Part One

“There’s just no room for you, Georgia. You understand, right?”

My mother’s voice floated through the phone light and breezy, like she was telling me about the weather, not excluding me—again—from a family vacation. I stood in my tiny Denver kitchen, one hand braced on the edge of the counter, the other clamped so tightly around my phone that my knuckles ached. That familiar tightness spread across my chest, like someone had hooked a wire around my ribs and was slowly twisting.

“The house in Hawaii only has four bedrooms,” she went on, cheerful, efficient, like she was reading off a grocery list. “Your father and I need one, obviously. Then there’s your sister and Brian, and the kids each need their own space now that they’re getting older. You know how McKenzie gets when she has to share with her brother.”

I stared at the magnet-covered fridge in front of me. The cheesy Colorado postcard Danielle’s daughter had drawn over with crayons. The pizza coupon I never used. The photo strip of me, Danielle, and Cole making faces in a photo booth three New Year’s Eves ago. My life. My little, normal, responsible life in Denver.

My name is Georgia, I am twenty-seven years old, and in that moment I felt about twelve.

I’ve been a regional sales director for a medical equipment distribution company for almost two years now—a job I fought for, bled for, cried over. I live alone in a modest one-bedroom apartment with a view of a brick wall and a sliver of sky. I pay my own bills on time. I have health insurance, a 401(k), and a plant I’ve kept alive for nine whole months.

I am, by pretty much any adult measure, functional.

And until my mother said those words—“There’s just no room for you”—a small, stupid part of me still believed my family would eventually see that. That they’d notice I’d turned into a real person while they were busy orbiting around my sister, Vivien.

“What about the couch?” I heard myself ask, voice trying to sound casual and landing somewhere near pathetic. “Or I could get a hotel nearby and just meet up with everyone during the day.”

Please, I didn’t say. Please just say you want me there.

My mother sighed, long and theatrical, a sound I’d been hearing my entire life. The I-can’t-believe-you’re-making-this-difficult sigh. “Honey, that would just be awkward. Besides, the whole point is family bonding time. If you’re staying somewhere else, it defeats the purpose.”

I almost laughed. The purpose.

I wanted to tell her that excluding your daughter defeated the purpose way more than putting her on a pull-out sofa. I wanted to say that I would happily sleep on the floor, in a closet, on a balcony, in the goddamn driveway, if it meant one week—one—where I wasn’t an afterthought.

But I’d learned my lesson years ago: arguing with my mother was like trying to hold water in cupped hands. No matter how hard I tried, everything slipped through her fingers and onto the floor. She would forget my words, or rearrange them, or fold them into a story where she was hurt and I was unreasonable.

“We’re also doing Lake Tahoe in February,” she added, like she was offering me a consolation prize from the clearance bin. “Maybe by then we can figure something out.”

“How many bedrooms does that house have?” I asked, knowing I was about to step into a familiar trap and unable to help myself.

A pause. “Five. But your sister invited her in-laws this time. You know how close she is with Brian’s parents. They’re practically family.”

Practically family. Unlike me, her actual daughter.

I swallowed. “Right,” I said, voice flat, unbreakable as glass—if glass could crack down the middle at the slightest touch. “Well. I hope you all have a wonderful time.”

“Oh, we will,” she chirped. “I’ll send you pictures. And Georgia? Maybe you should start saving up for your own vacation. You work so hard. You deserve a nice getaway.”

The call ended with the little metallic click that somehow managed to sound like a door closing in my face.

I stood in the kitchen for a long time after that, phone still in my hand, the late afternoon light slanting in through the small window over the sink. Dust motes drifted lazily in the beam, unconcerned, unbothered, indifferent.

I thought about calling her back. I imagined myself demanding an explanation, forcing her to say out loud the thing I’d known since childhood: Vivien was the priority. I was the footnote.

But the mental script played out like it always did. Mom saying I was too sensitive. That she was doing her best. That “things are complicated” now that Vivien had kids. That it wasn’t personal.

It always felt personal.

I moved on autopilot, walking to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of cheap red wine. I poured a glass that was generous in the way bartenders never are and took a long sip, waiting for the warmth to spread through my chest and numb the edges.

As I lowered the glass, my phone screen lit up on the counter beside me. A new email notification. HR: Year-End Performance Bonus Distribution.

I almost ignored it. HR emails usually meant some boring policy update, a reminder to complete a training module about cybersecurity or ergonomic seating. But my job had trained me to jump at any communication that might involve money.

I tapped the screen and opened the email.

Three paragraphs down, my eyes stuttered over the numbers. Then went back. Then went back again.

Bonus Amount: $55,000.00. Deposit date: within two weeks.

I read the line so many times the words stopped feeling like English. Fifty-five thousand dollars. Not five. Not fifteen. Fifty-five.

My hand shook, and my wineglass clinked softly against the countertop as I set it down.

I had expected something. Maybe ten grand, fifteen if the universe was feeling generous. I’d exceeded my targets by a wide margin this year, driving our region’s numbers even while the economy threw curveballs left and right. I’d taken the impossible accounts, the doctors who didn’t want to switch suppliers, the hospital administrator who yelled at everyone. I had earned that bonus.

But I had not expected this.

For one foolish second, my first instinct was to call my mother back. To say, Guess what? I can pitch in for the Hawaii rental. I can help you get something bigger. We can add a bedroom. We can make room.

I could almost hear her imagined response in my head, bright and approving: That’s so generous of you, honey. You’re such a team player.

I gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles white. Something inside me—something that had been slowly, quietly shifting for years—clicked into place.

No.

They didn’t want me there. If they did, they would’ve found a way. They could have rented a house with a sofa. They could have said, “We’ll squeeze in, it’ll be cozy.” My father could have shared a room with the grandkids. Vivien could have made a sacrifice for once in her life.

They hadn’t. And no amount of money was going to buy me a spot in a life where I was convenient only when I needed to be invisible.

I picked up my phone again, but this time I didn’t scroll to “Mom.” I scrolled to “Danielle.”

“Hey, stranger,” she answered on the second ring, her voice warm, familiar. “I was just thinking about you.”

Danielle has been my best friend since we were twenty and broke and sharing a dorm room that smelled like Ramen and laundry detergent. Over the past decade she’s become more family to me than my actual family ever was. She and her husband Cole have never once made me feel like I was an imposition, or a backup plan, or a piece that didn’t quite fit.

Their five-year-old daughter, Rosie, calls me “Auntie Georgia” with such pure, unfiltered affection that it sometimes makes my throat ache.

“Are you busy?” I asked, hearing the tightness still in my voice and trying to smooth it out.

“Cole’s putting Rosie to bed. Give me, like, twenty minutes and I can do video. Everything okay?”

I looked at the email still glowing on my screen. Fifty-five thousand dollars. The Hawaii house with “no room.” Vivien’s kids who each “needed their own space.”

