Oswald leaned in and murmured something in Michelle's ear, and she took him and left at once.
She didn't even bother to glance at me on her way out.
Once the guests had scattered, I went back alone to the wedding suite we'd decorated so carefully and started packing.
Not long after, Oswald updated his social media feed.
The video showed a dim bar booth, lights blurring, the music deafening.
In one hand he held a wineglass; the other was locked tight around Michelle's waist as he mugged for the camera.
Her veil hung crooked, a faint flush of tipsiness on her face, her eyes unfocused.
“Celebrating my sister getting her freedom back! Best big-brother-little-sister time ever. Certain worthless dogs can stop dreaming.”
It wasn't the words that stung. It was the picture.
That wedding gown I'd spent half a year choosing looked like a joke.
A few minutes later, Michelle texted me.
“Joseph, Oswald's still really worked up. I have no choice but to stay with him a while longer.”
“Everything I said at the wedding, I didn't mean any of it. I only said it to calm him down, because I had no other choice.”
“You know how sick he is. I can't afford to be soft.”
“Don't be angry, and don't take it to heart.”
“Once he settles down, I'll come back and we'll talk about a new wedding date.”
Reading it, I could almost picture the look on her face as she typed.
I picked up my phone, let my fingertip rest on the screen a moment, then slowly tapped out three words.
“No need.”
Just as I was nearly done packing, the lock rattled.
Michelle came in, supporting a drunken Oswald.
“Oswald had too much to drink. He kept insisting he had to sleep in our wedding bed, and I couldn't talk him out of it.”
“Joseph, try to understand.”
Try to understand.
Those words turned like a rusted key and unlocked the gate on a memory.
Half a year ago, this suite had just been finished.
My mother came to see it, so happy, wanting to sit on the brand-new wedding bed, to test how soft the mattress was.
Michelle stopped her without a shred of courtesy.
“Auntie, back home we have a rule. No outsider can touch the wedding bed. It's bad luck.”
I still remember exactly how embarrassed and crushed my mother looked.
But now, in front of Oswald, that rule counted for nothing.
I couldn't be bothered to look at her, couldn't be bothered to argue over even a single word.
I zipped the suitcase shut, turned, and walked for the door.
Michelle seemed not to have expected this reaction. She froze for a beat.
Then, almost without thinking, she asked “Where are you going?”
I said nothing. I didn't even slow my steps.
There's nothing to say to someone that blind.
But the instant my hand touched the door handle, air whipped in from the side.
Crack!
A loud slap landed on my face before I could react.
The force was heavy; my cheek flared with a hot, stinging pain.
At some point Oswald had wrenched free of Michelle, and now he glared at me with eyes bloodshot from alcohol, jabbing a finger my way.
“My sister asked you a question! You dog! Are you deaf?!”
At first I hadn't meant to bother squaring off with Oswald.
Over seven years, scenes like this had stopped being anything new.
But my silence only fed the arrogance on his face.
He suddenly swung the half-full bottle in his hand and smashed it at me!
I turned my head on instinct, but it came too fast and too hard, and the bottle still slammed into my temple.
A sharp pain burst open.
And that wasn't the end of it.
He jabbed his finger at my nose and, in that voice mixing malice with madness, screamed “Get out! You dog! Just as much an eyesore as that dead mother of yours! She deserved to die early……”
