My sister wore bridal white to my wedding because she wanted everyone looking at her and HUMILITIATE ME. “Surprise,” she whispered, waiting for me to fall apart. I smiled back. She had no idea I had bought that dress and sent it anonymously to her hotel. Then the pastor stepped forward with a sealed envelope. “Your mother left something for you.” Our mother had died eight months earlier—and left instructions for exactly this moment.

“Enjoy it while he still thinks you’re the special one.”

Years ago, I would have fought back, but eventually I became exhausted by the competition. Mom used to tell me that some people steal other people’s light because they never learned how to create their own, and for years, those words helped me tolerate Paige.

But Mom wasn’t there anymore.

An empty chair waited in the front row with her blue scarf folded carefully across it. She had died eight months before my wedding, leaving behind a silence that neither Paige nor I knew how to handle.

I buried myself in work and wedding preparations because staying busy kept grief from swallowing me. Paige reacted differently; she stopped answering my calls, skipped my dress fitting and bridal shower, then told relatives that I was too busy creating my perfect life to notice that she had lost her mother too.

Maybe there was some truth in that accusation. I had been so focused on surviving my own grief that I hadn’t always recognized hers, but grief didn’t erase the years of resentment that had existed between us long before Mom became sick.

So when my wedding planner quietly told me Paige had been calling boutiques asking for something “bridal but technically not a wedding dress,” I knew exactly what she was planning. Instead of confronting her, I made a decision that even Ethan didn’t fully understand at first.