I felt something unfamiliar tug at the corner of my mouth. A smile.

“Actually,” I said slowly, “I think everything is about to be great.”

Growing up as Vivien’s little sister meant growing up in her shadow. Everyone has a story like that, right? The sibling who shines brighter, laughs louder, takes up more space.

Vivien is three years older than me, with the kind of glossy, effortless charm that made adults coo and teenage boys trip over their words. She was a cheerleader, then homecoming queen, then the girl who got engaged with the perfect ring in the perfect photo with the perfect caption: “I said yes to my best friend.”

I liked books. And silence. And walking alone. I liked things that didn’t photograph well.

Vivien had a parade of boyfriends and a calendar of social events. I had a handful of ride-or-die friends and a GPA that quietly stacked itself into scholarship money. Our parents never said they wished I were more like her. They didn’t have to. It was in every comparison, every “Why don’t you…?” every sigh when I didn’t take the path they had mentally laid out for me.

The vacation stuff had started early, in ways I told myself didn’t matter.

When Vivien graduated from college, my parents took her to Europe for two weeks. “Her dream trip,” my mother called it, voice syrupy with pride. Photos of Vivien in front of the Eiffel Tower, Vivien in Rome, Vivien with her arm threaded through my father’s while my mother captioned everything with things like “So proud of our girl” and “Once in a lifetime!”

Two years later, when I graduated, they handed me a check for five hundred dollars at lunch.

“Put it toward your student loans,” my dad had said. Practical. Efficient.

“That will really help,” Mom added. “You’ve always been so sensible.”

Sensible. Not dreamy. Not special. Just…sensible.

When Vivien got engaged, they all flew to Napa for a weekend celebration. I watched the Instagram stories: the vineyard tour, the matching flannels, the posed shot of Brian down on one knee that was clearly staged after the fact. When I got my first big promotion at work, my mother texted, Good for you, honey. No punctuation mark. No call.

And then Vivien had kids, and the center of our family universe shifted officially and irrevocably.

After McKenzie and Tyler were born, everything revolved around school schedules and soccer games and “what would be fun for the grandkids.” Vacations became “family trips” that were really “grandchildren trips.” Everything got filtered through a new lens: Is this good for the kids? Is this convenient for the kids? Will the kids like it?

Somewhere in that shuffle, my place at the table started shrinking.

Three years ago, my parents rented a beach house in Florida for Thanksgiving. I requested time off, drove twelve hours straight with gas-station coffee sloshing in my stomach, and arrived sunburned from my left arm being in the window light all day.

I lugged my suitcase inside, exhausted, and looked around for my room.

“Oh,” my mother had said, like she’d just remembered something mildly inconvenient. “We put you in the laundry room. You don’t mind, right? You’re so easygoing about these things.”

Vivien and Brian had the master suite with the king bed and the balcony overlooking the ocean. My parents took the second bedroom. The kids had the third. Vivien’s best friend from high school and her husband—“they just happened to be in town!”—had the fourth.

I got the laundry room: a narrow space with cold tile floors, shelves stacked with detergent, and an air mattress set up between a hamper and the dryer.

That night, at six a.m., the dryer kicked on with a roar an inch from my head, tumbling someone’s damp beach towels while I stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry.

I told myself it would be different next time.

Two years ago, it was Tennessee. A big lodge in the mountains for a family reunion. I’d Venmoed my share of the rental months in advance and answered the group texts with way too many exclamation marks, trying to prove I was excited, too.

When I arrived, dragging my suitcase up the wooden steps, my mother’s face did this little twisty thing when she saw me.

“Oh,” she said again. “We gave your room to Brian’s brother. He decided to come last minute, and he had such a long flight from California. We figured you wouldn’t mind. You only drove from Colorado.”

Brian’s brother. Practically family.

There were no spare couches. No fold-out chairs. Every corner was stuffed with another relative or relative-adjacent person. I spent three nights sleeping in my car in the gravel parking lot, setting an alarm so I could sneak into the lodge early to shower before anyone woke up.

I could have said something. I could have demanded the room I’d already paid for. But I pictured my mother’s face, hurt and wounded. I pictured being labeled difficult. Dramatic.

So I picked the path of least resistance: I made myself small. Again.

Last Christmas, they’d outdone themselves.

My parents announced they were “hosting a special holiday celebration” and expected everyone to attend. I booked an expensive Christmas-week flight, arranged coverage at work, and showed up on December 23 with a suitcase full of gifts and a knot of hope in my stomach.

When I walked through the front door, the house was a mess of half-wrapped presents and Pinterest-level decorations. But the vibe was…off. No one looked particularly happy to see me.

“Oh, Georgia,” my mother said, eyes widening. “Didn’t Vivien tell you? We moved the big celebration to the 26th. The kids have a ski trip with Brian’s parents on Christmas Day, so we wanted to do our gift exchange when everyone would be here together.”

No one had told me. My return flight was the morning of the 26th. Changing it would’ve cost a fortune I didn’t have.

“You can still stay for Christmas Eve dinner,” Mom said, as if she were offering me a tremendous favor. “And maybe some of Christmas morning, before we do the big exchange.”

So I spent Christmas Eve watching my niece and nephew open “just a few early presents,” sitting off to the side with a paper plate on my lap, smiling when they barely glanced at the book I’d picked out with care. I spent Christmas morning eating breakfast alone at the kitchen table because everyone else was “resting up” for their ski trip.

I flew home on December 26th while my family gathered for the “real” celebration I’d never quite been invited to.

When I told Danielle about it later, she was angrier than I knew how to be.

“Why do you keep going back there?” she’d demanded that night, pacing my living room while I sat on the couch, hollow. “They treat you like an optional add-on, like an emotional carry-on they’d check if they could.”

“They’re my parents,” I’d said weakly. “That’s…what you do. You show up.”

“No,” she’d said, stopping in front of me, eyes fierce. “What you’re supposed to do is surround yourself with people who actually want you there. Who make room for you—literally and figuratively. Family isn’t just blood, Georgia. Family is the people who show up for you.”

I’d cried then. Ugly, shoulder-shaking sobs that I tried and failed to control. Danielle sat down beside me and wrapped her arms around me and held on until the shaking stopped.

Later, she and Cole insisted I come over for New Year’s Eve. Their celebration was small: homemade appetizers, a few neighbors, a Nerf-gun battle at nine p.m. Rosie fell asleep on my chest at 11:45, woke up just in time for the countdown, and at midnight she flung her arms around my neck and whispered, “Happy New Year, Auntie Georgia. I love you to the moon.”

That? That was what family felt like.

Now, standing in my kitchen with a fifty-five-thousand-dollar bonus burning a hole in my inbox and my mother’s latest dismissal ringing in my ears, I finally understood something.

I couldn’t keep trying to earn space in a family that had decided I was optional.

