Page 13 of It Should Have Been Me

“I love yours!”

Isa has always been on the eccentric side. Lots of jewelry with an edgy fashion style, and her hair is no exception. As soon as she graduated from high school, she went crazy experimenting with different colors. I thought I was bold with my auburn highlights, but her glossy dark curls are beautifully streaked with bright pink. As usual, her hairstyle is also creative – two French braids twisting up into a messy ponytail. With her hair up, I can see her tattoo of a string of hearts starting from behind her ear to the edge of her jawbone. She looks the same, yet entirely different. The sight of my sister is confirmation that I got so used to missing her that I forgot how much I missed her. A part of me feels the same way about Scott, but I don’t want to think about that right now. It makes me feel guilty and...stupid when I should feel nothing for Scott after the way he treated me.

“So, tell me everything,” I say, facing Isa to give her my undivided attention. “How are the wedding plans going?”

“It’s a disaster! That’s why I wanted you to come early.” She throws her arm around me and rests her head on my shoulder. “I need someone to stop me from killing people.”

“I thought that’s what your fiancé was for? Dammit! You had one job, Dylan.” I wink at him and he smirks.

She sighs heavily. “The lady we asked to bake our cake is constantly trying to convince me to change my choice to a fruit cake when I just want a simple chocolate cake.”

“Didn’t you work for a bakery before?” Dylan chimes in. “Why don’t you just bake one yourself?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course,” she fires back with a hint of sarcasm. “Because I have so much free time to just bake a five-layer wedding cake.”

Although the exchange is playful, pre-wedding stress puts a strain on both their voices. I don’t envy them at all. And yet...I do. It feels like yesterday when Scott and I were talking about planning our wedding and all those plans just ended up being broken promises we made to each other.

Scott and I lived our lives in reverse and our paths only aligned for a short space of time. He grew up in the lap of luxury, traveling all over the world from a young age. He went skiing in Switzerland and sailed the Caribbean on his family’s private yacht. His mother rented out the whole of Universal Studios and flew him and his friends to Florida for hiseleventhbirthday. I got a cake for mine. And I’m not ungrateful. My parents did their very best for us and I love them for it, but Scott doesn’t understand what it’s like to live a life with barriers, to be trapped beneath a glass ceiling.

He got to experience so much, got to see places I had only dreamed of before we even finished high school, so he was ready to put down roots and settle down. I, on the other hand, had never even been to the beach...in California. My first time seeing the ocean was graduation day eight years ago, the day he proposed. By the time I finished high school, I had known nothing but my hometown.

When the travel bug bit me, it inflamed my curiosity, my taste for adventure. I became addicted, delirious with the need to explore, and putting down roots was right at the bottom of my priority list. It still is. And that stark difference in our priorities is the very reason why Scott and I just didn’t work.

Again, I make an active effort to stop thinking about Scott. Seeing him again has clearly impacted me on a deep psychological level because I can’t seem to push him out of my mind. That objective becomes ten times harder when he walks through the door carrying my oversized suitcase. He leaves it in the corner of the dining room and makes his way to the kitchen. I don’t know what happened in the car, but he’s not in the same somber mood he was in just a few minutes ago. He smiles and walks straight to my mother, kissing her on the cheek.

“Hey, Mrs. H.”

The name still sounds odd to me. Scott started calling my mom Mrs. H after she married Keith, but I wasn’t around for the new name to becomenormalto me. I flew home for the wedding, stayed a few weeks, then left again, so I wasn’t a witness to the transition.

“Yo, Isa!” Scott says, ruffling her hair.

She rolls her eyes and lets out a small groan of annoyance the same way she always does. “You know I hate when you call me like that.”

“And you know I love that murderous look on your face every time I do it.”

Watching their playful bickering brings an instant smile to my face, because that is one thing that has not changed. Scott chuckles when she narrows her eyes at him, but his expression becomes more serious when his focus moves to Dylan.

“Wow,” Dylan scoffs, the word glazed with disdain. “You’re looking an awful lot like Scott today,Peter.”

Scott shrugs with indifference. “I’m trying out a little cosplay.”

“You said you’d let Peter handle it,” Dylan mutters irritably.

“I lied.”

They exchange looks for a moment before Scott hands him the jeans and sneakers.

“Thanks,” Dylan says, his mood softening slightly, and it’s only as he exits the kitchen that I notice his soiled clothes.

“Do you want to eat?” my mother asks Scott.

He drops down on the stool beside me. “Did you make chicken?”

“No. I didn’t know you were coming today. Dylan brought Bolognese from the restaurant.”

“I’ll settle for that.”

A minute later, my mother places a plate of steaming food on the counter in front of him with a Ziplock bag of chocolate chip cookies. “Elena brought cookies for you, too.”

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