“You’re intelligent,” he said. “But you don’t stand out the same way. We don’t see the same long-term return.”
I stared at him.
My mother kept her eyes lowered. She did not interrupt. She did not disagree. Sadie had already pulled out her phone and started texting, the corners of her mouth lifted in excitement.
“So I’m just supposed to figure it out on my own?” I asked.
My father gave the smallest shrug.
“You’ve always been independent.”
That was it.
No discussion. No comfort. No promise that they would help in some other way. Just a decision delivered like it had been made long before I entered the room.
That night I sat in my bedroom listening to laughter drift up from downstairs while I stared at the ceiling in the dark. I expected to cry. I expected anger. Instead, I felt something far quieter and much sharper than either of those things.
