Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rowan
“Sophie! Sophie, wait up! I’m sorry!”
I chase my sister through the grounds of the farm. Both of us are wearing heels, so the chase is comparatively tame, but to give her credit, Sophie can really hoof it in a pair of four-inch stilettos.
“Where are you even going?” I call. As far as I can see there is nothing this way but another field, which descends rapidly into forest. It certainly isn’t good terrain for formal clothing.
“I don’t know, Rowan,” she calls back. “Away from you!”
“It’s muddy! You’ll ruin your dress.”
That gets her attention. She stops, bracing her hands on her hips.
“What is wrong with you?” Sophie spins to face me. Her eyes, blue as mine, are alight with anger and her usually cool complexion is flushed, blotchy red patches extending beneath her make up and down her neck and chest.
The last time I was saw her this red, Tommy Evans stole her barbie doll and cut off all its hair.
The next day, she somehow convinced every girl in the class that Tommy would cut off their hair if he got too close to them. He was ostracised immediately. He apologised within a week.
My sister is pissed. And when she’s this angry, she’s a force to be reckoned with.
“I mean, so much, but in this case, to what are you specifically referring?”
Stop it, Rowan. Don’t poke the bear. But when it comes to Sophie, sometimes I can’t help but prod.
She’s always so calm, so perfect, always the together one, the in control one, and I find it almost impossible not to provoke her when she isn’t.
To get a glimpse of the woman under the facade.
To see my actual sister, who used to sleep in the bunkbed above mine and listen to my deepest secrets, who would reach her hand down so I had something to hold while I cried.
“Angus? The owner of my wedding venue? That’s why you bailed on me? And not only do you not have the decency to tell me, but instead I catch you fucking in my bloody reception?”
“To clarify, we weren’t having sex. He was barely touching me. I mean, I wish we’d been having sex, but we weren’t. And it’s not actually your reception until tomorrow. Right now it’s just a barn. A really nice barn, with some stunning decoration – really, superb, but—”
“That’s not the point, Rowan.”
“Well, I think it kind of is—”
“What happened to you?”
I shut my mouth. This is more than Sophie being Sophie, more than her needing every little detail weighed and under control. There is hurt in her voice. And I put it there.
“You shut me out, and then you bailed on me, and you wouldn’t even tell me why!
Then Ethan shows up looking like a lost dog, and now he’s gone again, and you’re making eyes at Angus in the barn?
I needed you this week, Rowan. I needed someone to talk to about— There were things I—” She shakes her head.
“You were supposed to be my maid of honour, and what have you done? Did you organise my hen do? No. You didn’t even show up for it! Too busy screwing the laird, were you?”
“I—”
“I told Mum. I told her I didn't want you in the bridal party. That you would find a way to mess it up, that you would quit, or run away, and somehow it would end up being all about you. But she insisted. Said it would be a good way for us to bond, help us feel closer. That it wouldn’t be kind to you to choose Jess or Stef, or someone I actually wanted.” Sophie laughs.
“Well, guess what? Looks like I was right!”
I don’t know what to say. I fucked up. I should have been there for her: that’s why I’ve ignored her. Because I’d already committed the cardinal sin of running away, right when she most needed me, and I was too ashamed to own it.
Tears prick at my eyes. I try to swallow them down, but they well up anyway, a couple escaping and streaming down my cheeks.
“No!” Sophie advances on me. “Don’t you dare cry!
Don’t you dare act like you’re the hurt one.
This is supposed to be my day. For once, it’s supposed to be about me.
Yet here we are, and Mum’s spent the entire week worrying about you, and talking about you, and trying to call you, and I’m the one who is getting married tomorrow and somehow, somehow, you’re still the centre of attention!
God. This is so like you. Why do you have to ruin everything? ”
Her words feel like a dozen javelins pinning me to a board. Each one rips a new hole through me, targeting every single one of my insecurities, my failures, with pin-point precision. First Ethan, now Sophie. How many people have I failed with my selfishness?
