My dad claimed he’d had a critical work conflict he absolutely couldn’t get out of, something about a presentation that had supposedly been scheduled months in advance and couldn’t possibly be rescheduled. Brooke never even acknowledged my wedding had happened at all. She just kept posting pictures of her own life, her own plans, her own perfect world as if my wedding had simply never existed in the first place.
I tried so hard to let it go. I told myself over and over that people make mistakes, that maybe they genuinely didn’t realize how much their absence had hurt me, that perhaps there were legitimate reasons I didn’t fully understand. But the pain lingered like a wound that wouldn’t heal, a dull ache that never quite went away no matter how much time passed.
Every time I saw them at Sunday dinners or holiday gatherings, I felt the weight of those empty chairs pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Every single time Brooke mentioned her upcoming wedding or showed us another detail she’d planned, I had to physically bite my tongue to keep from screaming at all of them.
Now, standing in their living room as they called me jealous and selfish and dramatic, I realized something that made my stomach turn with a sick feeling.
They genuinely didn’t think they’d done anything wrong.
