Christmas Gala Disaster

An excerpt from current WIP novel, "Confessions of a Church Girl"

The gala was a disaster, and it’s because all my worst fears had come true. Everyone knew about my “secret” affair with Robert, my pregnancy with his baby—our beautiful little girl, Baby Butterfly—and all the horrors. This was what the night had come to, a scandal that could make or break all of us involved.

Robert and I knew this moment was coming; we just didn’t prepare to believe it’d happen on Christmas Eve at a charity gala at the Petersens’ country club. If this was God playing a cruel, twisted joke on us, I’d like to know so I could ask Him what the hell He’s thinking, putting me through this level of shame and humiliation. All just because I was a sinner.

Yes, I hate to admit it—I, Delaneigh Hylander, am a sinner.

Dad was hurt to find out that I’d kept my break-up with Jason a secret from him and confided in Mom not to tell him or Kristina. Not only was he disappointed in me, but he was also hurt by Mom’s decision to stay loyal to me by keeping my secret. In the 30-plus years of their marriage, she’d never kept any secrets from Dad. I’m glad that my break-up was the only one I’d asked her to keep. If I wanted to tell her about my pregnancy, it wouldn’t have been fair of me to ask her to keep another secret from Dad. So, in a way, I suppose this was the best way for everyone all at once to find out.

Dad, still angry and heartbroken, also insisted that she was the one who “enabled” me to get with Hans Petersen in the first place, due to her advice on how to move on from Jason. I knew he was hurt, but I didn’t like that he was accusing her of enabling my connection with Hans. He and I bonded at the engagement party, when I was still able to distinguish him from Robert at the time. The hotel bar was where things went wrong and I mistook Robert for Hans. That’s all on me; Mom had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I had no choice but to tell Hans the truth.

“I’m really sorry.” He was silent, glancing at the ground and avoiding eye contact with me, his arms folded. “At the party, I lied to you when I said I was 28 and a full-time staff member at the New York Times. I’m really 23, and I’m just an intern. I thought you were the one I told the truth to at the bar, but turns out… It was actually your brother all along.”

The five sisters scoffed, shaking their heads at me and rolling their eyes. Birgitte was one of them, and I could see her wanting nothing more to do with me after tonight.

“I don’t get it, Delaneigh.” He shook his head. “Why would you lie to me like that? Why couldn’t you have just been honest from the beginning?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a good reason, but I liked the connection that we formed at the party, Hans. I’m sorry if I ever led you on in any way, making you think I had some romantic interest in you…”

“So, what then… You confused my brother for me and started developing feelings for him along the way?” he snapped, pointing to Robert. “Is that what you’re saying? You were more interested in him? Or me?”

“I…” I blushed, about to speak, when Robert jumped in.

“Bro, she’s said she’s more connected to me, especially now that I’m the father of her baby. And yes, we’re having a little girl.” I didn’t know if he had a smirk on his face or not; my eyes were a little blurry from the tears falling down. Tears of shame, humiliation, sadness, all at once.

“Oh, is that so?” Hans got up from his seat and stood in front of Robert, ready to challenge him. This is a war now. “A connection between you two because of a baby?” He scoffed, shaking his head and making a fist, as if ready to give his brother a good old whack on the face. “No, that’s not how that works!”

As expected, he punched Robert, causing the taller brother to go down on the floor. “You’re a freaking moron, you know that? How idiotic of you to take advantage of this poor girl while drunk…” Pointing to me. “When she clearly thought you were me. She thought you were me! She liked me more. You were engaged to her sister, who you’ve now callously broken up with through text because you’re a real pussy who can’t even face the woman you were about to share the rest of your life with, only to get her younger sister knocked up!”

Robert got back up from the floor and returned a punch to his brother in the face, shocking all of us, including the sisters, who gasped in unison. “That’s not really how it happened, and you know it!”

It then turned into a major brawl between both of them, and Helga, Birgitte and the sisters all intervened to break them up. Hans threw insults at Robert, scolding him for being “reckless” with Kristina by breaking up with her via text, saying something to the effect of, “A real man would never do such a thing”, and Robert clapping back with, “How would you know what a real man does?”

Elias even stepped away from the stage, giving himself a break as the emcee for tonight’s supposedly “wonderful” event. He calmly stepped in to join the intervention, successfully breaking up the brawl between his eldest sons. “Det er nok, I to!” Translated to That’s enough, you two in Danish.

Brawl over, Robert and Hans had black eyes as a result of punching each other silly. All because of me. There’s not a more humiliating moment than this. Elias escorted them out of the ballroom, declaring this event to be officially “ruined for good” and over for tonight.

Kristina, glaring at me, said, “You have a hell of a nerve to sleep with my fiancé while acting like a supportive little sister, comforting me when you knew all along the real reason he decided to end things with me. That makes you hypocritical in my book. No matter what happened between Robert and me, he’ll always be my fiancé.”

“Ex-fiancé!” I snapped. “You’re not together anymore for a reason. He’s your ex now, Krissy, so deal with it like you’ve been doing all this time.”

“Yeah, my ex, all right.” She scoffed. “I wonder why that is, Lanie!”

Guests murmured as they prepared to leave, wondering aloud what they’d gotten themselves into, “wasting” their time by attending this “lousy” event for tonight. What’s worse is, most of these guests were connections of the Petersens, so to them, this was a huge disgrace. A devastating betrayal.

