No. But I’d always been of the mindset that if I didn’t like something in my life, I changed it. I had my mom to thank for that outlook.
Maggie Calhoun had always been a fan of positive thinking and motivational sayings. Decades before Etsy or Pinterest, every morning she would write down a new Morning Motivation on a chalkboard she’d gotten from a yard sale and hung up by the front door, so we’d see it before we headed out into the world. And even before the book The Secret had come out, she raised us to believe that if you wanted something, you had to envision it and basically think it into being.
“You know, this is strike two,” my sister said matter-of-factly.
“What?” I asked, not sure what she was referring to.
Molly continued looking down at her phone but lifted up her pointer finger. “Strike one, he picked his nose.” Her middle finger popped up making a V. “Strike two, he’s late.”
“He had a meeting that ran long.”
“On a Saturday?”
“He’s in real estate.” I could feel that my eyes were still misty, so I dug into my purse for a tissue but came up empty. Normally I was stocked, but an ungodly hay fever season had drained my supply. I hadn’t expected the movie to make me so emotional but hearing all of those people talk about the great loves of their lives had hit home to me. “Do you have a tissue?”
Molly finally glanced up from her phone, when she did her brow furrowed. “Are you crying?”
“Yes.” I sniffed. “I’m not a robot. Unlike you I have feelings.”
“I have feelings. At the moment, I’m feeling hungry. Wasn’t there supposed to be food served here?” She glanced around, still not answering whether she had a tissue or not.
“Food? That’s what you’re thinking about.”
“What are you thinking about?” She appeared just as confused as I was.
“Are you serious?” I splayed out my arms. “Look around you.”
In the past couple of years, it seemed like everyone we knew was falling in love and getting married. Case in point, our brother Bentley who had been a very confirmed bachelor was marrying one of my best friend’s Maisy Turner. Maisy’s little sister Delilah had married Sawyer Briggs. And Sawyer’s brother Jackson, who just got engaged was just the latest Briggs to be hit by cupid’s arrow. Out of the nine Briggs siblings, only two were still single.
“What?” My sister stared blankly at the sea of couples in front of us.
“Everyone is finding their lobster.” Normally my Friends reference caused my sister to roll her eyes. She hadn’t been a fan of the show, but since we’d shared a room growing up, she’d been forced to watch it.
But this time she smiled. “See, you’re thinking about food, too.”
“How are we twins?”
“I ask myself the same thing all the time,” Molly monotoned.
Molly and I might look identical with our long blonde hair, hazel eyes, and eyebrows that made my mother’s Greek heritage proud, but that is where our similarities ended. Our personalities could not be more dissimilar. It was as if we’d shared all of our physical genetics but split up the rest of the genes.
I followed in my mother’s footsteps and believed in positive thinking, dream boards, and actively pursuing your heart’s desires. My sister felt like everything that was meant to be, would be. She didn’t put any effort into making things happen, and to my eternal frustration, it seemed to be working for her. She’d gotten hired directly after college at her dream job. She’d fallen into a steal of a real estate deal and bought her first house at the age of twenty-two. And she never sat at home alone on Friday nights unless she wanted to. Not that she ever dated anyone for very long.
I’d been the one to receive the romance gene. Molly had never been a fan of love or any of its byproducts. Whenever I got a crush or had my heart broken, she’d look at me with a mixture of confusion and pity.
It didn’t help that our oldest brother Brady was a womanizing pig. But at least our other brother Bentley had managed to shed his man-whore reputation. He was madly in love with his childhood nemesis, who happened to be one of my best friends. The two were walking down the aisle in just a couple of months.
I thought their story was romantic, Molly didn’t care. It wasn’t that she was unfeeling. My sister was actually