I stared in the mirror and saw someone that I used to pretend to be. My hair was pulled back in a severe bun, my body covered in a chiffon blouse that I found buried in the very back of my closet, and a pair of black trousers. I felt like an imposter, but I knew that it was what my mother would want to see me in, and as much as it made me feel like I was smothering, I didn’t want to cause a riff.
Tucker had told me again that I didn’t have to go and even offered to go with me, but I couldn’t expose him to my family. Not yet at least. I couldn’t stand to sit around a dinner table and watch them judge him, and I knew they would. They judged everyone. Even their so-called friends.
When I stepped up to the doorway of my childhood home, my hands shook and I could feel my anxiety pumping through me as if it was a real, living thing. Being here should have brought a feeling of home, of family, but all I could think about when I took in the familiar floral scent was memories of never being good enough for them. The urge to run was overwhelming, but I knew I would never hear the end of it if I did.
I raised my hand and knocked softly against the heavy wood door. It was one of my mother’s pet peeves. She couldn’t stand it when someone “banged on a door like a maniac” as she liked to say. My other hand was clutched on my bag, the bag that was heavy with the weight of the business school paperwork inside. Paperwork that I was going to talk to my parents about tonight.
I hadn’t even talked to Brooke about it because I knew she would try to talk me out of it, but she didn’t understand.
The door opened moments later, and I smiled a tight smile at my mother.
“Hello, Kennedy. I’m glad you finally made it.”
I looked down at my phone and saw that I was ten minutes early.
“Hi, Mother.” I stepped into the house and looked around. It looked practically the same as it always had except for new furnishings that my mom bought to keep up with the ever-changing style. The house was large with only the nicest things on display, and I knew that nothing in that front room was ever touched. It was all for show. Trust me, I had experienced the wrath of Mrs. Hayes when I had accidentally broken a vase throwing a ball in the house. You would have thought I burned the place down.
“Your brother and Jessica are in the foyer with your father,” she said as she began walking in that direction.
“Jessica’s here?” I asked, confused why she would be present for our family announcement.
“Yes.”
I trailed behind her and took deep breaths to help me get through the evening. I was already being defensive in my own mind and nothing had happened yet. Everything was fine. I just needed to keep reminding myself of that.
I stepped into the room behind my mother, and my father looked up from his conversation with my brother.
“Kennedy.” He gave me a curt nod, which I returned.
My brother, Justin, turned his head in my direction before standing. Always the gentleman.
“Hello, Kennedy.”
“Hi, Justin.” I stood awkwardly feeling like I didn’t belong in this situation at all. Not knowing what to do with myself.
“Hi, Jessica.” I barely glanced in her direction.
“Kennedy.” Her smile was saccharine sweet and just as fake as she was.
I took a seat on the couch with my father and looked around the room. No one was talking, but they all seemed so content to be in each other’s presence.
“Well, since everyone is here,” my brother reached out and grabbed Jessica’s hand. She looked absolutely perfect, as she always did.
I looked to my brother and a moment of panic overtook me.
“I think it’s finally time to make our announcement.”
He smiled at both of my parents. Before looking back to me. It was obvious that I was the only one who hadn’t already been privy to the announcement.
“Jessica and I are engaged.”
Something deep inside of me sunk at his words. Something caved in on itself.
I had been compared to Jessica all my life. Always compared and always lacking.
I gripped my bag tighter against me and thought about the school paperwork that lay inside. The paperwork that wouldn’t even matter. It wouldn’t make a difference against her.
My mother was grinning from ear to ear, and I didn’t think I had ever seen her so happy. So unconditionally proud.
I took a deep, audible breath.
“Kennedy, aren’t you happy for your brother?” My mother’s voice echoed through my head.
Was I happy for him?
Was I happy for our family?
“I’m…” my voice broke. I didn’t know what I was feeling.
There was a tightness in my chest that hadn’t been there moments before. I felt like I was suffocating.
“Yes. I’m so happy for you both.” I planted a fake smile on my face.
Jessica smiled at me, and the memories of the way she had treated me over the years came flooding back to me. The laughs of her and her friends, the way she would snicker when my mother talked about my weight.
I didn’t return her smile and I saw her jolt back slightly, almost unnoticeably, and it fed my anger.
My hands balled into fists, and I counted to ten in my head. I wasn’t the same girl I used to be. I wouldn’t let any of them have this much effect on me.
“Kennedy.” My mother’s voice was soft and for a second I thought she might actually see that this was somehow hurting me. That she might see that her daughter needed her, but it was stupid of me. Every time I thought my mother would step up and actually be a mom, she let me down monumentally. “Jessica would like for you to be a bridesmaid, but you’ll need to lose some more weight to fit in the dress we have selected.”
