She turned around, and for a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of something on her face. Annoyance? Disgust? It vanished as quickly as I could have imagined.
« Matilda, » she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. « You did it. »
The way she said it, « you succeeded, » as if she expected me to fail, or perhaps even hoped for it.
I swallowed my disappointment and handed over a small gift box wrapped in vintage rose-patterned paper. Inside were a pair of antique pearl earrings that I had unearthed after weeks of searching on antique websites and at auctions.
Cassie had said years ago, when we were still close, when the Jeep hadn’t yet crashed into the tree, when I could still stand on tiptoe and execute 32 perfect fouettés, that she loved vintage pearls.
They reminded her of her grandmother’s jewelry, she had said. The pearls that Grandma wore in her wedding photos, the ones that disappeared when she died.
To buy these earrings, I had to dip into my emergency medication savings fund, the account I kept in case the insurance inevitably refused to cover an essential product.
But I wanted to give Cassie something meaningful, something that would say, « I still love you, even though you’ve made it clear that you don’t love me back. »
I naively expected a smile, or at least a nod of recognition.
Cassie picked up the box with her fingertips, as if she might contaminate it. She opened it casually, glanced at the pearls nestled in the tissue paper, and her lips curled.
« Second-hand? » she said, as if making a diagnosis. « It looks old. »
« It doesn’t go with my Vera Wang dress at all. »
She casually dropped the gift box onto a nearby coffee table, without even noticing it, before going back to her phone. Her thumb scrolled, probably checking the number of « likes » her engagement announcement had received on Instagram.
My heart tightened, a physical sensation as if someone had plunged their hand into my chest and squeezed it.
But I swallowed my tears to preserve the family peace that my parents always forced me to maintain.
Don’t make waves, Matilda. Your sister is going through a difficult time. Be mature, Matilda.
She didn’t mean it that way.
Except that she has. She’s always done it.
That’s when Cassie’s gaze fell on my wheelchair, and her attitude completely shifted from contempt to outright hostility.
« What is it? » she hissed as she approached.
« My wheelchair, » I said slowly, disconcerted by the harshness of her voice. « Cassie, you know I… »
« This armchair, as black as night, resembles the Grim Reaper in the Garden of Eden, » she murmured, leaning forward so that I was the only one who could hear her. Her breath smelled of champagne and resentment. « You did it on purpose, didn’t you? You couldn’t let me have a single perfect day. »
« Cassie, I don’t have… This is my chair, I need it to… »
But she was already walking away, her heels clicking sharply on the stone path.
I watched her walk straight to a nearby gas station, where sheets and extra supplies were piled on a folding table.
She grabbed a spare tablecloth — white, of course, immaculate — and unfolded it with a sharp snap, like a whip crack.
She came back towards me with a determined step, the tablecloth floating behind her like a cape.
« Cover that pile of garbage immediately, » she said in a low, threatening voice.
Before I could react, she tried to pull the tablecloth down over my legs and onto the chair, as if I were an outlier in her eyes. As if I were something shameful that needed to be hidden away.
For the first time in two years — two years of accepting responsibility for an accident I did not cause, two years of enduring his indifference, his acerbic remarks and his revised version of events — I fought back.
I grabbed the tablecloth and pushed it away.
« No. »
Such a short word. Such enormous consequences.
Cassie’s face turned red, with red spots appearing on her neck and cheeks.
She ripped off the tablecloth and stormed off, but not before I heard her mutter, « Ungrateful wretch. »
For the next hour, I watched from the sidelines as Cassie, with irresistible charm, moved through the crowd. I saw her whispering in the guests’ ears, and I saw them casting me glances filled with emotion, from pity to suspicion.
I knew what she was doing; I had seen her do it before. She was controlling the narrative, anticipating any story that might emerge from our interaction.
Later, I learned what she’d been telling people. That I had Munchausen syndrome, that I loved sitting in that wheelchair so people would feel sorry for me, but that in reality, I was fine. That the accident two years ago—the one she caused by driving the Jeep and texting her ex before crashing into a tree—wasn’t as bad as I’d made it out to be.
How dramatic I was, seeking attention, jealous of her happiness.
She used my tragedy to make me look like a liar in everyone’s eyes.
And the worst part? Some people believed her.
The engagement party continued around me as if I were a rock in a stream, guests filing past without stopping, sometimes glancing over my shoulder, most pretending not to exist.
I settled down near the rose garden, away from the main festivities, and watched my sister flit from group to group like a pastel-colored butterfly.
Greg caught my eye and started to approach, but Cassie intercepted him with ease, putting her arm through his and redirecting him towards an elderly couple near the fountain.
I wondered if he knew. If she had told him the real story of the accident, or if he had been given a sugar-coated version, the one where I was the reckless one, the drunk, the one who had ruined everything.
About an hour after the party started, a photographer appeared, a hipster with a bun and expensive equipment. He began setting up near the main stage, a platform adorned with peonies that must have been worth a thousand dollars.
« Family photos! » announced Cassie, her voice piercing the string quartet. « Everyone, gather together. »
I stayed where I was. Maybe if I stayed still enough, small enough, she would forget me.
Bad luck.
Cassie’s gaze fell upon me from the other side of the lawn. She made an impatient gesture, her smile fixed and motionless.
I slowly turned onto my side, dreading the further humiliation that awaited me.
The rest of the family was already gathering: Dad and Mom looked uncomfortable in their dress clothes, Greg’s parents looked rich and vaguely perplexed, and various uncles, aunts, and cousins completed the picture.
And there, on the far left of the formation, sat a large banquet chair adorned with a pink ribbon, one of those with a straight back and armrests, the kind that requires good abdominal strength and balance to sit in safely. The kind I absolutely could not use.
« Matilda, » Cassie said in a soft, honeyed voice. « Move the wheelchair, sit in that chair. I want the picture to be uniform. »
Everyone was watching. The photographer had his camera raised, ready to shoot. Mom made a pleading face, like, « Please, don’t make a scene. » Dad stared at his shoes.
« Cassie, » I said softly, trying to sound confident. « You know I have a spinal cord injury at vertebra T10. I don’t have enough balance to sit on a normal chair. I’m going to fall. »
I had already explained this countless times over the past two years.
A complete T10 spinal cord injury means I have no sensation or mobility from my navel to my feet. I no longer have abdominal muscles to support me. I am unable to catch myself if I start to tip over.
Sitting on an ordinary chair without support was like asking someone to balance on a wire without a pole — theoretically possible for about five seconds before physics and gravity take over.
Cassie’s smile did not waver, but a dark and hideous glint crossed her gaze.
« You’re good at ruining everything, » she said, her voice still honeyed for the sake of the crowd, but with a sharp enough edge to draw blood.
Then, leaning closer, she whispered, « You’re jealous because I’m getting married and you’re disabled, aren’t you? »
That word hit me like a slap in the face. Not that I’d never heard it before. I’d heard it from strangers, from children, from drunks in bars, but never from my own sister. Never from someone who was supposed to love me.
« Get up, you two-faced bastard, » she hissed, then she grabbed me.
The action unfolded so quickly that I was completely surprised. Cassie grabbed me with both hands under my left armpit and pulled upwards with a force I didn’t know she possessed.
The jolt was violent and unexpected, pulling me upwards and forwards at an angle that immediately threw me off balance. My hands frantically searched for the armrests of my chair, but found only empty space.
The world has taken a nauseating turn.
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