ADVERTISEMENT
Below that, the tone shifted hard. My mom’s messages ran in anxious blocks, talking about giant screens over the arena and people turning to stare when my name appeared. My dad had written about strangers asking if they were related to me.
Added comments about how proud they felt, how unbelievable it all was. Blair’s texts were shorter, clipped, full of exclamation marks that made everything look like a performance for an invisible crowd. I read each message slowly.
No one mentioned the fact that they had chosen a concert over being in the room. They wrote about shock and pride and disbelief, as if the only thing that mattered was how dramatic the reveal had been. For a moment, an old reflex flared.
The instinct to smooth things over and make everyone feel better. I could almost hear myself typing out reassurances, explaining the project in simple terms, shifting the focus away from what they had done and toward how exciting the future looked. My thumbs hovered above the keyboard while that version of the conversation played out in my head.
Instead, I locked the screen and lowered the phone. My team was waiting back at the table, caught between celebration and the tiredness that follows a long campaign. Selma lifted an eyebrow when she saw my face and my grip on the device.
I shook my head once, not ready to unpack it, and let myself be pulled into the small practical tasks of the evening. Finishing the group photo. Thanking the organizers.
Figuring out which ride share line to stand in outside the hotel. By the time I reached my apartment, the city had started to quiet. I set the plaque on the counter, kicked off my shoes, and finally opened the phone again.
The unread badges had multiplied. Alongside the family thread were messages from distant relatives, old classmates, neighbors from the culde-sac where I grew up. Links to news clips sat under their notes with captions about how wild it was to see my face during a night out on the strip.
Back in the family chat, the tone had shifted again. The frantic shock of the first wave had cooled into something more calculated. My mom was asking if the local news might want to talk to them about what it had been like to raise such a dedicated daughter.
My dad wondered out loud if the city would be interested in a story about the neighborhood where I came from. Blair floated the idea of posting a throwback picture of us as kids with a caption about always believing in me. I scrolled until I reached the point where their new plan sat directly above the lines where they had brushed off the invitation.
ADVERTISEMENT
