He turned to face the room. He placed one hand on the back of my chair, not possessively, but protectively. A barricade between me and them.
“I think you should all know something,” Dylan said.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight that made the crystal glasses vibrate.
Reuben scoffed, reaching for his scotch. “Sit down, son. You’re ruining the mood.”
“The mood?” Dylan repeated, his voice dropping to a terrifying calm. “You mean the bullying? Is that the mood we’re going for?”
Reuben choked on his drink. Tessa’s mouth fell open.
“I’ve sat here all night,” Dylan continued, scanning the faces of the family he was supposed to marry into. “I’ve listened to the fake compliments. The shallow small talk. And now, this.” He gestured to Tessa, then to Reuben. “Cruelty dressed up as comedy.”
“Dylan!” Tessa hissed, her face flushing pink. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“No, Tessa,” he said, finally looking at her. “You did that yourself.”
He took a breath, and his hand tightened on my chair. “You all look at Sariah and you see a failure. You see a stereotype. You laugh at her because it makes you feel better about your own miserable, pretend-perfect lives.”
My mother finally looked up, her eyes wide with shock.
“But here is the truth,” Dylan said, his voice thickening with emotion. “Two years ago, when I lost my job at the firm… when I fell into a depression so deep I couldn’t get out of bed… none of you were there.”
He looked at Tessa. “You told me to ‘man up.’ You told me I was bringing down your aesthetic.”
He looked at Reuben. “You told me I was weak.”
Then, he looked down at me. “But Sariah? Sariah didn’t know me well. We had met twice. But she saw. She saw I was drowning.”
The room was paralyzed. I felt tears pricking my eyes, hot and fast. I hadn’t known he remembered the details. I hadn’t known it mattered that much.
“She checked on me every week,” Dylan said, addressing the room again. “She came over and helped me clean my apartment when I couldn’t do it myself. She rewrote my resume for me. She connected me with her old boss for freelance work. She brought me soup. She sat with me in silence when I couldn’t speak.”
He paused, his voice cracking slightly. “She was raising a child alone. She was working two jobs. She had every reason to be selfish. But she was the only person who showed me kindness when I had nothing to offer in return.”
