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But she didn’t make eye contact when she said it.
“Molly.”
“Isabel.”
“You had a look, and don’t even pretend you didn’t. Is Noah still on that let’s invite the entire team kick?”
She exhaled a laugh. “No. Too many guys travel during the bye week anyway.” Molly paused, her eyes finally locking on mine. “But we did end up sending out a last-minute invite this week. And … and I don’t think you’re going to understand why.”
My head reared back. “What do I have to do with it?”
Before she answered, Molly leaned down to snag her water bottle, and she took a long sip. By the time she set her water down, more than ten seconds could’ve elapsed, but it felt like an hour.
“I know we have some complicated family dynamics,” she said slowly, “but I feel like we can’t avoid some of it.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know. And Logan told me that we had to be nice to Nick even though we haven’t seen them once since they moved to the East Coast,” I said, referencing our other half-brother, who was a total a-hole. Thankfully, we rarely had to see him and his wife. There was about a minute, back when we were younger, when he challenged Logan for custody of the four of us. Gawd, what pricks we’d all be if he’d been the one to raise us.
Molly’s eyes searched mine. “I wasn’t talking about Nick.”
“Okay. Who?”
“Noah and I decided to send an invitation to Brooke’s last known address,” she said, lifting her chin.
My skin went hot. “What?” I whispered.
She nodded, and my skin went ice, ice cold. The change was shocking, bracing, and my heart went wild in my chest. I felt like Molly had taken a crowbar to my rib cage, prying me open like I was on a hinge.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Molly said calmly. “But Noah agreed that it was the right thing to do.”
“Why would you want her at your wedding?”
“Because … because this is a big deal! Getting married is a big deal. We’re all moving on to these chapters of our lives, and to me, it felt like an appropriate gesture to make, considering how happy I am with Noah.” Molly set her hands on her hips and exhaled heavily. “Maybe I’m handling this wrong.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have invited the woman who abandoned us.”
Even to my own ears, it sounded like a childish reaction, on par with dumping coffee down the drain, but just like I had with Aiden, the thought of facing her also had teenage Isabel roaring back in charge of my brain. But this was not the teenage Isabel who had crushes and cut out pictures. This was the past version of me who lashed out at anyone who might hurt me, and oh, how good I’d been at that.
It was the version of me who felt like she had no control over any part of her life.
Molly inhaled slowly. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to hear this, Isabel, but it’s my olive branch to extend.”
“She doesn’t deserve an olive branch,” I said hotly. “Last known address, Molly. She can’t even be bothered to update us on where in the hell she lives, but you think she should sit in the family pews at the ceremony?”
Molly held up her hands. “If you want to bait me into fighting about this, I won’t do it.”
I set my hands on my hips. “I’m not trying to fight. I’m trying to understand why the hell you think this is a good idea. You have no clue how she’ll act or what she’ll do, Molly. Don’t you want this day to be perfect?”
Just the thought of it, of Brooke walking into the room, had my hands and fingers and arms racing with pins and needles. I didn’t know how she’d aged. I didn’t know what she’d say. If she’d pretend everything was fine. And all of those unknowns snapped and snarled in my head like a rabid dog on a rusty chain.
My temper didn’t come out often, but this was the one single thing that would make me explode faster than anything else in the entire world. If my reaction to Aiden made me feel off-balance and out of control, then my reaction to Brooke turned me into a walking nuclear bomb.
The combination of them—the first building up for weeks and the second dropping without warning—wasn’t pretty.
To my horror, Molly’s eyes welled up. “Yes,” she whispered. “Of course I want this day to be perfect. I am marrying the love of my life. Don’t you think I’ve thought through every angle of this? I’m inviting Brooke for me, Isabel. Not for her.”
I exhaled a laugh, shoving my fingers into my hair. “What could you possibly gain from this?”
Molly shrugged helplessly. “Peace, Isabel. I gain peace from knowing I’ve forgiven her for leaving, and she realizes it. Maybe Brooke has stayed away all these years because she doesn’t know how she’d be greeted.”
