Charlotte, meet Charlotte.

I snuck in at the back. It was a feeble move for sure, but the only option I could stomach in the wake of Megan remarrying.

I knew I could hide in amongst the long-lost relatives and random neighbours milling around the venue, but it didn’t change what today was; one big opportunity to rub salt in a wound that had been open for far too long. 

I wanted to ruin something. I wanted her to know I’d not forgiven her, that I’d held onto the hurt for the fifteen plus years we’d been apart, even if she hadn’t. I practiced scowling, in the hope that physically angering my face would give me some kind of confidence. A balding man, with his chair too tightly packed against mine, winced slightly at my strange facial expressions and I felt immediately guilty.

The wedding venue was traditional, dotted with pink and red roses to compliment the room where everything inside was that one shade of burgundy only used in 1984. Everything had that slightly shiny look to it, from the velour chairs to the deep pile carpet.

I thought about someone making that ‘carpet and drapes’ joke about the bride and cringed. The same joke had probably been told by her brother the last time she got married. The bald man next to me shot over a look of both concern and confusion.

‘I’m so sorry, I really have to go,’ flew out of my mouth, it had been a mistake to come.

The man made a few small noises in a bid to move, his polyester suit trousers sparking static against the velour chair as he shuffled to get away from me. As I stood, music erupted from the speakers, and I realised I’d left it too late.

Everyone started huffing and heaving to get up, straining their necks to look around to the door at the back of the room. The bald man next to me smiled in anticipation and I shot him a look back that could only be described as a mixture of fear and pain.

I knew she’d be wearing a huge white dress. It wasn’t in her nature to be demure. Even on her third wedding day, she had no concept of appreciating the sanctity of the situation.

She’d chosen this time to walk in completely on her own. I could imagine her saying something like, ‘Charlie, you know me darling I wanted to go big on my third time lucky!’ and people would laugh because it was impossible not to be in awe of her. I’m not sure how many people saw below that layer to the trash bag I knew underneath.

I hated my opinion of her. No one should think that about a parent, better still a parent who should know better. But that was my mother, Megan, that same person who walked out on dad and I when I was 13 for no real reason, and did everything possible to forget I existed. Seemingly, until she planned wedding number three.

At the front of the room, Steve beamed down the aisle at this poufy vision in white. He was everything a postcard man should be. Broad and chiselled with a smile that made you feel special. I’d never met him but I’d seen pictures, and the reality did not do them justice.

Megan shuffled down the aisle, savouring every eye contact she could possibly make, batting her eyelashes as naturally as fake ones could muster. I was so transfixed I almost missed the main event trotting neatly behind Megan’s outrageous veil, the picture-perfect flower girl, a cookie cutter replica of mum with Steve’s trademark smile.

I still couldn’t believe she had the nerve to call her Charlotte. When I found out, I started to pull a Pheobe and think about changing my name to something outrageous to spite her. Yes she went by Lotte, but still. What kind of monster brings one baby Charlotte into this world, realises she’s a dud and essentially walks out to start over and make a new one? Lotte was everything I wasn’t, I knew it, and Megan knew it too.

The ceremony began and I slid down into my seat. I was here because of Megan but I couldn’t take my eyes off the nine year old wonder kid who was standing where I should have been. She stood behind Steve looking longingly up at my mum, the perfect nuclear family handpicked after Megan had discarded the previously failed attempts.

The rest of the ceremony and reception moved quickly. Food was passed around, more and more drink poured freely into every mouth. Thankfully, Megan wasn’t a sit-down-dinner-kind-of-gal so I managed to stay perched at the bar out of the way nursing a tequila. I didn’t belong here, I had no idea why I had been invited let alone accepted the invite, but for some reason I couldn’t leave. It was like knowing a car crash was going to happen and staying to watch the aftermath, each painful second at a time.

The bald man, who turned out to be a cousin of Steve’s, weirdly kept an eye out for me, and as he refilled my 11^th tequila, I caught Megan’s eye. I froze mid sip, acid hitting my mouth from the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure she even fully recognised who I was; she just eyed me with a look of annoyance and intrigue, trying to place the thirty-something guest drinking the bar dry of margarita mix.

