My sister announced in the family group chat that I was officially banned from the reunion—and made it clear no one was to tell me where it would be. I didn’t argue. I didn’t reply. I simply opened the location pin… and laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth.

Not metaphorically. Not in the sentimental sense people use when they want to sound wounded at parties. I mean physically, strategically, beautifully invisible. I am sitting in the driver’s seat of a rented silver sedan with tinted windows, parked far enough down the lane to be mistaken for a contractor, a lost tourist, or a neighbor’s guest, but close enough to see every smug, entitled detail of what is happening in my driveway.

My driveway.

Even thinking those words sends a cool pulse through me, a private current of satisfaction so precise it feels engineered.

The engine is off. The air conditioning died five minutes ago because I shut the car down to avoid attracting attention, and the Georgia heat is doing what Georgia heat does in late afternoon—settling over everything with wet, relentless authority. It presses against the glass in heavy waves. Sweat gathers behind my knees and between my shoulder blades. The steering wheel is warm beneath my palms. The inside of the sedan smells faintly like vinyl, sunscreen, and the fast-food coffee I bought an hour ago and never drank.