I needed to prove—to myself, more than to anyone—that I deserved better than laundry rooms and parking lots and afterthought invitations. That I could create my own memories, my own traditions, my own version of “family vacation” that didn’t involve begging for scraps.

And I was going to do it big.

Twenty minutes later, my laptop was propped open on the kitchen table, my wine refreshed, my heart pounding.

Danielle’s face appeared on the screen, framed by the soft chaos of her living room. There was a bookshelf behind her, a plant hanging lopsidedly in the corner, and a pink unicorn backpack tossed over the arm of the couch.

“Okay, spill,” she said. “You sounded weird on the phone. Good weird, but weird.”

I took a breath. “Mom called.”

Her expression darkened instantly. “What did she do?”

I told her. The Hawaii trip, the four bedrooms, the casual way Mom had said, “There’s just no room for you.” The Lake Tahoe trip in February with five bedrooms and “practically family” in-laws. All of it. By the time I finished, the muscles in Danielle’s jaw were tight.

“And then,” I added, tipping my laptop so she could see my screen, “I got this.”

She leaned closer. Her eyebrows shot up. “Holy—” She broke off, eyes flicking toward the hallway, where Rosie was presumably sleeping. “Fifty-five thousand dollars? Georgia. That’s…that’s huge.”

“I keep checking to make sure it’s real,” I admitted. “Like any second they’re going to send a follow-up that says, ‘Oops, sorry, decimal point error, we actually meant fifty-five dollars and a Starbucks gift card.’”

She huffed. “It’s real. You killed it this year. You earned that.”

“I guess.” I stared at the number again. “My first thought was to call Mom back. To offer to help pay for a bigger house in Hawaii so there’d be room for me. I got as far as imagining myself saying it out loud and then I just…stopped.”

“Because that’s insane,” Danielle said flatly. “You were going to pay to be allowed to come on a trip you were already excluded from?”

“Yep.” I tried to make a joke of it. “The privilege of an air mattress in a hallway might’ve run me thirty grand.”

Danielle shook her head, eyes softening. “You’re not pathetic,” she said, reading my mind like she always did. “You’ve just been conditioned to accept crumbs when you deserve the whole damn bakery.”

Despite everything, I laughed. “That is the most Danielle metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, it’s true.” She propped her chin on her hand. “So what are you going to do instead?”

The words I’d been turning over in my head since the email arrived rose up, clear and solid.

“I want to take a trip,” I said. “A real one. Not a long weekend in a chain hotel or some budget package deal to a place with sad scrambled eggs. I want to go somewhere spectacular. Somewhere I’ve always dreamed about. And I want to take people who actually want to spend time with me.”

Danielle blinked. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“I want to take you and Cole and Rosie,” I said, the decision solidifying as I spoke. “I want to book one of those overwater bungalows in Bora Bora I’ve been stalking on Instagram since forever. The kind with glass floors and private decks and, like, actual turquoise water. I want to wake up and jump straight into the ocean and drink champagne on a deck and—more than anything—I want to feel like I belong there.”

For a second, she just stared at me. Then she lifted a hand to her face, swiped under her eye, and I realized she was crying.

“You can’t be serious,” she whispered. “Georgia, that would cost—”

“I know,” I cut in gently. “I’ve already looked at a few things. My bonus can cover the whole trip, and I’ll still have money left for savings and taxes and being responsible. Flights, resort, food, all of it.”

“Still,” she protested weakly, “we can’t let you just—”

“You’re not letting me do anything,” I said. “I’m asking you. Please. You and Cole and Rosie are my family. You’ve been my family for years. You’re the people who actually made room for me, every single time, without asking me to sleep next to the dryer.”

Her laugh came out wet and broken. “You’re really sure about this?”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life,” I said, and as I said it, I realized it was true.

“Hold on,” she said suddenly. “Cole needs to hear this.” Her voice dropped away from the mic as she shouted, “Cole! Come here!”

A moment later, Cole’s face appeared beside hers, his dark hair mussed, a smear of what might’ve been applesauce on his T-shirt.

“What’s going on?” he asked, scanning my face. “You okay?”

“Georgia’s trying to change our lives,” Danielle said, half laughing, half crying. She quickly summarized my idea. Bora Bora. Overwater bungalows. Everything covered.

Cole’s expression shifted from confusion to shock to something like awe.

“Georgia,” he said slowly, “are you serious? That’s…an enormous gift.”

“It’s not just a gift,” I said. “It’s…a line in the sand. I spent my whole life trying to wedge myself into places that weren’t built for me. This time I want to build the place. I want to show myself—once, unequivocally—that I can choose joy. And I want to share it with the people who have always picked me first.”

Cole looked at Danielle, then back at me. “If you’re sure…then yes. Hell yes. We’d be honored.”

Danielle laughed through her tears. “We will fight you on paying for everything, just so you know. Like, at least let us cover snacks.”

“You can buy me a piña colada at the airport,” I said. “That’s my final compromise.”

We spent the next hour talking logistics. Dates that worked with Rosie’s school schedule and my sales cycles. How long they’d be comfortable traveling with a five-year-old. Whether Rosie would wear a life jacket without turning it into a battle of wills.

“Also,” Danielle said, eyes glinting, “just to confirm: you did, in fact, pick the same week your family is in Hawaii?”

I felt a guilty little thrill. “That might have been a factor.”

“Good,” she said fiercely. “Let them send you a selfie in matching Hawaiian shirts. You’ll send them back a picture of a freaking overwater villa. Emotional exchange rate seems fair.”

After we hung up, I didn’t even bother switching to the couch. I stayed at the kitchen table, opened my laptop, and typed “Bora Bora overwater bungalow resort” into the search bar like my fingers had been waiting their whole life to do that.

The photos were better than my daydreams.

Lagoon water that looked fake. Villas perched on stilts like secret treehouses for grown-ups, each with a private ladder leading right into the ocean. Glass floor panels over coral reefs alive with fish. Outdoor showers surrounded by flowers. People eating dinner at little tables directly on the sand, fairy lights strung overhead.

I read reviews until my eyes blurred. I compared packages. I did math on a notepad, subtracting hypothetical taxes and responsible-adult savings from the fifty-five thousand and checking the totals twice.

When I finally clicked “Book now” on an overwater villa for four, entering my card number with trembling fingers, a surge of adrenaline shot through me so hard I almost laughed.

This was real. I was really doing this.

The confirmation email landed in my inbox a second later, all clean fonts and polite gratitude. We look forward to welcoming you.

I closed my laptop and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. The cheap light fixture above my table looked exactly the same as it had that morning. My kitchen was still my kitchen, my life still my life. But something fundamental had shifted.

For once, I wasn’t trying to squeeze into a space someone else begrudgingly offered me. I’d built my own space, thousands of miles away, anchored over water so blue it didn’t look real.

