Anything but the curtain.
Anything but the picture forming in my head.
The girls keep talking.
About wardrobe.
About upgrades.
About “soft launch energy.”
And each phrase lands softer than shouting, which somehow makes it worse.
“My mom literally took me shopping that weekend,” Isa says. “Like, full emergency mission.”
A girl laughs. “No.”
“Yes. Beverly Hills-level intervention. New dresses, new heels, that whole thing.”
“Not the arsenal.”
“The arsenal,” Isa says, unashamed now. “The self-tanner. The gloss. The perfume. All of it to lock down Vale before the holiday season.”
The other girls are eating this up.
I press the cold ice sleeve to my forearm just to have something freezing against my skin.
One girl says, “Your mother is terrifying.”
Isa sighs again, but there’s affection in it. “She’s a Texas debutante. They all think they’re raising daughters for legacy deals with good hair.”
A pause.
Then, quieter:
“And honestly? She did tell me to stop being stupid and go after what I wanted.”
That lands differently.
The room shifts.
The laughter softens.
One of the girls says, “Okay, that part I respect.”
“Same,” another agrees.
“Because you did want him.”
I can’t see Isa’s face, but I can hear the smile leave her voice just a little when she answers.
“Yeah, who wouldn’t.”
Apparently, me.
That’s the part that hurts.
Not the mother.
