Chapter 1 - The Living Room
I came home from my own graduation and nobody was there to meet me.
I walked in barefoot because my heels had been killing me since the second hour of the ceremony, and I was still wearing my black gown with the wide sleeves that kept catching on everything.
My diploma folder was already in my arms, flat and black against my chest, the way you hold something when you're not sure you're allowed to be proud of it yet.
The house was quiet in that afternoon way, off-white walls and pale hardwood, the beige curtains glowing with daylight, the gray sofa sitting there like nothing had happened.
The TV was still on.
I stopped near the coffee table because I recognized the arena before I recognized the faces.
It was the Gar-Bo championship game, the one Tyler had been talking about for weeks, and there he was on the screen in his navy jersey with the number 12, holding up that gold trophy like it weighed nothing.
The crowd was on its feet.
And in the front row, right there on my television, were my father and my stepmother Diane, clapping and smiling like they had never been happier in their lives.
My father had on the pale blue button-front shirt I'd ironed for him two weeks earlier.
Diane had on her cream cardigan.
They looked proud.
They looked like parents.
I stood there in my gown with my feet cold on the floor and I couldn't make the two pictures fit together in my head.
Then I heard him behind me.
My father was actually in the room, standing a few feet away, still smiling at the TV like the game was still happening.
I looked at the screen, then at him, then back at the screen.
"You got front-row seats?"
I asked.
My voice didn't sound like mine.
It sounded small and cracked and about ten years younger than I was.
He turned toward me with that easy, relaxed smile he gets when he thinks everything is fine.
"We couldn't miss it," he said.
Just like that.
We couldn't miss it.
I felt something in my chest tear open, slow and quiet, like a seam coming apart.
"But you missed mine," I said.
The words came out before I could stop them, and once they were out, I couldn't take them back.
He blinked.
Diane looked up from the sofa, and for a second she had this faint, uncertain smile on her face, like she was waiting for me to say I was joking.
I wasn't joking.
I was standing in my graduation gown with tears already building behind my eyes, and I could feel my chin starting to shake.
"I kept looking for you," I said.
I said it quietly, because if I said it any louder I was going to fall apart completely.
"Every time somebody else's parents stood up and cheered, I looked for you.
Every single time.
And you weren't there."
Diane looked down at her hands.
She pressed her lips together and didn't say anything.
My father just stood there with his mouth slightly open, like he was waiting for a better version of the conversation to arrive.
It never did.
I hugged my diploma folder tighter against my chest, because it was the only thing in that room that felt like it belonged to me.
"I wasn't asking for a parade," I said.
"I wasn't asking for a fancy dinner.
I just wanted you to be there."
Nobody answered me.
Not one word.
So I turned around and walked out of the living room, and the silence behind me was worse than any excuse they could have given me.
