I arrived at my little brother’s wedding feeling truly happy, until I looked down at my seat card.Instead of simply showing my name, it said:“Freeloading sister living off her brother.”For a second, I thought my eyes had made a mistake.The ballroom was glowing with white roses, crystal lights, gold-rimmed plates, and soft music. Everything looked too beautiful, too carefully arranged, too elegant for something so cruel to be waiting for me at the table.But there it was.Emma Carter.Freeloading sister living off her brother.The insult had been printed in the same graceful black script as every other guest’s name, as if humiliating me had been part of the wedding plan from the beginning.I stood beside Table Twelve with my coat folded over one arm and the small cream card shaking between my fingers.Behind me, the kitchen doors kept swinging open and shut, letting out the smell of garlic, heat, dish soap, and the sound of plates clattering.In front of me, Madison’s cousins were already laughing.

One of them leaned closer, read the card aloud, and nearly choked on her champagne. Another slapped the table like I had arrived dressed as a joke. Madison’s mother covered her mouth, but not because she was shocked.She was smiling.“It’s an inside joke,” she said lightly, lifting one hand so her diamond bracelet glittered under the chandelier. “Don’t be so sensitive.”The strange thing about public humiliation is that your body understands it before your mind can explain it.My face burned.My feet suddenly hurt.My clearance-rack dress, the one I had hemmed myself at midnight with a grocery-store sewing kit, suddenly felt like a costume everyone had been waiting to laugh at.I had been nervous about coming to the wedding, but I had still come happy.I had cried in the parking lot behind my old SUV because my little brother was getting married.Jake.The boy who used to sleep with a baseball glove under his pillow.The boy who once cried because he broke Mom’s favorite mug and thought she would stop loving him.