I didn’t say what I was really thinking: Family is scarier.
Liam and I were close once. He is five years younger than me, and I practically helped raise him when our dad left us. I was the one who helped him with his algebra homework, the one who covered for him when he snuck out to parties in high school, and the one who held his hand during the violent thunderstorms that used to shake our house. For years, it felt like it was just the two of us against the world.
But that changed the moment he met Emily. She was polished, poised, the kind of woman who walks into a room and makes you feel like you need to apologize simply for existing in her space. I tried to be kind when he introduced us. I really, truly did. But she made it clear from day one that I wasn’t “her type of people.”
She once told me at a family dinner, swirling her expensive wine, “It’s so inspiring that you’re doing this all on your own.” She used that specific tone people use when they want you to know they believe they are above you, while pretending not to be.
My mom loved her immediately. I could see it in the way Janice leaned in when Emily talked, how she laughed at every story Emily told, even the boring ones. Janice had never looked at me that way. With me, she was always stiff, judgmental, acting like I was a living reminder of all the things she didn’t want to see in herself. I used to think I was just being sensitive, paranoid even.
That wedding proved otherwise.
The venue was objectively beautiful. There were white roses cascading from every surface, soft violin music floating in the climate-controlled air, and candlelight flickering off gold-rimmed glasses. Everyone was dressed immaculately, like they had stepped out of the pages of a high-end fashion magazine. And then there was me, trying not to wrinkle my discount dress every time I sat down, constantly adjusting the one pair of decent heels I owned, praying Noah wouldn’t spill red sauce on his little white shirt and tie.
He looked so proud, though. “Do I look grown up?” he had asked earlier, adjusting his collar with serious focus.
“You look like the man of the hour,” I told him, and I meant it.
As the night went on, I smiled until my cheeks ached. I nodded. I made small talk about the weather and the centerpieces. I laughed at jokes I didn’t find funny. I held my head high, even when I caught a few side-eyed glances from Emily’s sorority friends. I was surviving. I was making it through.
Until that moment with the microphone happened, and everything I had held together—my composure, my pride, my years of pretending everything was fine—came crashing down in a pile of rubble.
The laughter felt like physical daggers. And in that moment, I saw something in Noah’s eyes that changed the entire trajectory of the night. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t confusion. It was protection.
He wasn’t going to let them laugh at me. Not without saying something. So he stood up and walked toward the stage. And I… I just sat there, paralyzed, holding my breath.