ONE
SCARLETT
Men are as irrelevant to a woman’s existence as a laugh track is in a sitcom, yet my sister still insists on marrying one. Luckily, Luke happens to be the perfect person for her, so that makes him acceptable in my books. It also helps that they’ve been together since they were teenagers and I’ve known him half my life.
I shiver in my coat as I watch my sister pacing back and forth twenty feet away from me, talking animatedly with her fiancé while I fill the car with gas.
“You’d think they haven’t talked to each other in weeks rather than the mere five hours it took for us to fly from New York to Calgary,” our youngest sister, Sadie, says from the back seat of the car. Her window is rolled down and she’s watching Sienna with the curiosity of a cat.
“She’s going to forget us as soon as she’s married,” I say.
“She was just using us to make herself look good,” Sadie agrees.
I nod. “We’re the ugly stepsisters and she’s Cinderella.”
“Are you two talking trash about me?” Sienna asks, walking back to us.
“No,” Sadie and I say at the same time. We smirk at each other as Sienna rolls her eyes knowingly and sticks her tongue out at us.
“Let’s see how you act when you’re marrying the love of your life,” she says.
That’s never going to happen.
I brush off the bitter thought as the pump clicks under my hand and I remove it.
“Does anyone want snacks?” I ask, grabbing my purse from the car. It’s a good thing we rented an SUV at the airport because we packed like it’s the apocalypse and not a two-week destination wedding. We gave our rental to our parents’, so they didn’t have to stop for gas and took theirs, instead. Hence the pitstop.
“I’ll come. I have to pee, anyway,” Sadie says.
She grabs her hat, pulling it low over her brown hair. We all got our mother’s brown hair and her features, a fact my mother loves. The day I showed up with lavender hair was the day my mother decided I didn’t love her. It’s taken her five years to come around and realize the lavender is not going anywhere anytime soon.
“Why is it so cold?” Sienna says, tucking her hands into her jacket pocket.
Sadie gives her a look. “You’re the one who wanted to get married in the middle of nowhere Alberta, in December.”
We enter the store, and I make a beeline to the snack’s aisle, grabbing a bag of our favorite chips.
“Cedar Creek Ranch isn't in the middle of nowhere,” Sienna protests. “Silverpine is only two hours from Calgary.”
“In the Rockies,” Sadie says.
Sienna and Sadie get in line for the washroom still arguing about this destination wedding while I pay for the gas and our snacks. We love Sienna and her choice to get married anywhereshe wants, but we’d be terrible younger sisters if we didn’t tease her about it.
The photos Sienna showed us of Cedar Creek Ranch were so gorgeous they didn’t even look real. A huge ranch nestled under the Rockies, the snow-covered mountains looking almost AI generated.
I couldn’t have picked a better place for my sister to marry the love of her life.
I hand over the snacks to my sisters while I quickly use the washroom. Sadie takes over for the rest of the drive.
“I wonder if mom and dad are already there,” Sienna says from the front seat.
“If they were, we’d be getting calls every ten minutes asking us where we are,” I say.
“Ten minutes is being generous,” Sadie adds with a laugh.
I wouldn’t say our mother is a helicopter mom, but she’s notnotone. She’s raised three, fearless daughters and supported us fully no matter what we wanted to do. She’s also overprotective to the point where she tracks our location and if we’re not where we are meant to be, she’ll call us right away.
“I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when we get there,” I say.
