Clare squeezed my arm. “Never again,” she whispered.
I glanced around the table: my sister’s earnest face, Ethan’s tentative but honest smile, my parents trying in ways they’d never tried before, Daniel watching me like I was the center of the room even when no one else noticed.
The wedding had been designed to erase me.
Instead, it had forced everyone to face the truth: I wasn’t someone to hide. I wasn’t a problem to manage. I wasn’t a name card to place near a door.
I was a person.
And finally—finally—I belonged at the table not because of who loved me, but because I refused to disappear.
Part 7
The day after the engagement, Daniel and I made a list on a yellow legal pad at my kitchen table.
Not a wedding list. Not a guest list. A boundaries list.
No surprise announcements.
No “exclusive sources.”
No family members sharing details without permission.
No letting other people’s hunger turn our life into their meal.
Daniel tapped the pen against his lip. “Do we need to put ‘no helicopters’ on here?”
I looked up from my coffee. “Is that a thing?”
“It becomes a thing when someone decides our engagement is a public event,” he said. His tone was joking, but his eyes were serious.