Chapter 3 - The Unraveling
The following forty-eight hours were a blur of legal threats and familial implosions. News of the incident at the dinner had leaked—my father, in a moment of cowardice, had tried to frame it as a 'medical episode' for my mother, but Luke had already contacted the local authorities.
Elena, however, wasn't done. She had spent twenty-nine years building a reputation as the grande dame of the social scene. She countered by launching a smear campaign that accused me of attacking her.
I sat in the lawyer’s office, watching the headlines roll in. “Weather Girl’s Meltdown: A Family Tragedy.”
"They're painting me as the aggressor," I said to Elena's lawyer, a woman who looked like she could chew iron.
"Let them," the lawyer said. "They are providing us with a mountain of defamation evidence. And the more your mother struggles, the more she reveals."
I went to see Lauren. It was the hardest thing I’d had to do since that night. She was at her home, alone. Eric had left her; he hadn't been able to stomach the revelation of the family’s true colors.
When she opened the door, she looked like a shadow of herself. "I didn't know, Nat. I swear."
"I know," I said, stepping inside. "But you were the instrument, Lauren. You were the golden girl, and I was the obstacle."
"I never asked for any of it," she sobbed. "I never asked for the IVF, the pressure, the worship. I just wanted to be a sister. I wanted to be a family."
"We aren't a family," I said, looking at the photos on her mantle—hundreds of them, all of her, none of me. "We’re an inventory. And Mom has been counting her stock since we were born."
We sat in silence for a long time. For the first time in our lives, the distance between us evaporated. We were two victims of the same narcissist, just in different rooms.
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"She’s coming for you, Natalie," Lauren warned. "She’s not going to stop at headlines. She’s meeting with the board of directors at the news station tomorrow. She’s trying to get you fired."
"Let her," I said, a strange, cold calm settling over me. "I’m not the girl who hides in the weather room anymore."