I showered, moving through my familiar bedtime routine like a sleepwalker. Brush teeth. Moisturizer. Check the lock on the front door twice. I crawled into bed, pulled the comforter up to my chin, and let my eyes close.

That night, I dreamed in turquoise.

In the dream, I was standing on the deck of the bungalow I’d only seen in photos, warm wood under my bare feet, the air soft and thick and scented with flowers I couldn’t name. Rosie was splashing in the lagoon below, shrieking with laughter as colorful fish darted around her legs. Danielle and Cole lounged in chairs nearby, holding hands and smiling like they’d never had a worry in their lives.

Far away—so far they were nothing but tiny blurs—my parents stood on a crowded beach in Hawaii. I watched them squint into the sun, looking for me in a place I never arrived. I watched them shrug and turn away toward a life that had never really had room for me in the first place.

For once, the thought didn’t hurt.

I woke up with sunlight in my eyes and a smile still on my face.

For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t the afterthought in someone else’s story.

I was the main character in my own.

And my story was headed to Bora Bora.

Part Two

The weeks between booking the trip and actually leaving felt like living in two parallel timelines.

In one, I was still regular Georgia: regional sales director, wearer of sensible flats, survivor of endless Zoom calls where people said things like “circle back” and “moving the needle.” My days were full of spreadsheets and hospital visits and politely aggressive negotiations with people who did not want to switch vendors, followed by microwaved dinners and Netflix.

In the other timeline—the one that hummed just under the surface—I was someone entirely different. Someone who was going to Bora Bora. Someone who had an overwater villa with her name on it.

Those two versions of me kept bumping into each other.

I’d be sitting in a budget meeting, pretending to care about the exact percentage we were shaving off shipping costs to Kansas City, and my brain would drift into a vivid mental image of standing on a deck over the ocean, the water so clear you could see fish beneath your toes. My boss would ask a question, and I’d drag myself back, answer smoothly, then sneak a glance at my phone under the table where a countdown app cheerfully informed me: 24 days until departure.

And hovering behind both timelines was the ghost of my family, like a radio station I couldn’t quite tune out. Static, then an occasional clear line of music. Static again.

My mother texted twice in the first week after our call about Hawaii.

First: a photo of the rental listing. Four bedrooms, three baths, infinity pool. The caption: “This is the house! Can you believe that view? Your father is over the moon. The kids are so excited. We’ll have to find something this nice when we all go somewhere together someday.”

There was a pull-out couch clearly mentioned in the description. I noticed it immediately. So could she, if she wanted to.

I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard, and then set the phone face-down on the table. I did not reply.

Her second text was a running commentary on their plans. “We booked a luau Vivien found online. The kids are going to love it. There’s also a boat tour your father insists on doing. I’ll send you lots of pictures so you can live vicariously!”

Live vicariously.

I thought about sending a screenshot of my Bora Bora confirmation email with a caption that said, “No need.” Instead, I slid my phone into a drawer and closed it.

If they wanted to live in a world where I was the invisible daughter quietly scrolling through their vacation photos alone in Denver, they could. I was busy building a life that didn’t require their imagination.

Meanwhile, planning for Bora Bora turned into its own kind of therapy.

I learned that the resort required a hefty deposit, which I wired without my usual stomach-flip about large sums leaving my account. I researched travel logistics to a part of the world I’d only ever seen in ads: Denver to LAX, LAX to Papeete in Tahiti, then a short flight to Bora Bora and a boat transfer to the resort. It sounded complicated and a little intimidating, but I’d booked complicated equipment shipments on worse timelines. I could handle a few planes and a boat.

I googled things like “traveling to Bora Bora with kids,” even though Rosie thought “Polynesia” was the name of a cartoon princess. I found a kids’ snorkeling program at the resort where they put little life jackets on tiny humans and teach them to breathe through neon tubes. I bookmarked it. I located a local photographer who did family shoots in the water at sunset and saved her contact info. I made lists: sunscreen, bug spray, swimsuits that fit, not the sad ones stuffed in a drawer from six years ago.

Danielle and I talked almost every day.

“Rosie says she’s going to bring seven stuffed animals,” Danielle reported one night while she folded laundry on camera. “Cole is trying to negotiate her down to two. There’s been mention of ‘abandonment trauma.’ I honestly don’t know where she picks this stuff up.”

“Probably from you,” I said. “You were the one who told her it’s okay to have big feelings about preschool drop-off.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect her to weaponize it to sneak a third unicorn into a carry-on.” Danielle rolled her eyes, affection written in every line of her face. “She told Cole, ‘You wouldn’t understand, you’re not in touch with your inner child.’”

I laughed so hard I almost spilled my wine. “Okay, that one is definitely on you.”

“These are the monsters we’ve created together,” she said dryly. “Anyway, are you sure about all this? You seem…weirdly calm. I expected full nervous breakdown by now.”

“I’m not calm,” I said. “I’m dangerously close to vibrating out of my skin. But it’s a good kind of anxious. Like standing in line for a roller coaster instead of, I don’t know, waiting for a root canal.”

She paused, studying me. “And your parents?”

“Still sending me play-by-plays of their impending Hawaiian bliss,” I said. “I’m ignoring them.”

“I’m proud of you,” she said quietly.

I wanted to say that I still felt like a bad daughter every time I didn’t respond. That a little voice in my head whispered, You’re being mean. You’re overreacting. Just keep the peace. But I didn’t. I just nodded and took another sip of wine and let her pride in me fill the cracks where my doubt lived.

Three days before we were scheduled to fly out, my phone lit up with a call from a number I knew immediately, but almost never saw.

Dad.

My father is not the calling type. He’s the sitting in the background reading the paper while my mother narrates our lives type. If his name showed up on my phone, it usually meant something was wrong or my mother had pushed him to “handle” something.

I stared at his name for a second, then swiped to answer.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Georgia.” His voice sounded exactly like it always did: calm, slightly distant, like he was talking through a layer of glass. “Your mother tells me you haven’t been responding to her texts about our trip.”

“I’ve been busy with work,” I said, defaulting to the safest excuse I had.

“Too busy to send a simple reply?” he asked mildly. “She’s worried about you.”

The irony of that almost made me snort. She’s worried about you. Worried enough to exclude you from two vacations in a row and give your bed away to someone else. Very concerned.

“I appreciate the concern,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I’m fine. Actually, I have some exciting news.”

“Oh?” He sounded distracted, like he might be checking his emails while he talked.

“I’m going on vacation too,” I said. “Same week you’re in Hawaii, actually.”

A pause. I could almost hear him recalibrating. “Really? Where?”

“Bora Bora,” I said. “I booked an overwater villa at a resort there. My friends Danielle and Cole are coming with me. And their daughter.”

Another pause. Longer this time. “Bora Bora,” he repeated. “That sounds…expensive.”

“It is,” I said. “But I got a large bonus at work and I decided to treat myself.”

“By yourself,” he said. “With just your friends.”

