My family burst out laughing when I showed up to my sister’s wedding alone. “She couldn’t even get a date,” my dad yelled, then shoved me into the fountain. The guests actually clapped.
Soaking wet, I smiled and said, “Don’t forget this moment.” Twenty minutes later, my billionaire husband pulled up and suddenly everyone went pale.
It all started with a splash. A humiliating public splash.
My own father at my sister’s wedding pushing me into a fountain. Water dripping from my designer dress.
Mascara running down my face.
But instead of crying, I smiled. A private, knowing smile. Because in that moment, they had no idea who I truly was or who I had married.
The whispers, the laughs, the pointed fingers—all of it was about to be silenced forever.
Growing up in the affluent Campbell family in Boston was all about appearances. Our five-bedroom colonial in Beacon Hill screamed success.
But behind those perfect doors, things were different. From the moment I could remember, I was always compared to my sister, Allison.
She was two years younger, but always the star.
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” That was the soundtrack of my childhood, played on repeat by my parents, Robert and Patricia Campbell. My father, a big-shot corporate attorney, cared about image above all else. My mother, a former beauty queen turned socialite, never missed a chance to tell me I wasn’t enough.
I’d bring home straight A’s, and Allison had straight A’s plus extracurriculars.
I’d win second place in a science competition, and it would be overshadowed by Allison’s dance recital. It was relentless.
“Meredith, stand up straight. No one will take you seriously with that posture,” my mother would snap when I was just twelve.
“Allison has natural grace,” she’d add proudly, placing a hand on my sister’s shoulder.
“You have to work harder at these things.”
On my sixteenth birthday, my father raised a glass. I remember the anticipation, thinking, “Maybe this time it’s for me.” Instead, he announced Allison’s acceptance into an elite summer program at Yale. My birthday cake sat forgotten in the kitchen.
College brought no relief.
While I was at Boston University, working a part-time job and maintaining a 4.0 GPA, my parents barely came to my events, but they’d travel three states over for every single one of Allison’s performances at Giuliard. At my own college graduation, my mother’s first comment was about my sensible career choice in criminal justice.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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