Chick Lit Weekly Prompt Entries 2018 and Flash Fiction Prompts

The Antagonist - Prompt #23

"The table was set, and dinner was ready, but something had gone terribly wrong."

Stacy had heard her mother tell the story again and again, first to her best friend Marcia and then to her book group. Each woman held on to the drama as if it was from pages in a book.

Unfortunately there was nothing fictional about this story in which Stacy was the antagonist. It was hard accepting that role when it was her story. She wanted to be the heroine who found her one true love, but she was the one who ruined her mother's fifty-fifth birthday dinner.

She had never set out to ruin the dinner or even her sister, Kim's life...

The sisters had spent the day together shopping and preparing for their mother's birthday. Because each of them had been going in different direction, it was the first day they had shared in a long time. Stacy worked as a sous chef and Kim in an art museum. Both girls were creative in their own way. They grew up inseparable, as Irish twins, which was what they were often called. They were just thirteen months apart.

Unfortunately they drifted apart when they each left home for school to pursue their own dreams. Over time, they no longer shared everything. Kim kept feelings hidden from Stacy, while Stacy was keeping a secret of her own.

Her secret was a delicious part of her life that made her extremely happy. Every life deserves happiness and good sex and Stacy's had both. She was in love and was floating on air.

However, Kim was holding on tight to a failed relationship with the illusion that he just needed time and he'd come back to her. Since the breakup happened nine months ago, Kim had always told Stacy that her life was going great, so Stacy knew nothing of her sister's turmoil. Stacy had thought Kim had moved on.

Using their respective talents, Stacy had prepared a meal worthy of a four star restaurant and Kim had laid a beautifully artistic table. Only family was dining; the sisters, their parents and their older brother with his wife. The plan was for an intimate and special evening. In addition to celebrating her birthday, their mother was over the moon about the pending birth of her first grandchild. Trisha, their sister-in-law was seven months along.

Stacy was serving the salad when her phone lit up with a message. It was the message that changed her life. Although the decision she had made before that day was really to blame, it was hard to accept when you're the one that ruined everything.

"Stace, why the hell is Ben texting you?" Kim asked holding up her phone which glowed with the text notification. "What the... he's calling you, babe! Babe!"

Stacy felt every drop of blood drain out of her face, but still not realizing how horribly she was at fault, she replied, "You stopped seeing him almost a year ago. You told me you were over him. I asked you when Ben and I started hanging out."

"Hanging out! Is this what you call it? How could you be with Ben? Who dates the man her sister loves?"

"Loved!" Stacy corrected.

"He was coming back. We were meant to be."

"Kim, you didn't even have the same interests. He hates art and you hate sports. You weren't compatible."

"But he loves me," Kim insisted.

"He doesn't love you! He loves me!"

That was it, the something that went terribly wrong. All hell broke loose and Stacy was the one who was driven from the house on her mother's birthday to the pathetic sound of her sister's sobs.

Three months later, when their nephew was born, Kim and Stacy didn't go to see him together. In fact chances are they will never do anything together again. The problem was that most of the time, Stacy didn't feel like a bad person, because she and Ben love each other. They are truly meant to be together.

Everything should have been perfect, but Stacy traded her sister for love and her poor family had been torn in half, especially her mother who loved both of her daughters. Guilt would permeate her like a gray fog. She'd shut her eyes and imagined leaving Ben, but she knew that Kim still wouldn't forgive her. Like her sister, Stacy wasn't sure she could ever stop loving Ben, even if it was her choice.

Some days it was easy to justify her right to be with Ben. Those were the days that she felt that her sister was wrong and selfish. Why did Kim have the right to deny Stacy her happiness?

Stacy wondered how many years before Kim became the antagonist. Stacy wanted to be the protagonist of her own love story. She feared that, on her sixty-fifth birthday, her mother would still be telling the story.

"The table was set, and dinner was ready..."

Word count 812

Thanks for reading.