Home videos.
Family phone backups.
Social-media clips.
Old recordings.
But the longer I watched, the more I noticed things I had forgotten.
Dad mocking me.
Mom praising Elise while barely acknowledging I was in the room.
Elise making little jokes at my expense.
The dismissive looks.
The sarcastic comments.
The moments that had seemed small individually.
On video, they looked different.
Clearer.
Harder to excuse.
So I began putting them together.
Not everything.
Just enough.
The video started sweetly.
Baby pictures.
Family vacations.
Birthdays.
School plays.
But little by little, the tone changed.
A comment here.
A forgotten clip there.
A joke that didn’t sound nearly as funny when played back years later.
Then I found the clip that changed everything.
It was from Elise’s bachelorette weekend.
She apparently didn’t know the camera was still recording.
She was sitting on a balcony with a pink drink in her hand, already a little drunk.
Someone off-camera mentioned Carson.
Elise laughed.
Then she said,
“It’s not like I love Carson-love him. But he has money, and after dealing with my family all these years, I deserve something good.”
She paused.
Then laughed again.
“Especially after Ian. God, he acts like such a victim. He’s basically a side character in a movie nobody wants to finish.”
I stared at the clip for a long time.
I almost deleted it.
