My Stepsister Is Photographing My Wedding to Someone Else novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Empty Lawn

The text came at eight that night, while I was washing a coffee cup I had already washed.

Halsey House lawn. The manager lets photographers in after dark. Gate's unlocked. Come if you want to. If you don't, I understand.

I dried my hands, put on my coat, and drove there with the windows down, because I was too hot to breathe.

The garden was black and silver under a half moon.

The oaks stood around the edges with their moss hanging still.

The white chairs for the ceremony had never been set out, and the lawn lay empty and wide, with the cold coming up out of the grass.

Romy was sitting in the middle of it, on a gray blanket, with her knees up.

She had her small camera in her lap and her canvas vest over a thick sweater.

She did not stand when she heard me.

I walked across the grass until I was a few feet away and stopped.

"I walked to the river," she said. "Then up to the interstate, then back. About eleven miles."

"You could have called."

"I know." She looked up. "I'm not good at this. I was so busy deciding what was best for you that I forgot to ask what you'd say."

"I'd have said no."

"I know that too. That's why I didn't ask." She laughed, rough and short. "Ivy, I'm sorry. What you said about Troy was true. I did it to you the same way."

"I'm sorry I said it like that."

"Don't be. It needed saying, and it needed to hurt."

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