“Hey, everyone?” Lauren Myers uttered, clearing her throat nervously as she entered the living room in a haze of holiday toffee and rampant potpourri. Her parents and two sisters, who were all waiting around the living room in bright red Christmas sweaters with mugs of hot coffee, turned their heads at the sound of her voice. Despite having gone through the cheery and hug-a-second reintroductions in the foyer not twenty minutes ago, all of them flashed her fresh smiles as though they hadn’t seen her in years.
“Hi, honey. Did you get everything settled back into your room? I hope I remembered to leave enough towels in your bathroom,” Lois Myers sang merrily with a wink to her middle child as she continued flipping eggs over the stove. The empty nester had clearly gone all-out with decorations and cozy accommodations for the December return of her three daughters.
“Yeah, there’s… there’s enough towels. Thanks, Mom,” Lauren said, taking a deep breath. Bathroom utilities were clearly not at the forefront of her mind at this moment as she leaned against the door frame.
“Why don’t you come in and grab a mug? I just made a fresh pot,” her father Ross said with a warm grin as he raised his coffee cup in her direction from the couch. “It’s your favorite roast.”
“Sure, sure, in just a minute,” Lauren muttered, twirling a finger through her long chocolate tresses as they cascaded over her shoulder. She remained poised in the door.
“Well, don’t just stand there. You look like you’re about to bust us all for something,” her older sister Britney snorted playfully, raising an eyebrow at the awkward stance of her twenty-five-year-old Alpha sibling. Even the ever-sarcastic eldest Myers daughter couldn’t hide her happiness at seeing Lauren, who by far made the fewest return trips home of the three.
“She was just driving for a long time. Maybe she wants to stand,” Millie suggested quietly as her eyes fell back to her phone in her lap. Brushing a hand through her tangled locks, the youngest sister dug her thumb against the corner of her lip thoughtfully, proving her college experience thus far hadn’t affected her reserved docility in the least.
“No, it’s… actually something else. I… wanted to say something, and I guess I figured I should be standing for it,” Lauren responded, at last allowing herself an uneasy smile.
Everyone in the room instantly returned their attention to the doorway, lips pursed expectantly and eyes bright with a mix of fear, curiosity, and wonderment.
“I’m… getting married,” Lauren blurted, and she lifted her hand up to reveal the sparkling ring on her finger.
The effect was instantaneous. Everyone in the room leapt up and mobbed Lauren, throwing arms around her and flying into such a mad flurry of questions and exclamations, the girl could hardly keep up as she suddenly found herself cocooned by cooing family members.
“No… freaking… way.”
“When did this happen?”
“Oh my God, congratulations!”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Where is he?”
“Who is he?”
“What’s his name?”
“Is he coming?”
“Are we going to meet him today?”
“When? When?”
“He proposed just yesterday morning. His name is Ian, and he’s… the most wonderful person I’ve ever met,” Lauren said dreamily, her voice rich with adoration, and for just a moment, it got easier to keep her querulously pounding heart rate in check.
“Jesus, Lauren. You’re so… I mean, wow,” Millie commented in awe on the look of genuine, luminous elation on her sister’s face. All of them knew beyond a doubt from just a glance that this was the happiest they’d ever seen Lauren, and it heightened the celebratory mood even more.
“Thanks, Millie,” she sighed appreciatively, clasping fingers with her younger sibling.
“And?” her father chuckled good-naturedly, gently demanding more answers as he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I don’t suppose you’re going to introduce us to the lucky young man before you head down the aisle?”
“He’s… actually here. Today. Right now,” Lauren laughed sheepishly, her pulse rising again at an exponential rate. She brushed her hair over an ear, trying to find ways to keep her hands occupied to prevent anxious jittering, but it was getting harder.
“No way,” Britney scoffed with shock as she held her sister’s hand up to her face for better examination of the nuptial gem, jealousy evident in her glowing eyes. “Is he outside? How come we didn’t even see him when you pulled up?”
“No, he’s… he’s already inside. He’s waiting up in my room.”
Suddenly, the electric excitement died down and became a hesitant fog of befuddlement.
“Honey, you mean… he sneaked upstairs after you? For Heaven’s sake, why didn’t you just have him come in at the same time as you? Please, please, ask him to come down and say hello!” Lois gasped, still with her arms locked around her daughter in a firm embrace as she rocked back and forth so enthusiastically that the bun her greying brown hair was tied in nearly came undone. “Was he nervous about meeting us? I can’t imagine anything sillier.”
“He, um… he… did come in at the same time as me,” Lauren mumbled under her breath as though this little fact could be slipped in under the radar, though she knew already the gleeful atmosphere was about to be assassinated. She gritted her teeth as though standing in the center of the tracks with an oncoming train zooming toward her like a missile.
The room fell silent. Hands that had been affectionately wrapped around Lauren’s arms and shoulders steadily slid away so that everyone could take a step back and observe her with sheet-white faces.
“Lauren… how did…” Millie began, obviously the only one not quite paralyzed yet.
“He was in my pocket,” Lauren breathed, forcing herself to plaster the world’s most hopelessly optimistic smile on her lips, knowing full-well it was entirely in vain as she watched the joy squelched from the faces of her entire family.
A steely stoicism settled oppressively in over the room like a plague despite the bright green and crimson streamers clogging the ceilings with the promise of peace on earth and goodwill to men.
“Ian is…” Lois managed at last, her throat dry, and had to pause for a moment as though she was having a sword jammed down her throat. She placed a hand delicately to her cheek. “…a Beta?”
“Y-Yes. Yes he is, Mom,” Lauren said, chewing on her lower lip and folding her hands behind her back. This was far harder than she’d already sickeningly prepped herself for, and she knew it would only make things worse to stare at the floor like a coward. It was tough, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact with her mother.
