“Excuse me?” I whispered, hoping I had misheard the sheer audacity of her words.
Carol let out a dry, patronizing sigh. “Your parents are very sweet people, darling. But they are not exactly the demographic we wanted placed at the center of attention tonight. We have major corporate investors here. Optics are everything.”
I stared at her, waiting for the punchline, waiting for the cruel smirk to crack into an apology. It never came. She took another sip of her drink, completely unbothered by the cruelty she had just unleashed.
I looked across the expanse of the ballroom. Ethan was standing near the head table, watching us. He had been close enough to witness the exchange, his eyes darting nervously between his mother and me. I stalked over to him, the tulle of my gown swishing angrily against the marble floor.
“Did you hear what your mother just said to me?” I demanded, my voice trembling with suppressed rage.
Ethan adjusted his bowtie, refusing to meet my gaze directly. He offered a weak, dismissive shrug. “Just let it go, Annabelle. Please. It’s just a seating chart. Don’t make a scene on our wedding day.”
Just a seating chart.
In that fleeting second, thirty years of my parents’ grueling sacrifices flashed behind my eyes. I saw my father pulling double shifts at the sweltering auto-repair shop, coming home with hands stained perpetually black with motor oil. I saw my mother studying accounting textbooks at the kitchen table at two in the morning, fighting to elevate herself from a grocery cashier to a regional store manager. I thought of the heavy check they had proudly handed us to cover half of this exorbitant reception, refusing to let Ethan’s family shoulder the financial burden entirely.
And for their immense sacrifice, they were shoved next to the dishwashers.
I didn’t cry. The tears simply burned away in the furnace of my anger. I didn’t argue with Ethan. I didn’t scream at Carol. I merely swept my gaze across the room, cataloging every single “important guest” sitting comfortably in the glow of the centerpieces.
Then, I turned my back on my new husband and walked purposefully toward the elevated DJ booth.
I was about to make a scene that none of these people would ever forget.
Chapter 2: Shifting the Centerpiece
The DJ, a sharply dressed guy named Marcus, was adjusting his soundboard when he noticed me approaching. His eyebrows shot up in confusion as I bypassed the glowing facade of his booth and firmly tapped the silver microphone resting on its stand.
