back out. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly intrigued by the Romeo and Juliet-esque story.
“What happened after that?” I prodded.
“At seventeen, I accepted James’ marriage proposal,” she replied. “It was the high society event of the year. The months before the wedding, my mother ‘prepped’ me to be a wife while constantly reminded me that my relationship with your father wouldn’t be about love. Love was fleeting; James would give me a good life. Beautiful children. And by all means, he did. But, I’d still felt so empty that I snuck out the night before the wedding and went in search of Timothy. As far as I’d known, he’d had no idea about my getting married and I just wanted to know that he loved me. I felt like, no matter what my mother said, a foundation could be built out of love.”
Her head fell and a curly ringlet partially hid her face.
“I didn’t find him,” she said. “The house that he’d lived in stood vacant. The next day, as fate would have it, he was part of the wedding catering crew. By the time he spotted me in the wedding dress, the ceremony had already taken place. I was already Mrs. James Miller. He’d been holding a platter of braised sea scallops and I turned around when I heard the platter drop to the floor. We stood watching each other for what felt like an eternity and I could feel the pain that I saw on his face. The shock. The total betrayal. I started towards him, but he shook his head and backed away. After that, I never saw him again.”
She heaved a sigh and then pinned me with somber eyes. She probably had no idea how much her story sounded like what had happened between me and Ethan, which made me wonder if Timothy had been her true match. Grandma Evelyn had talked about the pain of seeing an impending crash but not having the ability to do anything to stop it. She had to have seen that with my parents, which was probably why she’d been so adamant about not letting it happen with me and Gia. I was looking at myself a few decades into the future and the misery on my mother’s face was unmistakable. It was misery I never wanted to experience.
“I didn’t realize that you loved him,” she seemed to be apologizing. “I thought that it was just a fling. Another circumstance of your grandmother’s meddling. The day of my wedding, she’d pulled me to the side and said something about the mistake that I’d made since Timothy had been my true match. I’d brushed it off as voodoo talk. Now, I think I get it. Ethan is to you, what Timothy was to me. The only difference was, where my father had been passive as my mother pushed me into a union with James, I can’t stand by and let the same thing happen to you.”
I walked over to her. “Then, why were you guys so hard on Gia? Gia married for love.”
“Gia is as frustrating as they come,” she said with a laugh. “Gia is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, who I’ve always wished that I could be. Good Lord, I’m jealous of my own daughter. If I’d had Gia’s spunk, I would’ve told my mother to ‘kiss it’ and run off with Timothy. I could have spent the last thirty years as a happy woman. With you, Alexandra, I saw a lot of myself in you. I felt like if I could mold you just right, then you’d be proof that I hadn’t made a complete ass of myself by going along with the plans my mother made for me. If you could find happiness with Roderick, then I could justify that I hadn’t completely screwed up my life by choosing your father.”
Like I’d always imagined, I’d been their little robot. A clone of them both. They’d literally tried to mold me into what they wanted like some sort of research subject.
“So, you’re encouraging me not to marry Roderick,” I clarified.
“I’m encouraging you to follow what’s in your heart, not mine or your father’s.”
She then went back to powdering my face as though our entire exchange had not taken place, and nodded when the prep party peered in a second time. They filtered back into the room to continue fussing over my hair, dress, and makeup. I took a deep, steadying breath. There was no longer