I stared at my mother like I had never seen her before. Every bad thing she had ever said to me bubbled to the surface. Every time she judged me, criticized me, hurt me. Every ounce of hope that I had ever held onto about her changing, about her finally loving me for me, evaporated in that instant.
The woman standing in front of me was a stranger to me. Someone that I had truly never known, and someone that I wished I never had.
“I hate you.”
She jerked back at my words, and it fueled me. I burned with my hate for her.
“Kennedy,” my dad’s voice boomed through the room, but the fear that used to run through me at the sound of his anger was gone.
“What?” I turned my angry gaze to him. “What can you possibly have to say to me? Are you going to tell me to not talk to my mother like that? Well, guess what, she has never been a mother to me.”
“I’m sorr...” Jessica’s words cut off when I looked up at her. She was standing there in a perfect light pink dress that hit right below her knee. Her nails were covered in a French manicure, and she reminded me of my mother. Her perfect little mini-me. I hated her even more.
“Kennedy, stop this right now.” I turned my gaze to my brother. “You are ruining everything. Mother, I told you she didn’t need to be in the wedding.”
I watched my brother as I took in his words. As I took in how much he had become just like our parents.
“I hope you and Jessica are happy together,” I said to my brother.
His eyes turned to me, completely unforgiving in his expectations.
I pulled the business school paperwork out of my bag and laid it on the table in front of me. “Thank you all for making this decision easy for me.”
My mother’s eyes were glued to the paperwork before she looked up at me with shock on her face.
I walked out of the house and none of them spoke another word to me. I made it to my car, and only then, did the tears begin to fall. And they poured.
…
I pulled over on the side of the road when I could no longer see clearly. My sobs were racking through my body, and I wiped at my face with the back of my hand. I was far enough away from my parents’ house that the feeling of immediate threat had left me, but I wasn’t far enough away to feel the protection of my friends. Of my home.
My phone tumbled to the floor when I tried to pull it out of my bag causing me to cry harder. I finally managed to wrangle it out from under my seat and hit my speed dial for Brooke. My finger hesitated over Tucker’s name, but there was no way that I wanted him to see me like this. He couldn’t. I needed Brooke.
“Hey, babe. That was quick.” The sound of her voice pushed my anxiety down further. She was still at work, and I could hear the chaos of the salon in the background.
“Brooke.” I sounded as horrible as I felt.
“Kennedy? Are you okay? Where are you?” Her words were rushed. Panicked.
“I’m on the side of Hatcher Lane. Can you come get me?”
“I’m on my way.”
I took a deep breath and a sob is all that managed to come out.
“Breathe for me, Kennedy. It will be okay. I promise. All we need is each other.” She sounded as wounded as I felt, and I knew that she was feeling every bit of my pain. It was just who she was. She didn’t have any idea what hurt me, but all she knew was that I was hurt. There would never be a moment in my life where that girl wasn’t there for me.
I stayed on the phone with her. Not even talking. Her listening to me cry. Me listening to her breathe and tell me that everything would be okay.
When a car that I didn’t recognize pulled up next to me, my body immediately stiffened, but my best friend jumped out of the passenger seat and waved goodbye to the car. My driver side door was jerked open and she immediately pulled me into her arms.
“Who was that?” I managed to say through my tears.
“A girl from the salon. What happened?” She brushed the hair out of my face and wiped my tears off my cheeks.
“Jessica.”
“What about her?” Her face hardened.
“It’s her. That’s who my brother is engaged to.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When they opened, her blue eyes were filled with sympathy. She knew how bad Jessica had treated me growing up. She knew how deep my wounds were from my family, and it hurt her too.
“Kennedy,” she whispered my name. The hurt clear in voice.
“The worst part is that he knows. You know? He knows how she treated me. He was there for me once upon a time.”
“He’s an asshole.” She put my hand in hers.
“I know.”
“They don’t deserve you.”
“Then why does it hurt so badly?” I looked up at her and searched for answers. Answers I desperately needed.
“Because they should be better. You deserve to have an amazing birth family, but instead, you ended up with me.”
A small smile curved on my lips for the first time since I stepped into my parents’ house.
“I know it hurts, and it’s going to, babe. But we have each other, and I love you like you are my sister. You are my sister. We don’t need them.” They were words that she had said to me many times before, but the truth of them had never rang as clear as they did in that moment.
She was right. I had her. I had Tucker. I didn’t need anyone else.