Chapter 13: The Toast

My father didn't give me the microphone.

I took it out of his hand, and he was too stunned to hold on.

The terrace was so quiet I could hear the string lights humming.

A leather folder lay open on the little table behind him, with a pen on top of it.

I knew that folder.

It held the page he had slid across the dinner cloth, the one I was supposed to sign tonight.

A clock stood beside it among the champagne flutes.

It said eleven forty-one.

"Good evening," I said. "Thank you for coming back to my family's house."

Two hundred faces looked at the dress, and then at me.

"I kept this dress on so you could all see it."

"Ask my father who sent the wine."

Somebody near the front said, "Oh no."

"My father wanted me humiliated enough to sign anything," I said.

"The page is right there, with a pen, so I can sign it in front of you all."

My father stepped forward.

"Gillian, that's enough."

"Sit down, Dad," I said. "You've talked at me for twenty-seven years."

Lydia drew in a sharp breath beside him.

Damian had gone still, and was studying a spot on the boards.

"My sister is wearing my mother's ring," I said.

"My father took it off my mother's finger before she was buried and told everyone it was lost."

Lydia's left hand closed into a fist.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Was Always Second. Until I Left. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.