my heels on the floor, and his eyes go from my face to the dress to the heels and back again, and I watch him put it together before I open my mouth.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to. You’re dressed for a wedding and there’s only one wedding today.” He sets the coffee down and looks at me properly. “It’s a bad idea, Charly. You know it’s a bad idea. You’ve known it was a bad idea since you picked out that dress.”
“I know exactly how bad an idea it is. I’ve been lying awake all night thinking about how bad an idea it is, but I’m going anyway.”
“She’s not going to listen to you.”
“Probably. I’ve thought about that too.”
“And when she throws you out in front of your mother and a room full of bridesmaids?”
“Then I’ll leave knowing I tried. That’s the whole point. I’m not doing it because I think it’ll work. I’m doing it so I don’t have to live the rest of my life knowing I had the chance to save her and I didn’t.”
He opens his mouth, and I watch him line up the next thing, and then I watch him decide it’s not worth saying, because three weeks in he’s learned how this goes with me. He drags a hand through his hair instead.
“You’re impossible. You know that.”
“You’ve mentioned it. Once or twice. Daily.”
“There’s really no talking you out of anything once you’ve decided, is there.”
“Now you’re getting the hang of me. Took you long enough.”
He looks at me a second longer, and then something in him gives and he almost smiles, which is about as far as his face usually goes without a court order.
“Give me ten minutes to change.”
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“I know you didn’t. I’m coming anyway.”
And then he waits. Doesn’t head for his room, doesn’t pick the coffee back up. He just stands there and lets the quiet sit, and I get it. He’s waiting for me to actually ask.
Last night I told him this part was mine, and I meant it. I was going to do it alone, the way I do everything, because the last time I leaned on somebody it cost me everything.
But I keep seeing it. Walking up to that church by myself.
My mother ready to call me the problem before I open my mouth.
Rebecca behind a door with a room full of friends who already decided I’m just the bitter sister.
Every person in that building is going to be on his side or hers. Nobody’s going to be on mine.
And I’m so tired of doing the hard things alone. I want one person there who knows what I’m walking in to do and doesn’t think I’m crazy for it. One person in my corner. Just one.
“I don’t want to walk in there by myself.”
It costs more than I expect, saying it out loud. He doesn’t make it a thing. Doesn’t comment, doesn’t hold my eyes too long, doesn’t turn it into a moment. He just nods, sets the phone down, and heads for his room.
“Okay, ten minutes.”
***
The drive takes twenty. Neither of us says much. The radio plays something soft I won’t remember later and I watch the trees go by and try not to think about the last time I got dressed up and drove toward a church.
The lot is half full when we pull in. White flowers everywhere. Ribbon on the pews, I can see it through the open doors. My flowers. My ribbon. The whole thing I planned, handed off to my sister like I was a draft she got to improve on.
“I’ll wait out here,” he says.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. Go do what you came to do.”
I get out before I can change my mind.
***
The bridal suite is up on the second floor, and I hear them through the door before I knock. Laughter. Glasses. The sounds of women getting ready for something happy.
I knock anyway.
A bridesmaid opens it, somebody I don’t know, one of Rebecca’s work friends by the look of her, and her smile dies the second she sees my face.
“Um. Hi?”
“I need to talk to my sister.”
The room goes quiet behind her. Rebecca’s at the mirror, half turned, pale under all the makeup. Mom’s there too, champagne in hand, with a look that could curdle milk.
“Charly.” Her voice could take paint off a wall. “What are you doing here? I thought you said…”
“I need a few minutes alone with Rebecca.”
“Absolutely not. If you think I’m letting you make a scene on your sister’s wedding day.”
“Mom. Stop.” Rebecca’s voice is small. “It’s okay. I asked her to come.”
“It is not okay. She came here to wreck it.”
“I came to talk to my sister. Five minutes, then I’m gone.”
The bridesmaids trade looks. Mom doesn’t budge.
“Please,” I say. “Five minutes.”
Rebecca stands. She’s in the dress already, all white lace and little beads, and for one bad second I’m looking at myself. Same face. Same dress, near enough. Same hopeful, scared, dug-in expression I wore down an aisle that fall.
“Everybody out,” she says.
“Rebecca. You’re making a mistake.”
“Mom. Out.”
The room empties, slow and unwilling, full of backward glances. The door clicks shut and it’s the two of us, the same face twice over, in a room full of white flowers.
“If you came to gloat.”
“I didn’t.” I take out my phone. “I came to show you something.”
I hand it over. The account’s already open, the folders lined up, everything Adam forgot to delete.
“What is this?”
“Just look.”
She scrolls. Her face holds steady at first. Then her jaw goes tight, and her hand starts to shake, and she scrolls faster, hunting for the thing that makes it not mean what it means.
“This is fake.”
“It isn’t.”
“You made it. You faked all of this because you can’t stand that he picked me.”
“Rebecca. That’s not what’s happening.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this. An hour before my wedding. Faking things because you’re so desperate.”
“I didn’t fake anything. It’s his account, the one we shared. He forgot it was still synced to my login!”
“You’re lying.”
“Look at the dates. Look at it closely. Do you really think I’m making this all up?”
Her hand stops. She’s staring at one of the messages, reading it, and I can see her trying to make it say something it doesn’t.
“He loves me.”
“Probably, but he also ‘loves’ other people apparently. He’s capable of these things. He did it with you and you’re my own sister.”
“You’re wrong about him.”
“After everything that happened, you believe he’s innocent? I wish I was wrong about him.”
She shoves the phone back at me. Her eyes are wet but she’s not crying. She’s too far into the anger for that.
“Get out.”
“Rebecca. You have to listen, you can’t marry him.”
“You said what you came to say. Now get out and let me get married.”
I put the phone away. I go to the door and stop with my hand on it.
“If you still want him after knowing this, then fine, marry him for all I care. I can’t stop you.” I don’t turn around. “But you don’t get to tell yourself nobody warned you. At least I had the decency to tell you before you embarrassed yourself. I wish you gave me the same grace.”
I leave before she can answer.
***
He reads it off my face the second I come out.
“That bad.”
“Worse.”
We sit on a bench near the lot and watch people arrive. Adam’s family. Friends. Faces from the engagement party who’ll pretend not to know mine. The same crowd, dressed up to watch the love story of the year.
“She called it fake. Said I made it up because I can’t stand that he chose her.”
“Did you think she’d believe you?”
“I don’t know. I thought the proof would be enough. I thought she’d have to.”
“She can’t afford to believe it. Believing it means she blew up her whole life for nothing.”
“I know.”
The bells start. The guests file in. The music begins, the same processional I picked for myself, drifting out through the open doors.
I watch for Rebecca. I wait for her to appear at the top of the steps and stop. To hesitate. To turn around.
The bridesmaids go in. Then the flower girl. Then the music swells into the march.
Rebecca appears in the doorway. She doesn’t stop, and she doesn’t look around. She walks, one step and then the next, toward the doors and the man on the other side of them.
“She’s doing it,” I say. “She’s actually doing it.”
“We can go. Right now. Nobody would blame you.”
I should. I should get in the car and drive off and never look back.
But I don’t move.
“No. I want to see how it ends.”
***
The church is packed. Every pew full of people I used to know. We slip in at the back and stand against the wall, and I feel the eyes find me, one row at a time.
Adam spots us first. He’s at the altar, perfect in the tux, face set to the right amount of joy, and when his eyes land on me the joy stutters.
When they move to Clarence next to me, something else moves through him.
He shifts his weight. He looks away and then back, like checking whether we’re still real.