Unfortunately, having an audience also wiped away any sense of decency that I had in mocking others. But, as I rationalized it to myself, with fifty-eight followers, the odds of the guilty parties ever seeing what I wrote about them were miniscule at best. And maybe if they weren’t being so toxic, I wouldn’t have written about them in the first place.
Plus the flat iron really was a point of contention. Amy swore she turned it off, yet it somehow stopped working between her using it before the bridal shower and that evening when I tried to touch up my hair before dinner. To stop the bickering, my mother finally snapped at us, “If it’s that big of a deal, I’ll buy you a new flat iron! Why can’t you two get along?”
Going to kill them, I texted Megan from the bed I was sharing with Amy after we shut out the light.
She didn’t reply. That was happening more and more frequently these days. Was it wedding stress or living with Tim or just us growing apart? I didn’t know.
Thank God for Alex. I copied my text to Megan and sent it to him.
Chicago is a good place for that, he said. What’d they do? I explained the clothes and flat iron debacles. Why didn’t you just say no?
I rolled my eyes. Doesn’t make a difference when I do.
Have you actually tried it? Or if they say to bring your flat iron so they don’t have to bring theirs, just don’t bring one.
Isn’t that totally passive-aggressive?
Says the girl who told me there’s always money to passive-aggressively troll someone? No, if you actually say the word “no” to them and then follow through, that’s the exact opposite of passive-aggressive.
But it’s my mom and sister.
Even better. They need tough love from someone who actually loves them.
Do I though?
Yes. Now go to bed and don’t add to Chicago’s murder stats.
Okay, okay. Good night.
“Who are you texting?” Amy whispered over our mother’s snores.
“A friend.”
“You smile like that for all your friends?”
“Yes,” I said defensively, setting my phone down.
“Oka-ay,” she murmured.
I waited a moment, listening to our mother’s half starts and then resumptions of the noise she was making.
“How are we going to sleep over that?”
“Right? How does Dad sleep every night?”
“He must be used to it by now.”
“Thank God Tyler doesn’t snore.”
We didn’t speak for another minute or two, and I thought about what Alex had said. “Hey Ames?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you please ask before you take my clothes? I don’t actually mind lending you stuff if you ask first. But today sucked.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, surprising me. “I was just trying your outfit on and then Mom said it was so much better than what I brought. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
I seldom saw my mother critique Amy in the same way she did me, but I thought back to my dad’s comment that she was hard on Amy in different ways. And I wondered if Amy saw how often she did it to me, or if we both thought we were the only one. How much of the tension between us is because of her?
And was she just doing what she had learned as a kid? My mother and her sister competed over absolutely everything. And my cousin, who was six months younger than me, was married, with her second baby on the way, which was probably part of why my mom was so upset that I was still single. It meant Anna was winning the Joan and Anna battle royale for sibling superiority. But Anna’s youngest was still single, so Amy’s impending wedding gave my mother a leg up, hence the current favoritism—at least as I saw it.
I wondered if it was something genetic and if I was destined to do the same thing to my eventual kids. My grandmother, as accepting as she was of me, picked my mother apart pretty regularly. And while my mother said she had learned to ignore her, I had seen her change her hairstyle after a comment from my grandma. Or remove an outfit from circulation entirely.
Maybe none of us had it easy.
But maybe being more aware of how we treated each other could help break the cycle.
“Thanks,” I told her, and I reached across the queen bed and squeezed her arm.
My last thought as I rolled over to go to sleep was to be relieved I hadn’t kissed Alex at his company benefit. I needed him too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The morning of Caryn’s shower was the first, and only, time I ever mentally thanked Caroline for anything. Because of the shower’s start time, I got to sleep gloriously late and wake up with a luxurious stretch and birds bringing me my breakfast.