I (16M) don’t even know where to begin with the chaos that was my sister Tiffany’s (27F) wedding last weekend.

Here’s some background: My mom (Cassidy, 51F) was married to Jeff, Tiffany’s dad, for 5 years. They divorced when Tiffany was 3, and Jeff was barely involved in her life afterward, disappearing completely when she was 7. A few years later, my mom married my dad (Clark, 58M), and I was born 4 years after that.

Although Tiffany and I are close-ish, there’s an 11-year age gap, so we didn’t interact much growing up. My dad and Tiffany had a great relationship, and she always called him “Dad.” Jeff, on the other hand, was pretty useless, only sporadically showing up in Tiffany’s life after he left when she was 7. He resurfaced for a bit two years ago, then disappeared again.

When Tiffany got engaged, she included Jeff in wedding planning, much to my parents’ frustration. Then, she started calling my dad “Step-Dad” in public, though she still called him Dad in private. Things got tense leading up to the wedding because Tiffany wouldn’t decide who would do the traditional father-daughter roles. At the rehearsal dinner, she announced she wanted Jeff to take on all those duties, which hurt my dad deeply. My mom confronted her, saying Jeff wasn’t her real father, then revealed a paternity test that showed my dad, not Jeff, was Tiffany’s biological father.

Things exploded. Jeff freaked out, and my dad slapped him, knocking him down. Tiffany and her fiancé left in tears, and my parents decided not to attend the wedding to avoid further conflict. I ended up walking Tiffany down the aisle, but it was clear she was sad and distracted throughout the day.

Afterward, I found out from my mom that the whole situation had been about money. Tiffany’s “real” dad, Jeff, had been a lazy, unreliable man who’d been after his inheritance for years. When he found out Tiffany had already received his share of the money, he came back into her life briefly but soon disappeared again. My mom revealed that she had used Jeff for years, playing along with the lie that Tiffany was his daughter to secure the inheritance for her.

Tiffany got that $350K, which covered her college, a car, and eventually her wedding. But when Jeff returned to try to get the money, my parents hoped he’d mess up again, and when he didn’t, they exposed the truth. Jeff died from a drug overdose shortly after the wedding weekend, and Tiffany had been planning for it. Turns out, Tiffany had taken out a life insurance policy on Jeff with herself as the beneficiary.

The whole situation is a mess, and I’m still processing everything. Tiffany and my parents have been oddly casual about it all. My sister and I are still figuring things out, but I feel alienated by it all. I’m thinking about leaving for college out of state to distance myself from this chaotic family drama.