But the worst betrayal of all… The way Robert and I hurt Kristina. No, actually, how I hurt Kristina.

How I hurt Mom and Dad. The Petersens, as well—Birgitte, including, due to our friendship we formed working together at the Sea Fire Grill.

I also hurt Gemma. She’d warned me about this, what would happen if Robert and I continued to “play house” with each other. We just couldn’t resist a moment without calling each other “husband and wife”, and Robert had to leave his damn phone behind, only to be discovered by Birgitte, and that’s how the whole truth spilled out.

After the majority of the guests left, the room became deadly silent; even the Christmas music stopped playing on the radio. We’re all simply going through the motions of processing everything that just happened, and it felt very surreal. Church members gave me snide glances, shaking their heads, as they whispered to each other before leaving. I could’ve sworn I heard one of them say, “Shameful”, as if talking about me. Who else would they possibly be talking about, if not me?

Someone even said, “She should be ashamed of herself… Her sister’s fiancé, of all people.” Another person in agreement, “Yeah, what is wrong with these young women of today? Have they no morals whatsoever?”

Mom grabbed her purse as she and Dad got ready to leave. She had a somber expression on her face, her vivid green eyes darkening and mushing up her mascara as if she’d been shedding a few tears. She glanced at me, and without a word, just shook her head and held hands with Dad as they walked out, their backs turned to me. Now I’ve officially lost their trust in me.

I went to Kristina, who was giving Angela and her friends a farewell hug, greeting them Merry Christmas in advance before they left.

She turned to me, her hands on her hips. “I don’t want anything more to do with you ever again. Stay wherever the hell you want—with Robert, Gemma, I don’t care, but don’t even bother coming home tonight. Mom and Dad don’t wanna see you, either. As of tonight, you are no longer my sister.” She stormed off before either of us could say anything else.

Helga, Elias, and the older Petersen sisters began helping the staff, DJ and caterers clear out the tables, decorations, music equipment, and the room itself. None of them turned to face me. Fun’s over tonight. All because of me.

Birgitte pulled me aside to a private corner of the room, her bright green eyes blazing red with fury. Before I could interject, she started. “I knew all along that my brother loved your sister too much to ever break things off with her via text. I’ve known Robby my whole life, and no matter how much he loves a woman, if he ever wanted to call it quits, he’d do it in-person. He’d have no reason to hide behind his phone screen to say ‘It’s over.’ That’s not his character, and it’s not Hans’, either. Our father has taught them both well. But now, I get it.” She scoffed. “I really, freaking get it. You and him all along… Even when we worked together at the restaurant. Right?”

Without a word, I nodded in agreement.

“So, when you chose to work at the restaurant, Robert wanted you to make extra money for the baby. Is that right? So you could both afford baby clothes, food and whatever else you might need? Exactly how far along were you into the pregnancy during the summer?”

“Actually,” she put her hand up before I could answer, “don’t tell me; I really don’t care to know. But that job was solely for the baby’s sake. Is that true?”

“Yeah…” I sighed, my cheeks burning from all that embarrassment from tonight’s public humiliation. “I’m so sorry, Birgitte. I never meant for you to find out about us this way.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Because you knew all along, even from the moment I first expressed my suspicions while we were working together. You knew that’s why he broke up with your sister, and I confided in you about his integrity and overall character, especially when it comes to women. He loved her very much, and I knew all along that he and Krissy would’ve been able to work things out, had they been given the chance. We all knew it, but they’d been unfairly robbed of that opportunity to find their way back to each other.”

“Birgitte, you need to be realistic,” I said softly. “Not all relationships work out in the end.”

“Clearly.” She scoffed. “You and your former high school boyfriend, obviously, and now your sister and my brother. Nothing ever works out in life, does it now?”

I shook my head, more tears running down my face, which I was too lazy to wipe away. “So sorry,” I whispered.

She put her hand up again. “I don’t wanna hear anything else from you, and thank God you quit working at the restaurant a long time ago. I would’ve said I wanted nothing more to do with you from this moment on, but I’m glad you beat me to it. Because I really want nothing more to do with you after tonight, Delaneigh.” She stormed off, then joined the rest of her family in helping to clean up the place and clear out all the equipment, decorations, trays of food, and whatever else needed to go away.

I went up to Gemma, Jason, and the Mackenzies, who all gave me sympathetic glances, each of them hugging me. Surprisingly, I didn’t resist a hug from Jason—that’s all I needed tonight. Gemma said she overheard Kristina telling me that I wasn’t welcome back home with her, Mom and Dad tonight—or maybe ever—so I was welcome to stay with the Mackenzies for a while until we could work out a plan for me. That I didn’t mind.

As we left together, I overheard Kristina telling Robert outside, “You should be ashamed of yourself for the pain you’ve put me through tonight. This is a complete disrespect to Amalia’s memory! If she were still here right now, she’d be utterly disappointed in you just like I am. This isn’t fair to her at all, Robert.” She stormed off before saying anything else, and Robert went his own way as well.

Amalia? That’s the second time so far I’ve heard that name. One of the names he’d been thinking about for Baby Butterfly. Did that name mean anything to him, or the family? Another woman in his life I didn’t know about? Robert Petersen was surely a man of many mysteries.