I made a swift exit. I needed a cigarette, a Valium, anything just to get my heart rate down to below 200. I made a beeline for what looked like the staff area and froze. 

Lotte was sat under a pergola stuffed at the back of the venue. The scene looked like something from a 1950’s advert, her taffeta white dress fanned out across a picnic bench whilst her scuffed ballet pumps hung limp a few inches above the floor. It wasn’t wisteria season but above her head thick blue boughs of blossom kept watch, the cheap plastic fading at the edges.

I went instinctively to turn back. I was sure neither of us wanted this conversation. I was also desperate to find a cigarette and the probability of Lotte having one was slim, though not none. I remembered when I was about her age mum had asked me to throw some of my clothes away on the way back from Tenerife so she could fit more fags back across the border, so for all I knew Lotte may have had 1000 Marlborough light stashed away somewhere.

Behind us, a waiter dropped a tray of champagne, and the noise made us both do the same characteristic flinch. Her eyes met mine. Something in them was familiar, the same blue, the same warmth, but she had other things I didn’t; something deep in there that I couldn’t pinpoint, the thing that no doubt made her a better version of me.

Without much hesitation, Lotte swung her legs around to face me and held out a Rubik’s cube that she’d been nursing. If she did know who I was, it was a mighty diplomatic olive branch.

‘You want a go?’ she asked casually.

I replied with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug and walked over to the picnic table. I swung over to sit on the bench whilst she perched on the table top, making our eyes unusually close together.

She handed over the cube and I started to tap away, remembering all the patterns and actions with a strange sense of familiarity.

‘You’re so good, when did you learn? My dad’s been teaching me, he says it’s good to keep my mind busy.’

I still didn’t know what to say to her. She was just this innocent thing, only the version mum had always wanted; the blond doll who’d do as she was told, the performing monkey who never cried. Her eyes followed my hands like a hound watching dog biscuits being poured into its dinner bowl.

‘None of my friends know how to play, they think I’m weird,’ she said.

‘You’re not weird, I used to love playing when I was your age.’

‘Why did you stop?’

‘I’m not sure actually, adults do weird things I guess.’

‘Dad says I’m addicted, which I thought was a bad thing, but he keeps buying me more so can’t be all that bad?’

‘They’re good for your brain, keeps you sharp,’ I replied.

‘That’s what he says! Megan doesn’t think so though, she says I need to go out and make more friends, join ballet or something.'

That stung. It was a sentence I’d heard before.

‘Do you want to do ballet?’ I asked quietly.

‘Not really, I like maths, and games and puzzles and stuff.’

‘What are you learning in maths at school?’

‘Easy stuff, but I do extra reading, I like trigonometry at the minute.’

‘Smart cookie,’ I said, completing the last sequence and handing the cube back, her little eyes lighting up at the finished article.

‘How do you know my dad?’

My neck felt weird. In six words she’d confirmed the one thing i'd hoped wasn't true. That I’d have to break the news to her that Megan was actually a hard-core liar, but more importantly she’d confirmed that Megan really had cut me out. No doubt grandma was the only reason an invite to the wedding even made its way to me.

‘I don’t know him; I’ve never met him actually.’

She looked puzzled, like I should know the groom at a wedding, which was a fair point.

‘So, you know Megan?’

I had no idea where to go with her question. The truth of the matter was I didn’t really know her, not really. I knew things about her, like what her standard pizza order was and what shoe size she wore, but I didn’t really have any clue who she was or why she made the decisions she did. Why does any parent make the decision to cut a child out when they move on with another partner? I suppose the same reason most people throw away the first pancake they cook in the batch.

‘You look a bit like her,’ Lotte followed up before I could answer her first question. ‘She says I look most like her on days like today, and most like my dad when I cry.’

My eyes pricked.

‘I’m Lotte by the way, what’s your name?’

‘Charlotte...’ Chimed a voice from behind us. We both looked up at Steve, stood lent up against a wall, watching us with facination.

‘That’s my name too, how funny!’ Lotte grabbed my hand, ‘I’ve got another Rubik’s cube in my bag, wait here I’ll go get it!’