Sophie’s right. I do ruin everything. I do always give up. I do make it about me.
I hate myself for it.
I hate her more for making me face it.
My hands shake. My head feels like a pressure cooker. I can’t bear it.
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t be little-miss-toes-the-line all the time, that I’m not little-miss-does-everything-right. Not all of us get to be a fancy lawyer, with a fancy fucking house, and a fancy fucking fiancé, and a fancy fucking wedding, do we?”
“And whose fault is that?”
I stop in my tracks.
We stare at each other, out of breath, cheeks blazing. Angrily, I wipe away the tears that keep spilling down my cheeks, that I can’t seem to stop. The fight goes out of Sophie in the silence her words have left. Her arms fall to her side. Her shoulders slump.
“I need to go and get ready.”
She brushes past me, back towards the main house.
“Sophie…”
“Leave me alone, Rowan. Stay for the rest of the wedding because I can’t deal with the absolute conniption Mum will have if she thinks there’s anything wrong between us, but leave me the fuck alone.”
* * *
“So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
I’m sitting on a bench on the other side of the walled garden from the main house, staring at the treeline when my Aunt Joan appears, two champagne flutes in hand. Her sunset-orange kaftan sways down to gold sandals, and her golden bracelets clink as she sits down next to me, handing me a flute.
I take it and force myself to sip, instead of downing it in one. “I’m not hiding. I’m tactically retreating.”
“So… hiding.”
I sigh. “Sophie hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She’s pissed at me.”
“Of course she’s pissed at you, pet.” Joan pats my hand. “She wanted you here, and you weren’t, and she missed you.”
“Sophie doesn’t miss me,” I scoff. “Sophie has Henry, and work, and her friends, and her whole bloody brilliant life. She barely thinks about me.”
Joan holds my gaze evenly with hers. “You don’t really believe that horseshit, do you?”
“Joan!”
“What? Because I’m your aunt, I can’t say horseshit?
Your generation didn’t invent swearing, you know.
” She sips her champagne. “Yes, Sophie has a lovely life. She’s worked hard to build it, so don’t you go tearing it down for her.
But you’re her sister. She has spent the last week worrying about you, and missing you, and wishing you were here—” She holds up a hand when I try to interrupt “And, no, it is not for appearances, or because of your mum – although she has been an absolute bloody nightmare, so thank you for leaving me with that. It’s because she loves you, Rowan.
This is a big day for her, and she wants you to celebrate it with her. ”
Guilt twists through me. Joan is right. No matter how much I want to paint Sophie as the bad guy, she isn’t. It’s me. It’s all on me. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
“Yep.” Joan eases herself further into the bench, and sighs. “This champagne… stunning. And the views! They really couldn’t have picked a better spot.”
The landscape unfurls before us like a patchwork quilt.
Above, clouds slowly scud across the sky.
The air is warm. The sun is beginning to set, and everything is tinged in a hazy golden glow.
It looks like we’ll be able to sit outside for dinner, after all.
God. Dinner. Hours of small-talk and pretending that everything is fine, and that I’m not the worst sister in the world and that Sophie doesn’t hate my guts.
I want to kick off my heels and flee down the hill. Lose myself in the forest and never come back.
But running away is what got me into this mess.
Hiding is how I’ve ended up here. Hurting the people I care about. Acting like the worst version of myself. Utterly, completely, and totally lost. I think of the way Angus looked at me in the barn: like I was something precious, someone worth caring about. Right now, I don’t feel worthy of that.
How can I trust myself with someone else’s heart, when I’m doing such a bad job with the ones I already have?
“What am I going to do?”
Joan knows I don’t mean today. That my question is bigger than that. “I can’t answer that for you, pet,” she says. “That one, you have to figure out for yourself.”
Gravel crunches and I hear the exclamations of people who haven’t seen each other in years. Guests are arriving. The wedding is starting. I can’t hide out here for ever.
“Shall we go inside?” Joan asks, reading my mind.
I sigh. “Time to face the music, I guess.”
My sister is getting married. And it’s past time I start showing up.