The designated joke.
Glasses clinked. Men in sharp suits chuckled and slapped Daniel on the back. Women in silk dresses hid their smirks behind their glasses.
I looked at my father.
He was laughing.
It wasn’t a small chuckle. It was a deep, smug laugh. The same laugh I heard when I fell off my bike and split my chin open. The same laugh I heard when I told him I wanted to be a coder, not a sales associate.
It was a laugh that said, “I was right about you all along.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I didn’t cry.
I was done crying.
My hands were steady. My breathing was even.
While they laughed, while they pointed, while they drank to my failure, I was counting seconds.
I was focused on the tall oak doors at the entrance of the ballroom.
Three. Two. One.
The door would open soon.
I knew because I was the one who had sent the invitation.
And when it did, Daniel’s beautiful, shiny empire of lies would come crashing down.
Growing up, there were two children in the Nolan house.
There was Daniel.
And then there was me.
Daniel was the golden boy. He was Dad’s pride, Mom’s echo. He was the family’s walking success story. He got the good grades, the first car, the college scholarship, the front-and-center spot in every family photo.
He was the one my father talked about at barbecues.
“My son, the genius,” he would say. “My son, the leader.”
And me?
I was the experiment that didn’t work.
I was the ghost at the dinner table. I was too quiet, too sensitive, too much. I was the one who liked math instead of parties. I was the one who locked myself in my room to take apart old computers while Daniel was outside winning.
Every holiday was the same.
Daniel would get a new laptop for his future.
I would get a gift card to a clothing store with a note from my mother.
“Maybe you could try to look nicer, Haley.”
Every dinner was a performance.
Daniel would talk about his debate team, his internship, his brilliant future. My father would listen, his eyes bright.
“And you, Haley?” my father would ask, not really looking at me. “Still playing with those toys?”
“I’m learning to code, Dad.”
“Right,” he’d say, and turn back to Daniel. “So about that internship…”
