My soon-to-be step sister peered at me from around my brothers, shielding the sun from her face. The June heat had been taking its toll on such a big day, causing our carefully applied makeup to melt off of our faces and our legs to sweat under layers of tulle and satin. She glanced quickly to my dad who was smiling dazedly in his tux that he had complained about wearing. My stepmom smiled back, gleaming in a gold sequined dress, shining like the new ring on her finger. I remember when my dad first told me about the ring, how excited he seemed about the symbolism placed in each stone. 

“Each one is one of your birthstones,” he said to me and my siblings, “You'll be just as much of this marriage as me and Amy” I remember my sister’s quiet groan and my brother’s eye roll.  

That was months ago, during the initial wedding planning process. Months filled endlessly with binders and fabrics. There were thousands of things to pick, try, or complain about the price. Now we were waiting in the doors of the great lodge, watching people take their seats in front of us, waiting for the signal to plaster smiles on our faces and ignore the bugs swarming around us in the early June morning.

My sister cleared her throat and turned to me,

“How long can it take for people to sit down? It’s been upwards of 20 minutes.”

“It’s hot too.Why didn’t they pack for the heat?” I replied

“Oh my god”

“What?”

“Uncle Douglas is wearing huge red pants!”

“No way”

“Wait I want to see,” My brother, Henry said, reappearing from his Nintendo Switch and walking outside “Wait which one is he?”

“Dude, he’s the only one wearing red pants. It isn’t hard” My soon to be step brother, Max said from behind his laptop. 

The great lodge was the only refuge on the entire island that had wifi so we had been taking pieces of it everytime we could. My brother would sell us on a free game he had downloaded on his switch called Astro Bears that had no real purpose except to annoy us, my step sister would scroll through instagram and complain to me about the girls at her school and their boyfriends, and my step brother would sink into a chair and disappear into his laptop for hours. 

“Is there still time to change shoes?” My step sister picked at her heels that were digging into her feet leaving red stains on her ankles. 

“Like we have time. The wedding ceremony was supposed to start 30 minutes ago we can’t make it even later. And besides you know how mad they'll be if you show up wearing crocs” I joked. She laughed and tilted her head down to pick at her carefully painted nail polish.

“Island Hopping”, she had said months ago, taking a bottle off of a huge wall of colors, “They always have the dumbest names, don't they?” 

“I guess. Mine is just called coral haze” I replied and faced Amy and her best friend Christy. 

“Crispy, what color are you getting?” I felt Grace scowl at the floor. She had called her Crispy ever since she was little, when she couldn’t pick up every word and her tongue found it hard to pronounce Ts and Fs. 

“I mean Christy, sorry” I apologized to Christy, glancing towards Grace sporadically to see if her expression had softened.

“Oh no, It’s fine! You’re part of the family now anyways. You can call me whatever you want.” Christy replied and I felt grace’s shoulders tense towards each other.

Amy and my dad spoke quietly in the corner. Amy laughed at a joke and the hem of her dress danced to the rhythm, catching the early June sun and casting gold stars on the cabin’s wood walls. My dad’s pocket lit up and he pulled out his phone, and read the text, Amy peering over the screen trying to get a peak of what it says.

“Alright it’s time to go” my dad boomed over the 6 of us. 

“God, finally” my step sister muttered in my ear and took her first step on the grass after my dad. Grace and I had spoken about this moment in her room, talking for hours. I would trace the constellations she had hand painted on her walls, remembering when they were wet and she would ask me to hand her the brush ever so often. She told me it was the same room that used to be her dad’s office. Where Amy and him would get into fights about everything. 

The same room that held hundreds of trinkets from her mom trying to win her back after her dad left. The place that had become a museum for her life when she had to go to the mental hospital weeks before this moment. Where she had come home with sunken eyes, immediately trading her hospital bag for a wedding suitcase. 

The same room that would be adjacent to mine when we got back home, allowing me to knock on the door and hear the Arctic Monkeys flowing through the space. The trinkets and constellations stayed when she packed for college telling me that I could always come and stay with her if things got bad. 

The room echoed when she was gone but the constellations stayed when she moved back a year after. She let me handle the family drama, disappearing with her friends every night. 

When she moved out for good the room echoed, the trinkets were traded for office supplies and the constellations painted over. Her dozens of band posters that had hung next to her bed had been replaced with a silk screen painting of a woman with lavish clothes and jewels. The crystals she had carefully placed throughout her room were thrown away because, “they were all just a bunch a mumbo jumbo” my dad had said, spiraling into an argument about psychics and astrology. They took down every part of her until she was completely gone from us, leaving the room with a picture of our parents walking down the aisle.