Of course, I did try to give his sisters a chance, but it seemed that every time I started to think to myself, ‘Oh, they aren’t that bad,’ they would do something to the contrary and we were right back at square one.
One night, not long after I had moved in with Guy, and when we lived with Kayley, Guy and I were enjoying a quiet night at home alone. It was a Saturday, and all three sisters were at one of their school friend’s wedding. One of the sisters, Katlyn, was even a bridesmaid. Just as Guy and I were settled down to an early dinner, the three sisters burst in the door, screaming all sorts of blue murder and plonking themselves down on the lounge chairs in their high heels and floral dresses. I remember at the time feeling a bit like Cinderella, as I started to clean up after dinner and the three of them sat around bitching and moaning to Guy about their day. Now, when I heard the story, I nearly cried—not because something horrible had happened to those three girls, but because I take friendship very seriously and had so much empathy for the poor bride who had gotten married that day that it was almost overwhelming.
The story went a bit like this: Katlyn, who was bridesmaid that day, the sister who particularly did not like me, had arrived at the bride’s house early, like any other good bridesmaid, to ensure she was there in time for makeup and hair. At that point in the story, I should imagine the bride’s description of events would differ significantly from Guy’s sisters’, but this is what I was told had happened. After being bullied by both the bride and the bride’s mother, Katlyn was not allowed to be in any of the pictures as she was ‘prettier than the bride’ and ‘looked better than her.’ Now, although Katlyn was the prettiest out of the three sisters, I, like any sane person, definitely did not believe that version of events. Later, of course, I saw the truth on Facebook about how Katlyn had been a spoilt little bitch all morning, refusing to smile for the cameras and instead pouting, with hands on hips, like some sort of porn star / five-year-old child, and so was essentially asked by the photographer not to be in the photos. As I was told later, she had apparently also informed the bride that her dress was tacky and looked cheap and had been a general obnoxious little brat all morning.
When I was informed of the bride’s version of events later that weekend, I instantly believed her, and although other people seemed to be shocked about the sisters’ behaviour, I, of course, had experienced it a number of times before, when they felt like people weren’t paying them enough attention or they weren’t the centre of the universe. Now Katlyn, like the other two sisters, claimed to have an intolerance to every damn thing you could imagine, including chilli, spices, pepper, herbs, fruit, chocolate, sauces and dust (well, maybe not dust, but the list she gave me was just as ridiculous) to name a few. If you ask me, however, those intolerances were more like panic attacks, which would often occur when they were not getting enough attention. But, of course, that is just my opinion, based on what I had observed over the years.
So, that morning, when all the bridesmaids were ready, they were hurried into a limousine so they could be transported to the church following behind the blushing bride’s car. Katlyn started the next part of the story with ‘you will never guess what they did next,’ ‘it was just awful, I thought I was going to die’ and ‘I swear she was trying to kill me,’ so I imagined some sort of bridesmaid massacre involving knife-wielding maniacs, lots of blood and a bride gone crazy. Instead, I was told the bitch of a bride actually dared to have champagne and canapés served (the bride had gone to an extra effort to make sure all ingredients were within Katlyn’s diet demands of cause) in the limousine on the way to the church. Have you ever heard of such a despicable act? I sarcastically thought to myself. Champagne and canapés!
Of course, instead of just staying calm, not causing a scene on her friend’s big day, and most important of all, just NOT EATING ANYTHING (well, duh!), Katlyn demanded that the car stop, jumped out in hysterical tears and refused to go any further, screaming about attempted murder. Now, if I had been one of the other bridesmaids, I would have made the limousine drive off without her and that would have been that. But instead, when the bride got to the church, she had to wait outside for twenty-five minutes for her very late, very stressed out bridesmaids to appear, who had thrown out all the canapés and even the champagne onto the side of the road. At that point, I made a mental note to myself to have a chilli / spice themed wedding so that, unfortunately, none of the sisters would be able to attend.
After a short explanation to the bride by the other distressed bridesmaids, Katlyn followed her childhood friend down the aisle, making sexual and explicit faces behind her for the entire congregation to see. She then stood there for the next forty-five minutes while the ceremony took place, laughing and joking silently with her two sisters in the audience, causing a complete scene in front of hundreds of people. All three sisters started to tell me how members of the congregation had been tutting, and at one point the vicar had stopped the vows and given her the ‘devil’s look.’ I started to feel a little sick. After all, at first it had just been Katlyn and her ‘friends.’ Surely they knew what she was like? But then she had shown the whole bridal party what a bitch she was and had completely embarrassed both herself and the bride.
After the ceremony, Katlyn refused to travel with the bridal party and instead got a lift with her two sisters. However, once at the reception, the story continued. By that point, the mother of the bride had understandably had enough of the Katlyn’s attitude (if you ask me, the bride and her family must have had the patience of saints to get that far!) and approached her outside of the reception hall where all the guests had gathered. She started to tell her quietly what a spoilt, horrible, nasty little brat of a girl she was and maybe she should just leave if she couldn’t be happy for her daughter on her big day. I guess she assumed Katlyn would see the error of her ways and be the friend she should have been to the bride on her special day, irrelevant of her own insecurities, jealousy or bad mood. But instead, Katlyn apparently said nothing, but turned and stormed past a number of guests while she gathered her sisters to leave. Then, on her way out, she grabbed a very large vase, nearly as tall as she was, that was a centrepiece in the entrance hall of the hotel, and pushed it over in a spoilt little brat rage. It smashed into a thousand pieces, while all the other guests, including the bride, turned to look in complete shock. As she sat in front of me relaying the story over and over again, seemingly quite proud of herself, I felt not only disgust for her but an awful dread right in the pit of my stomach.
At the end of the day, I had to entertain the fact that Guy was directly related to that girl; they were ultimately cut from the same cloth.
A few months after that incident, it was January and I had just returned from a very lovely Christmas in the UK with my family. It was the first time I had seen Guy’s mum and dad since before Christmas and so, obviously, the first thing I asked over lunch was the standard, ‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’
At that very moment, Guy’s mother burst into tears, telling me, through sobbing tears, how Katlyn had ruined Christmas day for the entire family by screaming at her and the rest of the family for no apparent reason apart from the fact that the day wasn’t all about her. I started to feel that sick feeling in my stomach again, and from that day on, I stopped trying to be friends with those three girls. In fact, even though it made Guy’s and my relationship nearly impossible, I avoided them at every opportunity. They were poison that I did not want anywhere near me, or more importantly, near my friends and family. ‘People can inspire you or drain you – pick wisely.’ — Unknown.