At my sister’s party, I was sitting in my wheelchair near the edge of the dance floor while she told the guests I was exaggerating about my injury. Then, jokingly, she pulled my wheelchair abruptly toward the champagne pyramid, and the glasses shattered in front of everyone. As the room fell silent, she was too busy smiling to notice who was already behind her, calmly on the phone with emergency services—requesting security’s intervention.

My sister pushed me out of my wheelchair at her engagement party: « Stop pretending to get attention… »

The sound of a $200 bottle of Dom Pérignon shattering on the tiles didn’t frighten me as much as my sister Cassie’s hysterical look.

She yelled that my black wheelchair looked like an ugly lump of coal, ruining her perfect engagement photo.

Then she pushed me straight into the glass tower filled with champagne, blood mixed with sparkling wine.

I was unable to move my legs to stand up. But Cassie had made a fatal mistake. She didn’t know that the elegant woman who had just crossed the lawn and rushed to stabilize my neck with the expert gesture of a specialist was Dr. Helena Kingsley, the groom’s aunt.

She was also the one who put eight screws in my spine 24 months ago.

And this time, Dr. Kingsley wasn’t using a scalpel. She was using the law.

But I’m getting carried away. To understand how a biological sister could be so cruel, we need to go back an hour earlier, to when the wrought-iron gates of the Magnolia Springs Botanical Gardens opened. They revealed a scene worthy of a fevered dream, bathed in pastel hues. Pink roses, mint-green hydrangeas, and cream lilies overflowed in every direction.

Ethereal ribbons were wrapped around white columns. A string quartet played a refined baroque piece near a marble fountain.

This was Cassie’s vision of perfection. And I was about to become the only black mark on her immaculate canvas.

The dress code was strict: spring pastels, powder pink, or mint green, the invitation specified in calligraphic script. No exceptions. I complied, wearing a pale pink silk dress I’d found on sale at Nordstrom Rack—the kind of dress that made me feel almost pretty despite everything.

The fabric fell beautifully over my atrophied legs, and I had even styled my hair in soft waves that cascaded down to my shoulders.

But my ultralight carbon wheelchair was matte black, a $5,000 piece of specialized equipment I had saved up for for years.

Every penny of my disability benefits, every birthday check from distant relatives, every dollar I’d managed to scrape together from my freelance publishing work, I’d put my feet in it. That wheelchair weighed only eight kilos and moved with incredible fluidity, unlike the cumbersome one provided by the hospital that I’d used for the first six months after the accident.

This wheelchair represented my freedom, my independence, my ability to move around the world without having to ask for help every five minutes. I didn’t think Cassie would care about the color. I was often wrong back then.

I crawled up the access ramp — thank God the venue had one — and looked around the crowd for my sister.

She stood by the champagne fountain, an ivory lace vision that probably cost more than all my medical supplies for the year.

Her blonde hair was styled in a sophisticated updo, and her makeup was worthy of the finest magazines. She was laughing at something Greg, her fiancé, had said, her hand resting possessively on his arm.

Greg was a good guy, from what I could see during the three times I met him.

He was an architect, with a soft, kind voice and an easy smile that seemed sincere.

I had wondered more than once what he saw in Cassie. But after all, Cassie had always known how to only show people what she wanted them to see.

I approached with complete sincerity, making my way through groups of guests who politely stepped aside. My heart was pounding. Despite everything, despite those two years of icy silence, despite how she had rewritten history to portray herself as the victim, I still had hope. I still believed that deep down, my sister was still the little girl who used to braid my hair before dance recitals, who secretly gave me cookies when Mom put me on those awful pre-show diets.

« Cassie! » I shouted, my voice cheerful with a forced gaiety.