Chapter 2: No One Ever Asked What I Wanted

I didn’t turn my phone back on until the next morning.

There were already over a hundred messages in the wedding group chat. A voice message from Cleo, the only one that mentioned me, sat at the top.

“Zinnia, I changed your entrance music for you. The one you picked was too dull. A wedding should feel a little more lively.”

Lachlan replied, “Yeah, the original wasn’t right.”

I’d spent a month choosing that song.

Whenever the intro played, I thought of the first dance in my parents’ wedding video. They both died when I was sixteen. I just wanted that song at my wedding. It would feel like they were there with me, walking me down the aisle.

Lachlan knew that. Cleo knew that, too.

And they changed it anyway.

Then Cleo added to the group chat, “Zinnia’s not picky about this stuff. We can just decide for her.”

Lachlan replied with a simple, “Okay.”

No one seemed to realize that Zinnia Vitale was in the group, let alone notice my silence.

I opened my private chat with Lachlan. Our last exchange was from the day of the dress fitting. I’d texted, “I’m a little nervous,” and he’d replied with a pat-on-the-head emoji.

After I left the shop, the only thing he’d said was in the group chat: “Did she get nervous and run off?”

Cleo had immediately sent one of her own bridal photos, saying the fitting had gone great. Just like that, my departure was brushed aside as easily as all my other opinions.

I was in the middle of packing when Cleo video-called me. She was sitting in front of a makeup mirror while a stylist curled her hair.

“God, you’re slow. The makeup team still wasn’t booked, so I went ahead and booked mine and had them do your trial today, too.”

Two weeks ago, I had told her I wanted my friend—the one who’d looked after me most when we were in cosmetology school—to do my makeup.

I wanted to ask if she’d even thought of me once before making these decisions for me.

But all at once, it felt pointless.

It wasn’t as if I’d never objected before. Every single time, the answer was, “You’re two years older than Cleo. You should be more mature.”

Rhys had known me first, but he’d been on Cleo’s side since we were children. When Lachlan was first courting me, he said he liked how quiet I was. After meeting Cleo, he started saying he found lively, opinionated girls cuter.

I had once worked up the courage to ask him not to get so close to Cleo. He’d only ruffled my hair.

“She’s your sister. Do you really want us to be stiff and awkward around each other?”

I was only two years older than her, but I’d spent more than a decade bowed under the weight of *you should let her have it*.

I just wanted someone to ask me, for once: Zinnia, do you like this?

Sunlight fell across the floorboards. I thought about how, every time we finished playing wedding as kids, I was the one left alone, picking up the plastic petals and putting them back in the basket.

They had already run off to play something else.

No one had ever asked if I was tired.