I let a beat pass. “Yes, Dad,” I said. “By myself. With people who actually want to spend time with me.”

Silence crackled across the line. I hadn’t meant to say it quite that sharply, but once it was out there, I didn’t regret it. The words hung between us like a bright line on the ground.

“Georgia,” he said finally, carefully, “if this is about the Hawaii house, you know we would have included you if there was room.”

“Would you?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, sounding offended now. “You know how complicated it is with the kids, and with Brian’s parents, and—”

“There was a pull-out couch,” I cut in. “In the living room. And it’s not just Hawaii. There was ‘no room’ in Lake Tahoe. There was ‘no room’ in Tennessee when my room went to Brian’s brother. There was barely room for me in Florida; I got the laundry room while Vivien’s friend got a bedroom.”

“That’s not fair,” he said. “We’ve always done our best to—”

“I slept in my car at that Tennessee lodge,” I said quietly. “For three nights. In the parking lot. After I’d already paid my share. Because my room was given away to someone you decided was ‘practically family.’”

Silence. Then, finally, “You slept in your car?”

“Yeah,” I said. My voice shook a little, but I didn’t back down. “You didn’t notice.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

Would it have changed anything? hung in my throat like a stone.

“Because I knew how it would go,” I said instead. “Mom would cry. You’d tell me I was making things difficult. I’d be the problem. Again.”

“That’s not—”

“I’m not calling to fight,” I interrupted. “I just wanted you to know I have plans. Good ones. I’m going somewhere beautiful with people who have never once made me sleep next to a washer.”

“Georgia, this…this isn’t how families handle disagreements,” he said, sounding tired. “We should talk about this in person. When things have calmed down.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But not before my trip.”

I could almost hear him start to protest, wind up into one of his rare speeches about “respect” and “gratitude.” I didn’t give him the chance.

“Have a great time in Hawaii, Dad,” I said. “Give my love to Vivien and the kids.”

And I hung up.

I stared at my phone for a second, heart racing, then pressed and held the side button until the screen went black.

For the first time in my life, I’d ended a conversation on my terms with my parents. It felt like stepping off a ledge and realizing, mid-fall, that you might actually have a parachute.

I exhaled a shaky breath and looked around my apartment. Same old couch. Same old coffee table with a ring from an old mug I’d never quite wiped up. Same plant hanging on for dear life near the window.

“Three days,” I told the empty room. “Then it’s just me and the ocean.”

The night before our departure, Danielle showed up at my door with a bottle of white wine, a duffel bag full of packing cubes, and a Spotify playlist titled “Tropical AF.”

“Operation: Fish House,” she announced, sweeping into my apartment like a hurricane in leggings. “Let’s pack like grown-ups and not feral raccoons.”

“If you’re here, I assume that means you successfully negotiated the stuffed animals down?” I asked, taking the wine.

“Four,” she said, grimacing. “It was supposed to be two, but she lawyered us into ‘emotional support’ status for two more. Cole caved. I’m disappointed in him.”

We laid my suitcase open on the bed and dumped out the pile of clothes I’d been half-heartedly tossing there all week. Swimsuits, sundresses, shorts, two nice outfits “just in case,” more underwear than strictly necessary, because the thought of doing laundry in paradise felt like a crime.

Danielle moved through it all with the efficiency of a military quartermaster.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ve got sunscreen. Bug spray. Dramamine in case the boat ride is extra. That sarong I bullied you into buying—good. Flip-flops. One pair of decent sandals so they’ll let you into the fancy restaurant. You bringing your work laptop?”

I hesitated. “I shouldn’t,” I said. “But if something blows up…”

“If something blows up, your very capable team will handle it,” she said. “You are on vacation. Real vacation. You are not doing conference calls from the deck of an overwater bungalow like some sad LinkedIn post.”

“I hate that you’re right,” I muttered, setting the laptop aside like I was putting it in time-out.

She folded one of my sundresses and tucked it neatly into a packing cube. “Are you nervous?” she asked without looking up.

“About the flights? Not really. I’ve done long flights before.”

“Not the flights.” She glanced up, pinning me with that look she had when she was about to gently pry open my ribcage and poke around. “About…all of it. Your family. The line you just drew in the sand.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed, rolling a sock between my fingers. “I think I’m more nervous about after,” I admitted. “Like, the trip is going to be amazing. I know that. But once I come back, I can’t pretend I didn’t do this. I can’t go back to sleeping in laundry rooms and acting grateful.”

“Good,” she said immediately.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t know what that’s going to look like. For Christmas. For birthdays. For…everything.”

She set down the packing cube and came to sit beside me, shoulder warm against mine.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked.

“Always.”

“The first time Cole’s family made me feel like I didn’t belong, he cut them off for six months.”

I blinked. “What?”

“He didn’t tell you that?” she asked, surprised. “It was before the wedding. His mom said something about me ‘not being good enough’ for her son at some dinner. He lost it. Told them if they couldn’t treat me with basic respect, they didn’t belong in his life. He stopped answering calls, skipped holidays, the whole thing.”

“Six months?” I repeated.

“Yeah.” She smiled a little. “They folded eventually. His mom apologized. Like, actually apologized. We’re never going to be best friends, but she stays in her lane now. Because Cole showed her what the consequences were if she didn’t.”

I thought about that—about someone choosing you so clearly that they were willing to blow up their family status quo.

“You think I’m doing the same thing,” I said, “just…for myself.”

“I think,” she said, hooking her arm through mine, “that you’ve spent your whole life believing your presence in your family is some kind of obligation. Like you have to show up, no matter how badly they treat you. You’re finally showing them that having you is a privilege. If they can’t treat you with basic respect, they don’t get you.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “What if they don’t even care?”

Her voice softened. “Then you’re better off knowing that now than when you’re forty-five and still sleeping next to the dryer.”

We finished packing in a comfortable, companionable silence, the kind that only exists with people who’ve watched you ugly-cry and still come over with snacks.

When Danielle finally hugged me goodbye in the doorway, she held on longer than usual.

“Thank you,” she whispered into my shoulder. “For taking us with you. For trusting us with this…moment.”

“Thank you,” I whispered back, “for being worth taking.”

After she left, I stood in the doorway for a minute, looking at the neatly stacked suitcases by the wall. One for me. One for Danielle and Cole. A little one covered in stickers for Rosie.

Three suitcases. One trip. One life I was choosing on purpose.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow, I step onto a plane and fly somewhere that has never heard of my mother’s sigh.

If you’ve never gotten off a long-haul flight in a place like French Polynesia, it’s hard to explain how wrong the air feels at first.

In Denver, the air is dry and crisp, even in summer—a constant reminder that we live closer to the sky than sea level. In Tahiti, when I stepped off the plane, the air hit me like warm, scented soup. Thick, humid, heavy with flowers and salt and jet fuel. My hair instantly decided to revolt.

