Chapter 7 - THE WEDDING I ALMOST CANCELED
My wedding was supposed to happen four months after the engagement party.
By month three, I wanted to cancel it.
Not the marriage.
The wedding.
Every invitation felt connected to family.
Every seating chart forced a question.
Mom?
Dad?
Iris?
Aunts who told me not to “tear the twins apart”?
Cousins who privately supported me but publicly remained neutral?
Neutrality had become exhausting.
One night, Blake found me sitting on the kitchen floor beside boxes of wedding favors.
“Cancel it.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“The wedding.”
My chest tightened.
He sat beside me.
“Marry me at city hall.”
“Your family already booked flights.”
“They’ll survive.”
“The deposits.”
“Money.”
“My dress.”
“Cloth.”
I started crying.
He took my hand.
“I want a marriage.”
“Not the wedding?”
“I want whatever doesn’t make you spend the next four months bleeding for other people’s comfort.”
I loved him.
Which meant I had to answer honestly.
“I still want the wedding.”
He smiled.
“Then we keep it.”
“But different.”
“Good.”
We cut the guest list from 220 to 68.
No extended family who had lobbied me about Iris.
No people who called the fraud “a misunderstanding.”
Dad invited.
Mom uncertain.
Iris not invited.
That decision caused war.
Mom refused to come if Iris was excluded.
I said:
“Okay.”
She expected me to beg.
I didn’t.
Three weeks before the wedding, Dad called.
“Your mother thinks you’re forcing her to choose.”
“I’m not.”
“She says attending without Iris betrays her.”
“Then she shouldn't attend.”
Dad sighed.
“Ashley.”
“What?”
“You’re making boundaries sound easy.”
“No.”
I looked at Blake across the room.
“They’re expensive.”
That silenced him.
Dad attended.
Mom did not.
I cried about that the night before.
Natalie held me.
“Do you want her there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want the version of her who would come only if Iris gets access?”
“No.”
“Then grieve the mother you wanted.”
Brutal.
Correct.
The wedding happened on a small vineyard outside Charlottesville.
Dad walked me halfway down the aisle.
Then stopped.
He whispered:
“This next part is yours.”
I walked the rest alone.
Not because Blake was taking me from my family.
Because no one was giving me away.
Blake met me under an oak tree.
My engagement ring sat above my wedding band.
The same diamond Iris ripped from my hand.
I had considered replacing it.
Then decided no.
The ring had not been contaminated.
Her behavior belonged to her.
The ring belonged to me.
At the reception, Dad gave a short speech.
No childhood twin jokes.
No “two daughters, one heart.”
Thank God.
He said:
“I taught Ashley that being strong meant carrying more than other people.”
My throat tightened.
“I was wrong.”
The room went quiet.
“Strength should have made me protect her boundaries, not use them as storage for everyone else’s problems.”
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
That was enough.
Not repair.
Beginning.
Mom watched the ceremony through photographs later.
I know because she texted:
You looked beautiful.
I stared at the message.
Then replied:
May you like
Thank you.
Nothing more.
