Chapter 3 - The Falling Veil
Daniel stepped away from Emily,
the gap between them at the altar looking like an unbridgeable chasm.
"Emily,"
he repeated,
his voice rising with a mixture of disbelief and growing fury.
"Answer me."
"Did you tell your sister she was ruining your wedding?"
Emily’s face contorted,
the mask of the sweet,
Southern belle finally slipping to reveal the cold vanity beneath.
"It’s my day,
Daniel!"
she shrieked,
her voice echoing off the high,
vaulted ceilings of the church.
"I’ve worked for a year to make everything perfect!"
"The photos,
the video,
the aesthetic!"
"She could have just sat in the back for an hour!"
"Is that so much to ask for my one special day?"
A collective gasp rippled through the pews,
the sound of a hundred hearts hardening against the girl in the white dress.
Daniel looked at his mother,
Margaret,
who stood like a pillar of judgment in the front row.
"You knew,"
Daniel said to her,
his eyes brimming with tears.
"You knew the whole time."
Margaret nodded slowly,
her expression sorrowful yet firm.
"I did my research,
Daniel,"
she said.
"When you told me the story of the fire,
the one Emily told you,
it didn't sit right with me."
"I found the old newspapers from that year."
"I saw the photos of a twelve-year-old hero being carried out of the flames."
"And then I saw the woman who was forced to live in the shadows of this family."
She turned to my parents,
who were now weeping silently into their hands.
"How could you let her do this?"
Margaret asked them,
her voice a whip of indignation.
"How could you let your daughter treat her savior like a shameful secret?"
My father,
Mark,
finally stood up,
his shoulders slumped under the weight of a decade of cowardice.
"We just wanted things to be normal,"
he whispered,
his voice shaking.
"We wanted Emily to have a life without the trauma."
"We thought...
we thought it was best for everyone."
I felt a surge of cold clarity wash over me.
"Best for everyone?"
I spoke up,
my voice ringing out for the first time,
clear and sharp.
"You mean best for you."
"You didn't want to look at me because I reminded you of the house you couldn't protect."
"You didn't want to look at me because it was easier to celebrate Emily’s beauty than to face my pain."
I turned the wheels of my chair,
moving slowly toward the center of the aisle.
"I saved you,
Emily,"
I said,
looking my sister directly in her tear-filled,
angry eyes.
"Not so you could be a bride in a pretty dress,"
"but so you could be a human being with a soul."
May you like
"But looking at you now,"
"I wonder if I left the best part of you back in that fire."