We navigated the airport in a half-daze, following signs and the vague directions of chipper staff members in matching shirts. Rosie clung to my hand while we waited for the short connecting flight to Bora Bora, her small body vibrating with a second wind that defied reason.

“Auntie Georgia,” she whispered, nose pressed to the window as we boarded the tiny plane, “are we on the fish now?”

“The fish?” I repeated, hoisting our carry-on onto the overhead shelf.

“The fish house,” she said. “Where the house is in the water. Like a fish. You said we’re going to the fish house.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. “Not yet. This plane is just…like an Uber for the fish house.”

She nodded like this made perfect sense.

The flight to Bora Bora was short, and when the island came into view outside the tiny window, I forgot how to breathe.

The water wasn’t one shade of blue; it was a dozen. Deep, dark navy where the ocean dropped, electric turquoise in the shallows, an almost milky jade over the coral reefs. The famous mountain in the center of the island jutted up sharp and dramatic, crowned with clouds. White lines of surf broke on a distant reef.

Rosie smashed her face against the glass. “The water is pretending to be the sky,” she murmured.

Danielle caught my eye across the aisle, a slow smile spreading over her face. “Welcome to paradise,” she mouthed.

The boat ride from the tiny airport to our resort was the part of the journey Rosie liked best. She stood between me and Cole at the open back of the boat, squealing every time the wake fanned out behind us. Tiny fish leaped occasionally, throwing sparks of silver against the surface of the lagoon.

When the resort came into view, it looked exactly like the photos. Neat lines of wooden bungalows stretched out over the water in long arms, each one perched on stilts like a tiny, perfect house. Palm trees lined the central island where the main buildings sat. The whole thing glowed in the late-afternoon light, dreamy and impossible.

A staff member greeted us at the dock with flower leis, the petals cool and damp against my neck, and glasses of champagne for Danielle and me. Rosie got a pineapple juice in a cup with a tiny umbrella and nearly exploded with joy.

We walked down a long wooden boardwalk toward the far end, the water on either side shallow and clear enough that we could see coral and fish and the occasional stingray.

“Villa 47,” our guide announced at last, stopping in front of a door with a discreet metal number. “Your home for the week.”

“Your home for the week,” I repeated under my breath, heart thudding.

The inside of the villa was somehow even more beautiful than the photos. High, vaulted ceilings with fans lazily turning overhead. White curtains drifting in the breeze from the open sliding doors. A huge bed draped in mosquito netting like something out of a fairy tale. A small sitting area with a glass coffee table that was not, in fact, a table but a panel of glass set into the floor, revealing the water and fish below.

Rosie flung herself flat on the glass, nose smushed, eyes wide. “They’re my pets,” she announced. “That one is Gerald. That one is Princess Sparkle. That one is…George.”

“I feel like George might have some copyright issues,” Cole muttered, already opening suitcases and finding places for things.

Danielle and I stepped out onto the deck.

The view stole whatever words I’d been about to say. The deck stretched out over the water, with two lounge chairs, a small table, and a little ladder at the far end disappearing straight into the lagoon. The sun sat low, turning the sky a smeared watercolor of oranges and pinks and purples. The water caught it all and tossed it back in shimmers.

“I can’t believe this is real,” I said, voice barely more than air.

“I keep waiting for someone to run out here and say, ‘Sorry, ma’am, we made a mistake. Your room is in the broom closet behind the laundry,’” Danielle said dryly.

“Don’t joke about that,” I said, laughing, but my chest ached.

She turned to look at me, serious now. “Hey,” she said. “Look around, Georgia. You did this. You made this happen. And you belong here just as much as anyone else.”

I swallowed hard, nodded, and let myself really feel it.

I belonged here.

The staff had delivered dinner to our villa that first night, setting up a low table on the deck with plates of grilled fish, rice, vegetables, and fruit that smelled like sunshine. Rosie ate mostly bread and declared the mango “weird.” Danielle and I drank champagne that tasted expensive and crisp. Cole kept shaking his head and saying, “This is insane,” like if he said it enough, someone would agree and send us home.

After Rosie fell asleep in the bed in the smaller room and Cole crashed on the other side of the villa, Danielle and I sat on the deck in the dark, feet propped on the railing. The sky was a dome of stars, thick and bright in a way that made me feel very small and very, very lucky.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever seen you,” Danielle said softly.

“I keep waiting to feel guilty,” I admitted. “Like any minute my mom is going to text from Hawaii and I’ll cave and apologize and promise to come next time.”

“Have you turned your phone on?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then you don’t owe anybody anything right now,” she said. “Just be here.”

So I was. For days.

We fell into a rhythm that felt like someone had handcrafted a schedule out of everything my life in Denver lacked. Breakfast on the deck with coffee so good it ruined diner coffee forever. Rosie naming new fish every morning as they flickered past under the glass. Snorkeling in water so clear and warm it felt fake, the world going muffled and calm when I stuck my head under, the clink and clatter of my usual thoughts disappearing.

In the afternoons, we napped. Read. I lay on the bed sometimes and watched the fish through the glass floor, the sunlight playing across their bodies, the sound of the water slapping gently against the stilts lulling me into the kind of relaxation I hadn’t let myself feel in years.

On the third morning, after a lazy breakfast, I broke my own rule.

I turned my phone on.

Notifications flooded the screen like a slot machine hitting triple sevens. Dozens of texts. Missed calls. Social media alerts. The name at the top of the cluster of messages made my stomach clench.

Mom.

“Okay,” Danielle said, appearing at my elbow with a mug of coffee. “What’s it say?”

I opened the messages app. The most recent text from my mother was from that morning.

We’re at the house! It’s even prettier than the pictures. The kids are having a blast in the pool. Wish you were here but there just wasn’t room this time. Next time for sure!

Attached was a photo.

The whole clan stood in front of a big, white house with a blue-tiled infinity pool spilling into the Pacific. My parents in the center. Vivien and Brian on one side, both in matching tropical shirts. The kids in front, holding up peace signs and making goofy faces. Brian’s parents stood beside them, smiling blandly. Everyone looked coordinated, posed. Happy.

The caption on the corresponding social media post—the one I’d been tagged in—read: “Family vacation time! Missing Georgia but there just wasn’t room this year. Next time ❤️”

The words punched the breath out of me.

Missing Georgia. As if they’d tried. As if they were devastated. As if this were an unfortunate logistical challenge instead of their choice, over and over, to prioritize everyone else.

As if I hadn’t been deliberately excluded.

My thumb hovered over the “like” button out of sheer habit. Years of training. Smile. Don’t make waves. Accept the narrative you’re given.

“Don’t you dare,” Danielle said quietly, reading my face. “Let me see.”

I handed her the phone. She studied the picture, then the caption. Her lips thinned.

“They didn’t even invite you,” she said, low and furious. “And now she’s telling the entire internet that she wishes you were there? That it’s just some misunderstanding about space?”

