I remember the exact sound my mother made when I told her I wasn’t attending Amanda’s wedding—a sharp little laugh, like a glass being tapped with a spoon at a party you didn’t want to be at. We were in my parents’ living room in Louisville, the one that always smelled faintly of lemon polish and old carpet, the one where my childhood had been edited into a highlight reel that never included the parts where I cried. I stood near the doorway with my phone clenched in my hand, not because I needed it, but because it gave me something solid to hold while my father stared at me as if I’d confessed to a crime.

“You’re just jealous,” he said, and the disappointment in his voice felt theatrical, like he’d rehearsed it in the car on the way home from work. My mother’s laughter lingered, then she sighed and rose from the couch, wearing the soft expression she reserved for strangers’ children in grocery stores—concern draped over condescension. “Taylor, sweetheart, don’t do this,” she said, reaching for my arm, but I stepped back before she could touch me.