I had been holding on to the idea of a family.
One that never showed up.
One that existed only in holiday photos and fake smiles.
One that only reached out when they wanted something.
Letting go of that fantasy hurt more than I expected.
But once it was gone, I could finally breathe.
I told Lily bits and pieces of what I was working on.
She asked smart questions, wanted to see the logo, drew a little design of her own on a sticky note, and stuck it to my laptop.
“You got this, Dad.”
And then something happened.
I didn’t expect.
I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize.
It was a woman named Emma, one of Jen’s Austin’s fiance’s bridesmaids.
She sounded hesitant.
Awkward.
“I hope this isn’t weird,” she said. “But I didn’t know who else to talk to. I’ve been following your business stuff online. It’s really cool. And uh, there’s something you should probably know.”
I sat up straight.
“What kind of something?”
She hesitated.
“Just something about your brother and your parents. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but after the way they talk about you behind your back, I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.”
There was a long pause.
Then she added, “You’re going to want to see the group chat.”
I blinked.
“What group chat?”
Another pause.
“The one they didn’t mean to add me to.”
And right there, right in that moment, I felt the shift, the rise, because whatever I was about to find out, it was going to change everything.
And this time, I was ready for it.
I didn’t say much to Emma on that first call.
After she told me about the group chat, I just asked one question.
“Can you send screenshots?”
She hesitated.
Said she felt bad, like she was betraying people, but I could hear the crack in her voice.
The same kind of crack I’d had not long ago.
The sound of someone realizing they’ve been backing the wrong people for far too long.
An hour later, my phone lit up.
There were over 70 screenshots.
She labeled the email, “For your eyes only.”
Inside were months worth of texts between my mother, father Austin, Jyn, and two of Jyn’s bridesmaids.
The thread was labeled Wedding Squad.
But Wedding Squad was a generous name.
Half of it wasn’t even about wedding planning.
Most of it was gossip.
Not just the petty kind, the surgical, venomous kind.
The kind where your own mother says she’s glad her granddaughter didn’t inherit your emotional instability.
Where your father jokes that Lily would be a decent kid if she weren’t raised by a martyr.
Where Austin says he’s done feeling guilty for letting Jordan drown in his own life choices.
Where Jyn calls me the family’s cautionary tale.
There were entire strings where they talked about how I exaggerated Lily’s condition for sympathy.
My mom said, “Jordan always needed a crisis to feel important. He thrives on it.”
They debated how to word things so I wouldn’t show up to the destination wedding.
Jyn said she’d die of embarrassment if her in-laws had to meet the baggage brother.
Austin wrote, “Just act like we assumed he couldn’t afford it. He’ll get the hint.”
That one hurt more than it should have, but none of it compared to the last batch of messages dated a week before the engagement trip.
Jen had suggested asking me for another small contribution, specifically for the honeymoon fund.