Chapter 11 - Lauren’s Choice
Lauren followed Megan into a quiet corner near the white columns.
“I truly didn’t know.”
Megan kept her eyes on the ballroom.
“You knew they were mocking me.”
“I wanted today to stay peaceful.”
“Peaceful for whom?”
Lauren looked toward Evan.
She had spent two years trying to become the perfect Parker bride.
She changed her clothes.
Her friends.
Her opinions.
She laughed when Diane laughed.
She apologized whenever Megan made the family uncomfortable simply by existing outside their expectations.
“I was afraid they would think I came from nothing,” Lauren admitted.
Megan looked at her.
“We did come from nothing.”
Lauren flinched.
Their mother worked nights at a nursing home.
Megan helped raise Lauren.
She attended parent conferences, cooked dinner, and worked weekends to pay for Lauren’s first formal dress.
Lauren had rewritten those years because poverty embarrassed her.
“You were ashamed of Mom too?” Megan asked.
Lauren began crying.
“No.”
“Then why are you ashamed of me?”
Lauren had no answer.
Across the room, Diane spoke urgently to a man near the catering entrance.
Megan recognized him.
He was not a guest.
He wore an earpiece and kept watching her clutch.
Megan handed the bag to Lauren.
“Hold this.”
Lauren took it.
“Why?”
“Because in the next thirty seconds, you will decide whether you are my sister or Diane’s accomplice.”
The man began walking toward them.
May you like
Lauren tightened her grip on the clutch.
For the first time that evening, she stepped in front of Megan.