“Lauren, you… you can’t be serious, though,” Ross said, clinging to a final desperate hope at the whole thing being an elaborate prank. He reached forward and placed a hand back on his daughter’s shoulder, though it clearly was difficult for him, as though the girl was suddenly afflicted with an incurable and highly contagious disease. “It’s… it’s a joke, right?”
“No, Daddy,” Lauren said softly. “It’s not. And it’s no big deal. Honest. Please, just… just let me go get him and bring him down here. I know if you just give him a chance, you’ll all love him just as much as I do.” As the girl rambled, she heard the overly hopeful words of this final sentence pass through her lips, and she knew it was a lie just as well as the others.
As though she’d been slapped across the face, Lois Myers winced and backed up several feet so she could awkwardly crumble into an armchair, her fingers already digging deeply into the stressed creases of her forehead. She closed her eyes, and Lauren couldn’t tell if it was from the onset of the headache, or the inability to look her daughter in the face any longer.
Britney, as well, took a few steps back from the sister she’d referred to as her best friend during their high school years. Her lips were steadily contorting into a revolted snarl. Once she was standing next to the chair, she crouched down, getting near to the emotionally comatose Lois, and whispered something into her ear.
Millie, meanwhile, looked too stunned to work herself into any kind of temperament beyond shock.
Lauren clenched her fists and, short on courage in this unbearably tense instant, descended for a heartbeat into the dialogue from the night before that she’d melded protectively into her memory.
“Are you… sure you want to go tomorrow?” Lauren whispered tenderly, leaning back against the headboard of her bed, as she cradled her tiny fiancé in her cupped palms. Her violet nightie hung loosely around her slender thighs, partially concealed by the covers. “I would completely understand if you wanted to stay behind for it all and let me try to talk with them first.”
“Absolutely sure,” Ian affirmed, placing a reassuring hand on the soft thumb of his love as he looked unblinkingly up at her looming face. “I told you. I’m gonna be with you every step of the way from now on. Plus, I’ll have to meet them sometime.”
“You know I’m ready to try. To keep this to ourselves, I mean. If we have to. We’ve been together for almost four years and they’ve never suspected a thing.”
“I couldn’t ask you to put yourself through that kind of strain any more than you already have. You love them,” Ian said.
“But I love YOU too,” Lauren insisted, and stroked her thumb up and down the twenty-six-year-old Beta’s back. “This isn’t just about them, you know.”
“What’s the worst that could happen? Your family may not like people like me, but they know you. They trust you. They have to at least listen,” he responded. He wrapped his arms around the young woman’s finger and rested his cheek against her thumbprint. He clasped his body against the smooth curvature of her peachy digit and planted a silent kiss on her skin.
Warmth flooded Lauren’s body, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and practically radiated light outward as she studied the lanky, curly-haired young man dressed in his dorky sweater in the center of her hand.
She couldn’t imagine ever learning to love anything on earth as much as the being currently hugging her finger. It was a physical impossibility.
“Thank you for this,” she whispered, bringing him closer to her chin. She puckered up and smooched so gently on the side of his face that it hardly nudged him off-balance. “No more hiding. It’s time they knew what’s most important to me.”
Lauren snapped back into the present, revitalized by the reminder of promises made.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner,” she sighed bitterly at last, her gaze bouncing nervously between the four faces before her. With a terrified gulp of air, she wrung her fists together and proceeded to spill her guts with the wording she’d been rehearsing in the mirror all morning before coming: “I know it… might’ve made this easier if I’d tried to explain before he proposed, but I always knew this would be a bit… much for you all to hear, no matter what. I thought maybe it wasn’t a part of myself I’d have to share with you, that I could have both, and maybe that was wrong. But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t lie to you all about the most important person in my life. I’m… I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. I know you all can see that, and I was just hoping maybe you all would want to share in that. So… please. Please. Please just give him… and me… a chance?”
Another bout of frigid silence colder than the winter outside followed that seemed to last an eon. Lauren heard the tick of the seconds hand on a nearby clock booming in her eardrums, and she felt herself beginning to wilt as she watched all four of her family members’ faces remain unchanged by this heartfelt proclamation of hers.
“Britney,” Lois breathed hoarsely, as though she’d been screaming for several minutes straight. She still refused to look directly at her middle child. “Please go find me some aspirin from the bathroom cabinet.”
“Mom?” Lauren peeped. She was positively crestfallen at this reception after she’d laid everything on the line with such rawness. “Please talk to me.”
“Millie. I’d like you to tell your sister that I’m just… trying to process a few things right now, and will get back to her after I’ve had a chance to get through this headache,” Lois spat with aggression clearly intended more for the daughter she was obviously unwilling to candidly address.
“But… Mom?” Millie mumbled, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as she leaned against a side table that propped up a miniature Christmas tree. The youngest sister was visibly unnerved by this ticking time bomb of a situation. “She can just h-”
“Please just do like I asked you,” Lois grunted.
“Um, Lauren? Mom says… she’ll get back to you,” Millie awkwardly stammered, her nose wrinkling as she restated it.
Lauren felt herself on the verge of tears, but bit her lip hard enough that she almost drew blood to keep herself cool. Things were already looking grim, but her chances would be even worse if she couldn’t stand her ground. She had to be strong. For the both of them.
And then something else hit her like a punch in the gut, even stronger than the one she’d already received from her mother’s icy reception to the happiest news of her life.
“Where… where’s Britney? I thought she was going to get Mom a…” Lauren croaked, tuning out everything around her in an intense pre-panic focus as she heard her bedroom door on the second floor slam shut.