She swallowed hard. “I thought,” she admitted, “that if you weren’t showing off, it meant you didn’t have anything to show.”
“That’s not how I live,” I said. “I never wanted applause. I wanted purpose.”
My mother’s eyes filled again. “I’m trying to understand,” she whispered.
“Then keep trying,” I said. “And don’t make it my job to convince you I’m worth loving.”
She nodded, the message landing with the weight it deserved.
The next morning, headlines popped up anyway.
Not about the reception itself—this part had been kept quiet—but about Daniel and me. A grainy photo had surfaced from the wedding, taken from across the lawn. The angle caught Daniel’s hand at my back, my face turned up toward him, a moment that looked intimate even through pixels.
Speculation exploded like wildfire. Who is she? What does she do? Is this serious?
My phone buzzed nonstop. Coworkers texted. Old classmates messaged. People I barely remembered from college suddenly wanted coffee.
At my office, the receptionist looked at me like I’d walked in wearing a different skin.“Hey,” my supervisor said when I reached his door. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, though my stomach felt like it was full of sparrows.