As she scampered off Steve tousled the back of her blond head. A strange weight descended over the plastic wisteria.

‘You don’t by any chance have a cigarette, do you?’ I asked.

‘Hope you didn’t ask to bum one off Lotte, she’d have charged you to find one, she’s the smart one.’

I laughed. Steve was even better in the flesh. Warm in every aspect a human could be.

‘You are the spitting image of your mum you know, I’m so glad you agreed to come, I wasn’t sure you would when I sent the invite.’

He noted my surprise with a nod.

‘I love Megan, but I know she hurt you, Charlie.’ My eyes pricked again.

‘I didn’t invite you here as some elaborate rouse to get you to forgive her, that’s between the two of you and I’m not daft enough to try and play doctors to mend whatever is broken there.’

For once, Megan had genuinely picked a good one.

‘I invited you here for Lotte. She deserves to know her sister, and you deserve the opportunity to get to know her. She’s a good kid and it’s been tough since her mum died you know, she needs someone like you.’

I looked at the floor. He was asking for something impossible. How could I be there for Lotte, a kid I barely knew who reminded me so much of why everything in my life was a continual car crash. 

‘Can I just ask you one question?’ I asked. He nodded and sat up to look at me properly, knowing what was most probably going to come out of my mouth.

‘Why her?’

I didn’t need to say anything more. He knew what I was asking, what I was trying to process after all these years.

‘She made me come alive again,’ he smiled.

Before I could ask anything further Lotte bounded round the corner, 3 rubik’s cubes and some graph paper in hand, talking the entire way in a state of sheer speed neither Steve or I could really process what she was saying.

‘Hold your horses there poppet, I think Charlotte is probably in need of a drink, why don’t we take all this and head back so we can go get some ice cream, how does that sound?’

Lotte’s squeals seemed to confirm her agreement of the plan and I couldn’t help but smile. She immediately grabbed my hand and led us back to the guests, most of whom were swanning around in small groups as they descended slowly into the drunken events of the evening. My bald friend from the ceremony was at the bar buying a group of older ladies jaeger bombs, which I only hoped wasn’t a ploy to get one of them into bed.

Thankfully, Lotte and Steve disappeared quickly into the drunken crowd. I made a duck to the bathrooms, dodging the ladies from mum's work reapplying yet another layer of makeup and locked myself in a cubicle.

I sat down on the toilet and closed my eyes. So much of my adult life had been coloured by my relationship with Megan. Steve had asked me to be something I wasn’t sure I was even capable of being. I only ever knew keeping people at arms length.

Outside of the cubicle the line of orange ladies began squealing and I heard the voice I’d been dreading to face.

‘What a day, who’d have thought it ladies, third time’s a charm!’ Megan squealed. I rolled my eyes as the bathroom filled with squawks of encouragement.

‘I’m just so lucky, I know I am, I count my lucky stars for my angel Steve and perfect Lotte totte, it took me long enough but honestly don’t know what I’d be without them.’

She sighed and I heard her bud her lips together in the mirror.

'Although, I wish Lotte would stop carting those bloody Rubik’s cubes around, she’ll never get a boyfriend at this rate!’

The room erupted with laughter. I’d heard that line before and it hurt even more hearing it again, sitting in a toilet cubicle single at 33 and hiding from my own mum.  

This was the disapointing reality.

In that moment I knew I’d never forgive her and that she wouldn't ever change, but maybe that was how it needed to be. It wasn’t my responsibility to make her something she wasn’t, maybe that was the thing I’d held onto for too long. She had made her choice. I needed to let her go.

My hands fidgeted on the edge of my dress, and I wished I hadn’t finished that Rubik’s cube. Lotte and I shared something, something Megan or Steve couldn’t comprehend, something maybe I didn’t fully understand until this day.

I pulled out my phone and ordered every type of Rubik’s cube I could afford. I didn’t know if I would be good at it, but Lotte deserved a sister, and I owed it to myself to try. I smiled as I added a t-shirt to my Amazon basket that said ‘I <3 maths’. I knew my sister would love it, and the added dig at Megan was a happy coincidence.