Elly looked at the ceiling, willing herself to bite her tongue and listen. How was it possible for your heart to ache for someone while at the same time wanting to literally strangle them?
“Every morning, I would have to wake myself up for school, for high school. My mom was depressed, and there was no one to take care of her but me. So I got her to eat a tiny bit of breakfast, and then left her on the couch, always wondering if I would come home to find her hanging in her closet. If I made too much noise, my dad would come out and scream at me for waking him up, and if I was lucky, it was just screaming. We always had just enough cans of soup to survive. I stole snacks from kids’ backpacks at lunch. The bullies at school knew what my home life was like, they always know who is poor, and sad, and whose dad doesn’t give a crap about them because they can see it on your pathetic face. The only time that I was happy, the only time, was when I logged into the computer, because in that world, I have everything. People look up to me, people need me. They were my family before you ever were! And they never made me feel bad about it, like you do. What was I supposed to do, just crawl into a hole in Sewell and die? So, I’m sorry that I came to you, when I didn’t have anyone. I’m sorry that I’m such a fat loser that you can’t even look at me, and you hate me because I’ve ruined your ideal little life, with your perfect friends and your perfect store. I think the real reason that you’re pissed at me is because I’ve ruined the image of your saintly mother by reminding you that she must have been pretty slutty to sleep with a stranger. Also, she couldn’t have been that good because she never even tried to find out what happened to your dad. She didn’t care enough! If she did, maybe my life would have been totally different! No one in this family cared about anyone else, especially your dead mother.” Dennis took a step backwards and stumbled over Elly’s rug.
Her hands quivered, and images of slapping him bombarded her brain. But she didn’t. She stood her ground, one hand clenching the chair. “Get out,” she whispered. “Get out, Dennis. Take a walk.” She turned away from him and began walking down the hallway, walking quickly so that he wouldn’t see the hot, angry tears dripping down her face. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Keith might have well been a million miles away, and as Dennis had kindly reminded her, Sarah Jordan was dead in the ground. Simmering with anger, Elly walked into Dennis’s putrid room and stared at his hairbrush for what seemed like hours before making her way to the computer.
Chapter Twenty-One
It seemed to arrive out of nowhere, even though their lives had been revolving around it for the past few months. The BlissBride wedding had arrived. Tomorrow night, Lola would—hopefully, fingers crossed—walk down the aisle, and BlissBride history would be made as the cameras captured every step. It would be wondrous, it would be beautiful. But until then, it looked like this: behind Posies a delivery truck backed up slowly in the pouring rain, its shrill beeping making Elly’s nerves tighten, its blinking lights blinding in the darkness. For a moment, Elly wondered if the truck driver would consider backing up over her as well. Don’t be so morbid. It was hard not to be morbid at four in the morning. Elly knew that instead of being so blah about it all, she should be excited. The BlissBride wedding was on, and her career was on the verge of expanding. On the contrary, Elly found that her stomach was clenching, and was thinking that the fetal position would be a good option for the rest of her life. Still, she kept her face emotionless as the bright-red truck lights grew closer and closer to her because as always, the cameras were watching.
“Elly, how are you feeling about the delivery? Are you nervous?”
Elly turned to give a fake smile to Greg, the kind cameraman who had been filming her and her staff for the last week. “I’m feeling confident, and also nervous, I guess.” She gave a false, trilling laugh. “It’s such a big day! The flowers we’ve ordered for Lola’s wedding are absolutely gorgeous.”
“And what would those be?” Elly rubbed her tired eyes with her work gloves. “Uh, well. Do viewers really care about that? They aren’t probably going to know what any of the names are.”
“They can Google them.”
“Um, okay. We have a ton of peonies coming, rare hybrid garden roses, ranunculus, anemones, floret asters, dutch hydrangea in pink and antique, a ton of nerine lilies, pink ginger, cymbidium orchids from Thailand, lilies of the valley from Holland….”
“Yeah, okay, that’s enough.” Greg turned his camera to focus on the truck backing up in what could be a monsoon. Rain splashed around Elly’s ankles, and the hem of her worn overalls was soaking wet. He momentarily switched the camera off. “This kinda sucks,” he muttered.