3. Cami #2
“How dare you.” Greta’s voice was ice. Pure, crystalline ice. “How dare you humiliate my son in front of everyone we know. How dare you air our family’s private business for the whole world to see. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The church had gone deathly silent. The whole room watching. People who had just seen a woman slap the bride who had caught her son cheating. People who were doing absolutely nothing about it.
I pressed my hand to my burning cheek and stared at Greta Caldwell.
“Your son cheated on me.” The words came out steady despite the throbbing pain in my face. “Your son has been sleeping with my sister. And you’re angry at me?”
“I’m angry that you chose to make a spectacle of yourself instead of handling this with dignity.
” Greta’s eyes were blazing. “I’m angry that you’ve turned my son’s wedding into a circus.
Whatever problems you have with Logan, they should have been dealt with privately. Not like this. Never like this.”
“Privately.” Another laugh scraped out of my throat. “Your son said my sister’s name at the altar. He said it twice. In front of a packed church. But sure. Let’s keep it private.”
My father reached the front then.
He shoved through the last of the crowd, his face white, his tie knocked crooked, and for one breathless second he put himself between me and Greta Caldwell.
“You do not get to put your hands on my daughter.” His voice shook, but it was there, loud enough to carry.
Then he rounded on Logan. “You said her sister’s name. Twice. What did you do to my girl?”
For one second I thought he might be about to save me.
Then Greta turned her ice on him. “Sit down, John, before you embarrass yourself further.” And my mother was at his side, her hand on his arm, her voice low and fast in his ear, and I watched my father’s shoulders cave.
Watched the fight drain out of him. Watched him let her turn him by the elbow and steer him back, the way she’d steered him my entire life.
He looked at me. Helpless. Apologetic.
And he said nothing else.
My mother appeared at my elbow. Her hand closed around my arm, nails digging in through the lace of my sleeve.
“Camellia.” Her voice was low. Urgent. “That’s enough. You’ve made your point. Now stop this before you make things worse.”
“Make things worse?” I turned to face her, and something in my expression made her flinch.
“Make things worse? Mom, how exactly could things get worse? My fiancé is in love with my sister. My sister is pregnant with his baby. Everyone I trusted has been lying to me for over a year. What else is there?”
“Think about Rosalie.” My mother’s grip tightened. “She’s pregnant, Camellia. She’s scared. She needs our support right now, not your anger.”
Something inside me went very, very still.
“She needs your support.” The words came out flat. Dead. “Rosalie. The woman who’s been sleeping with my fiancé. The woman who got pregnant by the man I was supposed to marry today. That’s who needs support right now.”
“She’s your sister.”
“She stopped being my sister the moment she climbed into bed with Logan.”
My mother flinched. But she didn’t let go. She didn’t back down. She just stood there with her hand on my arm, looking at me like I was the problem. Like I was the one who had done something wrong.
And I understood, finally, what I should have understood years ago.
They were never going to choose me.
Not my mother, who was begging me to think about the woman who had destroyed my life.
Not my father, who had risen and reached for me and crumpled the second Greta raised her voice, who had never once in his life held his ground when it mattered.
He tried. He always tried. And he always folded.
Not the guests who were whispering behind their hands and sneaking photos on their phones, already composing the stories they would tell at dinner parties for years to come.
Not Logan, who was still crying and reaching for me like I owed him something.
I was alone.
I had always been alone. I just hadn’t let myself see it until now.
My left hand felt heavy. Foreign. Like it belonged to someone else. The ring sat there, three carats of princess-cut diamond, catching the light from the stained glass windows and throwing tiny rainbows across my ruined life.
Eighteen months. That’s how long I’d worn this ring. Eighteen months of planning and hoping and believing that I was building a future with a man who loved me.
Eighteen months of lies.
The ring came off easier than I expected. One twist, one pull, and it was free. It sat in my palm, small and cold and meaningless. A symbol of nothing. A promise that was never real.
Three carats. Eighteen months of my life. Four years of loving a man who never loved me back.
I threw it at Logan’s chest.
The ring bounced off his sternum with a soft thud and clattered to the floor. He dropped to his knees immediately, scrambling to pick it up, like the ring was the thing that mattered, like if he could just get it back everything would be fine.
“Shove it up your ass.”
The words rang through the silent church. Someone gasped. Someone else laughed, a shocked, disbelieving sound that cut off almost immediately.
I didn’t care. I was beyond caring.
My eyes found Rosalie.
She was still standing at the end of the bridesmaids line, her face wet with tears, her hands pressed to her stomach like she was protecting the baby inside her. The image of innocence. The picture of a scared little sister who had made a terrible mistake and was so, so sorry.
But I could still see it underneath. That flicker of triumph. That satisfaction. The smile she’d hidden behind her hand when Logan said her name instead of mine.
“I don’t know who you are anymore.” My voice didn’t shake.
I was proud of that. “I don’t know when you became this person.
Maybe you were always this person and I was too stupid to see it.
But whoever you are now, whatever you’ve become.
..” I paused, letting the words settle. “You are not my sister. Not anymore.”
“Cami.” Her voice broke on my name, perfect and pitiful. “Cami, please. I never meant for this to happen. I love you. You’re my sister. I’m so sorry.”
I looked at her for a long moment. At the face I’d known my whole life. The little girl who’d been terrified of thunder. The teenager who’d cried on my shoulder after her first heartbreak. The woman who had smiled behind her hand while my world fell apart.
“Goodbye, Rosalie.”
I turned and walked down the aisle.
Not toward the altar this time. Toward the doors. Toward the exit. Toward whatever was waiting for me on the other side of the worst day of my life.
Behind me, Logan was calling my name. My mother was crying.
My father was calling for me too, finally, his voice cracking on the word, too late the way he was always too late.
Greta was snapping orders at someone, probably trying to figure out how to spin this disaster into something that didn’t make her precious son look like the piece of shit he actually was.
I didn’t look back.
The church doors were heavy. Solid oak. They’d been propped open when I walked in an hour ago, a bride on her father’s arm, ready to start her happily ever after.
Now I shoved them open myself and stepped through alone.
I ran.