The Bride Wore My Nightmares Chapter 03
My legs nearly gave out beneath me.
Was this really Ethan?
Vanessa reacted like lightning, quickly pulling a wrapped gift from the bag on her arm. “Maddie, I picked this out especially for you. I know what happened back then hurt you badly, but I… I really was forced into it.”
As she spoke, those carefully lined eyes actually began to redden, as if the weight of some great wrong were pressing down on her alone.
The gift was a necklace — Tiffany’s latest, retailing for over four thousand dollars on the site.
That wasn’t a gift for me. That was Ethan’s money, bought so she could shove it in my mother’s face, and now conveniently repurposed to shove down my throat.
I didn’t say a word. I walked straight up, picked up the untouched glass of water on the coffee table, and poured it right over her head.
The water ran down that heavily made-up face of hers, plastering her carefully-blown curls to her cheeks, and paired with her wide, bulging eyes, it was a sight so pitifully ridiculous it bordered on farce.
She was shocked and furious, but I didn’t feel any particular satisfaction — compared to what I’d endured all those years ago, this wasn’t even a drop in the ocean.
“Maddie — you —!” Ethan shoved me aside, snatched a fistful of tissues, and began dabbing at her face with the tenderness of a man handling priceless porcelain.
I let out a cold laugh. “So you can be afraid, huh. Back then, you poured toilet water on me.”
“Maddie, don’t go too far!” Ethan snapped at me.
I didn’t even look at him. I stared straight at Vanessa. “Get out of our house.”
The muscles in her face twitched a couple of times. She was about to speak again when my mother cut her off. “You should leave. This household doesn’t welcome you.”
Ethan started to speak and my father shouted him down.
Vanessa shot a quick glance at Ethan, composed herself, and bowed to me again, all delicate and tremulous. “I’m sorry. I really do hope you’ll give me another chance.”
I couldn’t stand the sound of her voice another second, couldn’t stand watching her stage that pitiful little act in front of me. I shut my eyes and refused to look at her.
“Out!” My father slammed his palm down on the coffee table with a crash.
Vanessa clearly hadn’t expected the reaction to be that severe. A choked sob escaped her throat and she turned and bolted out the door.
“She can still cry?” Tears rushed to my eyes. I glared at Ethan, my hatred barely contained.
For as long as I could remember, Ethan had been the one who loved me most. No matter what stupid thing I did, he had never once so much as raised his voice at me.
The summer after ninth grade, I finally told him everything about the bullying at school. When Ethan found out, he wanted to tear Pasadena upside down and drag those people out one by one.
Later, when I was diagnosed with depression, he stayed with me. He encouraged me. He pulled strings to find me a therapist and got me two full years of therapy.
For two years, the thing he said to me most often was:
“I’m your big brother. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not one bit.”
And now, the way Ethan was looking at us, there was disappointment in his eyes.
That was the last thing in the world I ever wanted to see.
“Ethan, have you forgotten what Maddie’s been through all these years? How many pills she’s taken? How many nightmares she’s had? She —”
“I need some space.” Ethan cut her off, turned on his heel, and walked out without looking back.
The corners of my mouth twisted bitterly.
Mom and Dad turned to look at me, their eyes full of ache.
“Maddie, don’t worry. We will never let a woman like that set foot in this house.”
I knew they were worried about me.
But that look of disappointment on Ethan’s face — it cut me to the bone.
I turned wordlessly and walked back to my room, over to the desk, and stared at the photo sitting on top of it — me in a white sundress, smiling at the camera. Everything in me went still.
That photo had been taken the year I started ninth grade. Ethan had made a whole thing of it, insisting on taking my picture.
And now, whatever he felt for that woman, Vanessa Whitaker, had already outgrown what he felt for his own sister.