bit the inside of my cheek. I remembered being 17, telling my parents I’d accepted West Point. My dad said nothing for a full minute. Then, “So, you’re choosing the barracks over the Ivy League?”

“I’m choosing purpose,” I’d said.

He shook his head and left the room. That’s what they’d been doing ever since. Leaving the room every time I showed up, every time I accomplished something. And now this.

I looked at Melissa. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. I wasn’t angry yet. That would come later. Right now, all I felt was that numb kind of ache. The one that whispers, “You were never really theirs.”