(Yep, it’s January, so time to start up our yearly Ray Bradbury challenge! Read one short story, one poem, and one essay each day, and write a short story each week. Papa Ray says that you can’t write 52 bad stories. Challenge Accepted! And welcome to Sucky Story Sunday, Week 1)

So tell me, Redditors, am I overreacting?

My (F 40) husband’s (M 42) sister (F27) was getting married and asked if we would host the wedding. My husband, we’ll call him Dave, is the manager of a large horse farm and there are occasional  events out there. Dave got permission from the owners and set a date. 

Fast forward to the rehearsal dinner. It’s us, the bride and groom (Sara and Kevin) and the four bridesmaids with plus ones, the four groomsmen, some with dates, and other assorted family. Dave takes everyone out to tour the barns and meet the horses, which is usually a popular thing here. During the tour, I joked that one of the horses may have an “apple problem,” and everyone laughed, but one of the groomsmen just glared at me.

 After a few minutes, he was still staring, so I got closer to Sara and asked her how Kevin knew the guy. They were policemen together, here in town. Kevin eventually moved to a larger city, but this guy ran into some problems and Kevin felt bad and helped him get a deputy job in another county. Sara knew that I was a 911 operator. “Maybe you worked together sometime back then.” Maybe.

After dinner, the groomsman came up to me and said he knew my voice. “You do 911, right?”

“Yes, did we have a case together?”

“Kind of. I wasn’t on the call, but I heard you on the recording in the courtroom.”

I had to think. “They play them for pretty violent cases, like homicides, or domestic violence. Did they convict the guy?”

He stiffened. “You’re one of those females, aren’t  you? Always assumes it’s a man?”

“I’m sorry, was it a woman?”

Before I could think, I was on the ground, pain radiating from my cheek.

“Damn bitch, taking her side. Yeah, there was a conviction, they put me in jail for a year. Lost my career. All for a one time thing.” He kicked my leg, then walked away.

Dave came over and asked what was going on, why was my face swelling up. I told him that Sara needed to cancel the wedding, that her fiance was helping a really bad guy, and birds of a feather and all. He said he would talk to her, but maybe I was being a bit extreme. Kevin seemed like a nice guy. I just about lost it, and asked if he was going to do anything about the dude who literally punched me at our own place. He said that he wanted to just ignore that, it was Sara’s wedding and he wanted everything perfect. He said I should just chill out and everything would be over in 24 hours.

Am I Overreacting?