My name is Ivy, and I was supposed to be picking out flower arrangements for my wedding, but a migraine had forced me to reschedule. I came home early and found my sister Sophie’s car in the driveway, which was strange because she should have been at work. The front door was unlocked. I heard giggling from upstairs, from my bedroom. My feet felt heavy as I climbed each step, my heart already knowing what my mind refused to accept.
“Jaime.” Sophie’s voice drifted through the crack in the door. “We should tell her soon.”
“I know, baby. After the wedding. Okay, we’ll figure it out.”
My hand trembled as I pushed the door open. There they were, my fiancé and my sister, tangled in my sheets. The same sheets Jaime and I had picked out together at Bed Bath & Beyond last month.
“Ivy.” Sophie scrambled to cover herself, but Jaime just sat there frozen.
“Oh, God. This isn’t—I mean, we were going to—”
“Going to what?” My voice sounded foreign, eerily calm. “Wait until after the wedding to tell me you’ve been sleeping with my fiancé?”
Jaime finally found his voice. “Ivy, please. We didn’t mean for this to happen. It just did.”
I laughed. I actually laughed. “How long?”
Sophie started crying. “Three months. And I’m… I’m pregnant.”
The room spun. Three months. While I had been planning our wedding, picking out china patterns, writing my vows, and making appointments with florists, they had been planning their own future.
“Get out,” I whispered.
When neither of them moved, I grabbed Jaime’s clothes from the floor and threw them at him. “Get out.”
They dressed quickly, Sophie crying the whole time. I stood in the doorway, blocking their exit.
“The ring.”
Jaime blinked. “What?”
“The engagement ring. Give it back.”
He slipped it off my finger, his touch making my skin crawl. As they shuffled past me, Sophie reached for my arm.
“Ivy, please. We need to talk about this.”
I jerked away. “Don’t touch me ever again.”
The next few days passed in a blur. My mother called constantly, leaving voicemails that grew more frustrated each time.
“Ivy, you need to come home. Sophie’s devastated. She needs her sister right now.”
I finally answered on the fourth day. “She needs me? Are you serious?”
“Sweetheart, these things happen. Sophie and Jaime, they’re in love. Real love. And with the baby coming…”
“Stop.” My voice cracked. “Just stop.”
“We’re having a family dinner tonight,” she continued as if I had not spoken. “Everyone will be there. We need to discuss the situation like adults.”
I showed up against my better judgment.
The dining room felt suffocating. Sophie and Jaime sat together. My mother hovered anxiously. My father stared at his plate.
“We’re getting married next month,” Sophie announced, her hand protectively over her stomach. “A small ceremony. Nothing fancy.”
My mother beamed. “Isn’t it wonderful? You’ll be an aunt, Ivy.”
I stood up so quickly my chair toppled backward. “Wonderful? My sister sleeps with my fiancé, gets pregnant, and that’s wonderful?”
“Now, Ivy,” my father finally spoke.
“What’s done is done. We need to move forward as a family.”
“A family?” I grabbed my purse. “You want to know what family does? Family protects each other. Family does not steal your happiness and expect you to celebrate their betrayal.”
Sophie started crying again. She had always been good at that. “Please, Ivy. I love him.”
“We love each other.”
I looked at them all. My sister’s tears. Jaime’s guilty face. My parents’ pleading eyes.
In that moment, something inside me hardened. They wanted me to forgive and forget, to play the supportive sister and daughter. Instead, I walked to the door, pausing only to say, “Congratulations on your perfect little family. I hope you’re all very happy together.”
As I drove away, my phone buzzed with messages I would not read. They thought this was the end. Poor Ivy, running away to lick her wounds. But they were wrong. This was not the end. This was just the beginning.
I pulled into my best friend Eric’s driveway, my hand steady on the wheel for the first time in days. He opened the door before I could knock, took one look at my face, and pulled me into a hug.
“I need your help,” I whispered against his shoulder.
“Anything.”