“It’s called ‘covering your ass,’” I said numbly.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

For most of my life, the answer would’ve been: nothing. I would’ve double-tapped the photo, maybe posted a comment like, Looks fun! Miss you guys! Then I would’ve shoved my feelings down so deep they would’ve turned into sediment.

But the turquoise water stretched out around our villa. Rosie’s giggles floated from inside, where she was apparently giving names to a new wave of fish. Danielle’s hand was warm on my shoulder.

I was not in a laundry room. I was not in a car in a parking lot.

“I think,” I said slowly, “I’m going to post my own pictures.”

Danielle’s eyes met mine. “Okay. You want help picking them?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

We spent the afternoon turning my camera roll into a story.

I picked the photo of Rosie lying flat on the glass panel, little nose pressed to it, grin so big it looked like it would split her face. The one where Danielle and Cole stood on the deck, backlit by a sunset that turned them into silhouettes holding hands. A shot of our breakfast table overloaded with fruit, a book open under my hand, my bare feet visible, relaxed.

And then I shot a video.

I started in the bedroom, panning from the bed out toward the open doors, the curtains billowing. I walked out onto the deck, the camera capturing the curve of the lagoon, the mountain on the horizon, the ladder disappearing into clear water. Rosie’s laughter floated in from inside. The only other sound was the gentle slap of waves.

It wasn’t a braggy video, or at least that wasn’t the intention. It was…proof. Evidence that I had chosen something different. That I had put myself somewhere beautiful because no one else ever would.

“You sure?” Danielle asked, watching me add a caption.

I read it out loud. “‘When you stop trying to squeeze yourself into spaces that weren’t made for you, you finally find the places where you belong. Grateful for my chosen family.’”

Danielle’s mouth curved. “That’s perfect.”

I tagged Danielle and Cole. I did not tag my parents. I did not reference Hawaii. And yet everything I wanted to say to them was embedded in those thirty seconds of shaky video and that single, quiet sentence.

My thumb hovered over “Post” for a heartbeat that felt like a year.

Then I hit it.

I set the phone down on the dresser, face-down, and put it back into airplane mode.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s enough reality for today. Who wants to go swim with fish named Gerald?”

“Now you’re talking,” Danielle said.

We spent the rest of the day in the water, my phone forgotten in the villa, the sun turning my shoulders pink. That night, after Rosie fell asleep facedown in a pile of coloring pages, I crawled into bed and let the rocking of the bungalow lull me under. No thoughts of Hawaii found me.

The next morning, though, Danielle knocked on my door with her lips pressed together and her phone in hand.

“So,” she said. “You’re kind of blowing up.”

I picked up my phone, took it off airplane mode, and watched as my notification screen tried to keep up.

Likes. Comments. Shares. Messages.

Strangers wrote things like, “This is beautiful” and “Chosen family is everything.” Old classmates I hadn’t spoken to in years messaged, “This hit me right in the gut.” Some asked, “Where is this??” and “How did you afford this??” in ways that were nosy but not malicious.

And then there were the texts.

From Mom, hours after I’d posted: Why didn’t you tell us you were going to Bora Bora? We could’ve coordinated trips! Maybe even done one big celebration together.

Another: I wish you’d told me you could afford something like this. We would’ve included you in Hawaii if we’d known money wasn’t an issue.

A third, more raw: Your father and I are very hurt by that video. It looks like you’re trying to make us feel guilty for not including you in Hawaii. That wasn’t necessary, Georgia.

My stomach twisted. I scrolled.

A text from Vivien: Mom is freaking out. Can you please call her and apologize? I don’t understand why you’re being so dramatic about this.

Another from her, later: Whatever point you’re trying to make, you’ve made it. Now fix it so we can enjoy our vacation.

A missed call from Dad. A voicemail icon blinking.

“They want me to apologize,” I said, staring at the screen.

“Of course they do,” Danielle said. “You just demonstrated—publicly—that you have a life without them. That terrifies people like that.”

“My mother says they ‘would’ve included me if they’d known money wasn’t an issue,’” I said. “Do you hear what she’s admitting?”

“That it was never about space,” Danielle said calmly. “It was about control. About you staying in your assigned role.”

I sank down on the edge of the bed. Outside, the lagoon glittered like nothing bad had ever happened anywhere.

“I’ve spent my whole life curating myself for them,” I said slowly. “Shrinking. Editing. Making sure I don’t upset the story they tell themselves. And the one time I choose to show something real, they’re more upset about how it looks than about how I feel.”

Danielle sat beside me. “What do you want to do?”

I looked at the phone again. At the stack of messages demanding a reaction, compliance, an apology.

“Nothing,” I said. “At least…not right now. I have three more days in this place, and I’m not going to spend them in a fight. They can wait.”

So I put the phone away. Again.

We spent those next days squeezing every drop of joy out of paradise. Rosie learned to snorkel with a tiny pink mask, gripping my hand while we floated over coral. Danielle and Cole had a date night that the resort staff set up for them on a separate deck with candles and a bottle of wine; I stayed back and watched cartoons with Rosie, who fell asleep with her head in my lap.

On our last night, they set up a private dinner on the beach for all of us. A low table on a blanket in the sand. Lanterns hanging from branches overhead. The surf rolling in and out just a few yards away.

Rosie made it to dessert before her eyes drooped. Cole carried her back to the villa, her arms flopped around his neck, her curls a halo against his shoulder.

Danielle and I sat in the cooling sand, our plates empty, the stars thick above us.

“What are you going to say to them when we get back?” she asked.

I thought about it. About listing every slight. Every laundry room. Every time they’d said there wasn’t room for me and I’d accepted it. I imagined writing it all out in a long email, attaching photos of my air mattress and my car in Tennessee and asking, “Do you really think this is okay?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Part of me wants to tell them everything. Lay it all out like a PowerPoint presentation. Another part of me knows it won’t matter. They’ll call me dramatic. Sensitive. Selfish.”

“So what’s the alternative?” she asked.

“I think I just…stop participating,” I said. “Stop auditioning for a part they’re never going to give me. They can think whatever they want. I can’t control their story. But I can control whether I show up for it.”

Danielle bumped her shoulder against mine. “Whatever you decide, you’re not doing it alone.”

The waves rolled in, rolled out, indifference carved into every motion.

I looked up at the sky and thought: maybe it’s okay if they never understand me. Maybe I don’t need them to.

What I needed was already sitting beside me in the sand.

Three days later, sitting on my couch back in Denver with my suitcase half-unpacked and the Bora Bora tan already starting to fade, I picked up my phone, took a deep breath, and finally scrolled all the way through the messages that had stacked up while I was busy living my life above a lagoon.

It was time to decide what kind of daughter I was going to be from now on.

And what kind of woman.

Part Three

I started with my mother’s messages.

