Page 138 of Theirs for the Holidays

Isabelle deliberately hurt me. She’s spent most of our lives dismissing me and treating me like a backup plan she coulduse when something else didn’t work out. And she was never grateful for my help or anything.

“You’re being selfish,” Mom says. “This is not how family acts.”

“This family wouldn’t know the first thing about how family acts,” I mutter back. “I’m not coming, Mom. Isabelle can just deal with it.”

I hang up before she can say anything else, silencing my phone. At least when the ceremony starts, she’ll be too busy dealing with Isabelle to keep harassing me. I’ll get a little bit of peace then.

I know it’s the right decision, not to go to the wedding and tell my mother that I’m not being the family fall back plan anymore, but it still hurts my heart.

I feel very alone right now. It’s not so much because I miss my family, but I miss the guys. It’s impossible to pretend that’s not the reason.

If things were still good between us, then we’d all be at the wedding, and I’d have them to distract me from feeling bad about Isabelle. At least they would still be on my side.

Now, I have no one.

As if summoned by me thinking about them, my phone lights up with a series of messages. All of them have been texting me since I walked out of the rehearsal dinner, but I haven’t read any of them.

I just want it to be a clean break. Dragging it out and pretending like things aren’t the way they are isn’t going to help.

That thought makes tears spring to my eyes, and I have to laugh at myself. I’m acting the same way I acted after Andrew and I broke up, but that’s stupid. It’s like I told Simon, it wasn’t a real relationship, so it’s not a real break up.

This was inevitable, and I knew it from the get go. This was always going to end with them leaving and me being alone again, and I managed to lose sight of that.

In a way, it’s my own fault that I feel like this.

Remembering that doesn’t make me feel any better, and I blink away the tears, trying to keep more of them from falling.

I shouldn’t be sitting here crying over them. I should be trying to figure out what my next steps are. I was always going to have to do this without them.

There’s a knock on the door then, and I frown. If it’s the guys or someone from my family trying to convince me to come to the wedding, I’m going to be upset.

But when I go to the door and look out the window, it’s Simon standing on the front step, bundled up and holding a paper bag.

I open the door, swallowing hard. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I didn’t think you should be alone tonight,” he says kindly. “And I thought you could use a friend. I know Eleanor wouldn’t want you sitting here, going through this on your own.”

He steps inside, and I throw my arms around him. He hugs me back just as tightly, surprisingly strong for his age, and the warmth and familiarity of it all makes me lose the battle against crying. All the emotion I’ve been holding back comes flooding out, and I let them, weeping into Simon’s shoulder as he rubs soothing circles on my back.

45

SAWYER

After Andrew’s wedding,none of us are any closer to understanding exactly what happened between us and Violet at the rehearsal dinner. We play it over and over again between ourselves, trying to figure out what we said or did that managed to piss her off enough to just… call the whole thing off.

The wedding itself was fucking torture—none of us wanted to watch Andrew and Isabelle exchange vows after what Isabelle did to Violet. But we went anyway, sitting in the back row like ghosts, just in case Violet decided to go. We wanted to be there for her if she did, and I know all three of us were desperate to get a glimpse of her. But she didn’t show. Despite my disappointment, I’m honestly glad she didn’t. She shouldn’t have had to sit through that bullshit.

“Do you think it’s just because we talked to Isabelle without telling her?” Lennox asks. He paces, wringing his hands together. His eyebrows have been drawn down in a perpetual frown for three days now.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I mean, I could see being annoyed by that, but it seemed like there was more to it.”

“She was talking to Isabelle,” Rhett says darkly. “I know she said something to Violet. I just don’t know why Violet would listen to her after everything she’s done.”

“Must have been something compelling,” I mutter.

At least this time, we’re in this together. There was a split second, watching Violet walk out of the rehearsal dinner, where I was worried that without Violet to steady us and keep us together, we would fall apart again.

It wasn’t as bad as losing our mom or selling our company, but it’s not like we have a great track record of keeping it together when things fall apart.