The Anniversary Toast Chapter 02
Nora arrived in twenty minutes with her laptop, two bottles of Malbec, and a look on her face that could curdle milk.
She sat beside me on the living room floor as I pulled up every screenshot on my phone. She went through them one by one, her jaw tightening with each swipe.
“Eighteen months,” she whispered. “Your own sister.”
I nodded, numb.
“Look at this one,” I said, handing her the phone.
It was a message from Audrey to Grant, sent three weeks ago: “Do you think she suspects anything? She seemed weird at brunch.”
Grant’s reply: “Elise doesn’t suspect a thing. She trusts you more than she trusts me. That’s what makes this so easy.”
Nora set the phone down slowly, as if it might burn her. “I want to kill them both.”
“Get in line.”
She looked at me carefully, studying my face. “You’re calm. That scares me more than if you were crying.”
“I cried in the bathroom for exactly four minutes,” I said. “Then I stopped. Because crying doesn’t fix anything. Planning does.”
Nora’s expression shifted. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her face. “Okay. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I pulled up the invitation for tonight’s dinner. Grant had sent it to the entire family — his parents, my parents, our siblings, close friends. Thirty-two guests in a private room at the most elegant restaurant in the city.
“He’s planning to give a toast,” I said. “He told me last week he wrote a speech about our five years together. How I’m the love of his life. How he can’t imagine a future without me.”
Nora’s lip curled. “The audacity.”
“I want him to give that speech,” I said. “I want every single person in that room to hear him say those words. And then I want them to see the truth.”
“The screenshots?”
“I’ve compiled them into a slideshow. Photos, messages, timestamps. Everything organized chronologically. Eighteen months of evidence, and it’s airtight.”
Nora stared at me. “You did all this in two hours?”
“Rage is an excellent motivator.”
She opened her laptop. “Send me everything. I’ll clean up the formatting, make sure the images are high resolution on a big screen. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”
As she worked, I sat back against the couch and let myself think — really think — about Audrey.
My little sister. Four years younger. The one I’d protected from bullies in middle school. The one I’d driven to prom when our parents were fighting. The one who cried on my shoulder after every breakup, swearing she’d never find someone who loved her.
And all along, she’d been taking mine.
I scrolled back through her Instagram. The photos of us together — arm in arm at Christmas, laughing at my birthday party last month, her commenting “couple goals” under every photo of Grant and me.
There was one post from six months ago. A selfie of Audrey and me at brunch, captioned: “My big sister is my best friend. Nobody will ever come between us.”
The post had 843 likes.
I screenshot that too.
“Add this to the slideshow,” I told Nora. “Right before the affair evidence. Let them see the performance first.”
Nora glanced at the screenshot and winced. “God, she’s a sociopath.”
“She’s worse than that,” I said quietly. “She’s good at it.”
By early afternoon, the slideshow was ready. Twenty-seven slides. Clean, devastating, undeniable. Nora had even synced it to play automatically, timed so each slide lingered just long enough for the room to absorb the impact.
“One more thing,” I said. “The restaurant has a projection screen in the private room. Grant requested it for a photo montage of our relationship — he asked me to put it together last week.”
Nora’s eyes went wide. “He gave you access to the presentation setup?”
“He gave me the USB drive yesterday. Told me to load our best photos.” I held up the drive. “I’ll load something, alright.”
Nora burst out laughing — the dark, incredulous kind. “He literally handed you the weapon.”
“Men always do,” I said. “They just never think you’ll use it.”
At four o’clock, my phone rang. It was Audrey.
My stomach clenched, but I answered on the third ring, keeping my voice light.
“Hey, Aud.”
“Elise! Happy anniversary! I’m so excited for tonight. What are you wearing? I want to coordinate.”
The casualness of her voice made my skin crawl. She sounded genuinely cheerful — the same bubbly tone she’d always had, the same voice that had whispered “I love you, sis” at every holiday gathering while she was sneaking into my husband’s bed.
“I’m wearing the green dress,” I said. “The one from Nordstrom.”
“Oh, gorgeous! I’ll wear something complementary. We’ll look amazing in photos.”
Photos. Right.
“Can’t wait,” I said.
“Elise?” Her voice softened. “I just want you to know — I’m really happy for you and Grant. Five years is incredible. You two are literally the perfect couple.”
I closed my eyes. Nora, sitting across from me, clenched her fists.
“Thanks, Audrey,” I said. “That means the world coming from you.”
After I hung up, Nora looked at me with a mixture of awe and concern.
“How did you not scream?”
“Because tonight,” I said, sliding the USB drive into my purse, “she’ll be the one screaming.”