Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips
The air left my lungs in one silent, violent rush.
I sat frozen in the wheelchair, the hum of the air conditioning suddenly roaring in my ears like ocean surf. The grand ballroom, with its crystal chandeliers and gold-leaf molding, seemed to warp around me.
*'Let's see you steal my spotlight from a wheelchair, you pathetic cripple.'*
For thirty-four years, I had been the family's shock absorber. When Sloan threw tantrums, I gave up my toys. When Sloan failed high school algebra, I spent my college breaks tutoring her. When she crashed my car during my senior year of nursing school, Dad told me that an older sister was supposed to protect her younger sibling, not hold a grudge over a piece of metal.
I had always known Sloan was selfish. I had known she was petty, vindictive, and fiercely possessive of every shred of praise our parents offered. But this wasn't sibling rivalry. This wasn't the spoiled petulance of a favored child.
This was calculated, cold-blooded violence.
"She laughed," I whispered, staring down at my hands. "When I was lying there... when my bone felt like it was tearing through my skin... she laughed."
"I know," Thatcher said, his voice deadly quiet. "I stood there and watched her do it. And then I watched your parents step over you to check on her makeup because she claimed she had suffered a panic attack from the shock of your fall."
He stood up, towering over me, his hands buried deep into the pockets of his dress trousers. The helplessness that had haunted his face moments ago had transformed into something else entirely: a cold, terrifying resolve.
"Thatcher," a voice squeaked from behind a marble column.
We both turned.
Standing near the catering entrance was Bellamy, our twenty-two-year-old cousin. She was still wearing her lavender bridesmaid robe, her hair half-pinned in hot rollers. In her hands, she clutched her gold iPhone as if it were an unexploded bomb. Her face was as pale as the calla lilies in the corner arrangements.
"Bellamy?" I said, blinking against the sudden swell of tears in my eyes. "What are you doing over there?"
She looked between me and Thatcher, her lower lip trembling. "I... I heard you guys talking. I’ve been looking for Thatcher for an hour. Uncle Arthur wouldn't let anyone near the groom's suite, but I snuck down the back staircase."
"Bellamy, go back upstairs," Thatcher said evenly. "We have things to handle down here."
"No," Bellamy said, stepping fully into the foyer. Her voice shook, but there was a desperate urgency behind it. "You don't understand. Merritt... last night at the rehearsal dinner... Sloan came to my room while we were getting dressed. She gave me fifty dollars and told me to sit at the foot of the stairs."
A cold dread pooled in my stomach. "You were filming. I saw you holding your phone up when I hit the bottom."
"She told me you were going to make a scene," Bellamy blurted out, tears spilling over her mascara. "She said, *'Merritt is so jealous of my ring that she's going to fake an injury to ruin the rehearsal dinner. I want you to record her tripping on purpose so we can laugh about it later and show everyone she's an attention seeker.'* That’s what she told me, Merritt! I swear to God, I thought she was just being petty!"
Bellamy crossed the floor in hurried, uneven steps, dropping to her knees on the opposite side of my wheelchair. She unlocked her screen with shaking thumbs and thrust the device into Thatcher's hands.
"I didn't delete it," Bellamy whispered. "Aunt Eleanor came into my room this morning at six a.m. and demanded I wipe my cloud storage. She told me the Montgomerys are a private family and that any video of an 'accident' could create legal liability for the venue. But she didn't check my recently deleted folder. I restored it twenty minutes ago."
Thatcher took the phone. I leaned forward as much as my locked hip would allow, peering over his arm.
The screen lit up with the rehearsal dinner footage.
The lighting on the grand staircase was cinematic. The string quartet could be heard in the background, playing a classical rendition of an old love ballad. On the screen, I saw myself: dressed in navy silk, my knuckles white against the mahogany banister, taking one agonizingly slow step at a time. The groomsman beside me was looking away, waving politely at an aunt in the crowd.
Then, from the top of the frame, Sloan appeared.
She was wearing her blush-pink designer cocktail dress, clutching a glass of champagne in one hand. She descended the first four steps swiftly, lightly, like a dancer. But the moment she reached the landing just above me, her posture shifted.
The high-definition camera caught every micro-expression.
There was no rush to fix a fallen decoration. There was no stumble.
Sloan paused behind the marble balustrade. Her eyes locked onto the back of my head with predatory focus. On the video, you could see Thatcher standing in the deep shadows beneath the upper mezzanine, his back turned as he inspected the floral arch, just feet away.
Then Sloan leaned in.
The phone's microphone was surprisingly clear, filtering out the distant strings.
On the screen, Sloan’s mouth moved near my ear:
*"Let's see you steal my spotlight from a wheelchair, you pathetic cripple."*
A fraction of a second later, her pointed stiletto hook-swept behind my left ankle, pulling my good leg out from under me. Simultaneously, she set her empty champagne glass on the balustrade and shoved both open palms violently into the center of my shoulder blades.
My body launched forward.
The audio captured the wet, sickening *CRACK* of my patella striking the edge of the fifth marble riser. It captured my ragged, guttural scream of absolute agony.
And then, as I tumbled into a heap at the foot of the stairs, the camera zoomed in slightly. Sloan stood on the third step, looking down at my broken form.
She wasn't gasping. She wasn't covering her mouth in horror.
She threw her head back, let out a bright, ringing laugh, and looked directly into Bellamy’s lens with a wink.
"It was just a joke!" her recorded voice rang out, clear as church bells.
Thatcher stared at the screen long after the video ended. The silence in the foyer was deafening. The only sound was the harpist upstairs, striking a clean, crystalline chord.
"She planned it," I whispered, the reality crashing down on me like an avalanche. "She told Bellamy to record it before we even walked down the stairs."
"She planned it," Thatcher repeated. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, the kind of calm that precedes a catastrophic hurricane.
He didn't hand the phone back to Bellamy. He slid it into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket, right over his heart.
"Thatcher?" Bellamy asked nervously, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. "What are you going to do? Aunt Eleanor said the Montgomery family has three federal judges and two state senators sitting in the front pews right now. She said if this wedding gets canceled, Sloan’s reputation will be ruined."
Thatcher turned slowly to look at her. The expression on his face made Bellamy instinctively pull back.
"Sloan's reputation?" Thatcher murmured. "Her reputation isn't what she needs to be worried about today."
He turned back to me, reaching down to take my trembling hands into his own. His grip was warm, solid, and immovable.
"Merritt," he said softly. "Are you strong enough to sit through a ceremony?"
I looked at him, confused, the pain in my leg screaming for another dose of narcotics. "What do you mean? You're calling the wedding off, aren't you? You have to."
"If I call it off in private," Thatcher said, leaning closer, "do you know what happens? Your parents will tell everyone I got cold feet. They will tell the papers, the guests, and your entire extended family that the stress of *your* dramatic behavior broke Sloan’s heart. They will spend the rest of their lives making you pay for the deposits they lost, and Sloan will play the tragic, abandoned bride."
The truth of his words hit me like ice water. He was entirely right. Eleanor and Arthur were masters of public relations. Within forty-eight hours, I would be painted as the bitter, jealous older sister who poisoned the groom’s mind and destroyed her sister's happiness.
"What are you saying?" I asked, my breath hitching.
May you like
"I’m saying Sloan wanted a performance," Thatcher whispered, a cold, dangerous light igniting behind his slate-gray eyes. "So we're going to give her one she’ll never forget."
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