They’d come in little bursts over the days I’d been away, the timestamps crawling forward like a slow-motion car crash.

The first few were almost normal.

So glad you made it there safely! The pictures are beautiful. I didn’t realize you were going somewhere so far. Why didn’t you tell us?!

Then, a little later:

We’re at the Hawaii house! It’s even prettier than the pictures. The kids love the pool. Vivien found a great restaurant we’re trying tonight. Wish you were here but there just wasn’t room this time. Next time ❤️

I stared at that one until the words blurred, then kept scrolling.

After the Bora Bora video, the tone shifted.

I don’t understand why you felt the need to post that. It looks like you’re trying to make us feel guilty. That wasn’t necessary, Georgia.

A few hours later:

I wish you’d told me you could afford something like this. We would have included you in Hawaii if we’d known money wasn’t an issue. We thought you were struggling.

I snorted out loud. I had my own apartment, my own car, my own health insurance. At what point had they decided “struggling” was my permanent state of being?

Another message, sharper:

Your father and I are very hurt by what you wrote about “chosen family.” It feels like a slap in the face. We have always done our best for you. You may not see it that way, but it’s cruel to imply we haven’t been there for you.

Then, the one that arrived the day before I flew home, written at 1:13 a.m. their time:

I don’t know what I did to deserve this treatment from my own daughter. I tried to raise you right. I really did. But you’ve always been difficult. I thought you’d grow out of it. I guess I was wrong.

There it was. The thesis statement of my childhood. You’ve always been difficult.

I moved on to Vivien’s.

Mom is driving me insane about this. Can you please just call her and apologize so she calms down?

Then:

Seriously, Georgia, whatever point you’re trying to make, you’ve made it. Now fix it. She’s ruining the trip for everyone.

And my personal favorite:

I don’t have time for this drama. I have two kids and a husband and a life. Some of us can’t just jet off to Bora Bora on a whim. You’re being selfish.

She’d sent that while standing in a four-bedroom house in Hawaii, wearing a matching tropical shirt with her family. The irony landed so hard I had to put the phone down for a second.

Finally, I listened to my dad’s voicemail. His voice was steady but strained.

“Georgia, this has gone far enough. Your mother is very upset. Your sister is upset. And frankly, I’m disappointed. This isn’t how we raised you to handle problems. You don’t just abandon your family and post about it on the internet. Call me back so we can discuss how you’re going to make this right.”

Make this right.

Something cold settled in my chest.

For a long minute, I stood by the window and looked out at Denver. The sky was a thin, pale blue; the tops of the buildings glowed in the late-afternoon light. Cars crawled along the street below, people going about their quiet, ordinary lives.

I had a choice.

I could do what I’d always done. Call. Cry. Explain. Apologize for hurting their feelings. Pretend Bora Bora had just been about “treating myself” and not a declaration of independence. Shrink myself back down to fit into the narrow lane they’d assigned me.

Or I could do something else.

I sat down on the couch, opened a new text thread to my mother, and started typing.

My thumbs hesitated at first, muscle memory trying to pull me back into the old script, the one where I softened every statement with a joke or a smiley face. I ignored it.

I wrote:

I’m not going to apologize for taking a vacation with people who actually wanted to spend time with me. I’m not going to apologize for being happy or for sharing that happiness online.

For years, I’ve been told there’s “no room” for me. Not in rental houses, not in family plans, not in your priorities. I slept in a laundry room so Vivien’s friend could have a bedroom. I slept in my car because my room was given away to someone who was “practically family.” I flew home before Christmas because the “real” celebration was scheduled after I’d already booked my ticket.

You may not have meant to hurt me, but you did. Over and over. And when I tried to talk about it, I was told I was being too sensitive or difficult.

So I did what you always taught me to do: I found people who wanted me. Who make room for me without my having to beg for it. That’s what my trip was about. Not trying to hurt you. Trying to stop hurting myself.

If you want to talk about that—actually talk, without guilt trips or gaslighting—I’m open to it. But I won’t be apologizing for choosing myself this time.

I read it twice. It felt like opening a window in a stale room.

I hit send.

Her reply came quicker than I expected.

You are being ridiculous and selfish. We ALWAYS included you when we could. You’re blowing a few minor misunderstandings way out of proportion. It’s not our fault you take everything so personally. I’m hurt and frankly insulted by your accusations.

I stared at the message, the familiar frustration rising…and then dissolving into something else.

I didn’t have to convince her. That realization hit me with surprising gentleness. I’d spent so much of my life trying to get her to see me, understand me, admit that my pain was real.

She wasn’t going to. And even if she did, it wouldn’t be because I sent the perfect text.

I typed three words.

I deserve better.

Then I hit send, opened the contact info for “Mom,” and blocked the number.

My heart hammered in my ears. My finger hovered over “Dad.” I hesitated, hearing his voice in my head—Georgia, let’s be reasonable—but “make this right” still echoed, too.

I blocked him.

Vivien’s number went next. Then Brian’s, though he’d never texted me in his life. Then my parents’ shared email. Then the group chat “Fam Jam” with the leaf and chili pepper and champagne emojis that my mother had added in what she’d called “a fun way to stay connected.”

Silence fell like snow.

I sat there, phone screen dark in my hand, waiting for the guilt to crash over me. Waiting for the wave of panic.

It never came.

Instead, something inside me went…quiet. A buzzing that had been there for years finally stopped. It was like taking off shoes that were two sizes too small and realizing you could wiggle your toes, spread your feet, exist at your full size without pain.

My phone buzzed on the cushion beside me. The sound made me jump even though I knew it couldn’t be them.

Danielle: How are you holding up, fish queen?

A laugh bubbled out of me, unexpected and genuine.

Me: Surprisingly okay. I did the thing.
Danielle: The thing thing? Or just a thing?
Me: I blocked them.
Me: All of them.

There was a pause, then:

Danielle: I am SO proud of you I could scream.
Danielle: Want me to scream? I’ll scream. Cole will be confused but supportive.
Me: Tell him it’s a release of generational trauma.
Danielle: LMAO done.
Danielle: Do you want to come over for dinner? We’re making tacos. Rosie is demanding to “help” and I am weak.

I glanced at the clock. My fridge had half a yogurt and some grapes. My apartment felt suddenly too quiet.

Me: On my way.

I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my keys, and headed out.

The drive to Danielle and Cole’s place took twenty minutes. In that time, I half-expected my phone to light up with some emergency notification—my parents finding a way around the block somehow, a message from a relative, a sign that I’d unleashed chaos.

Nothing. Just a Spotify ad and the rotation of familiar streets.

By the time I walked into their warm, slightly messy kitchen and Rosie barreled into my legs yelling, “AUNTIE GEEEEEORGIA,” whatever fear remained had dwindled to a manageable ache.

The next weeks were an adjustment.

I kept waiting to feel the absence of my family like a missing limb, but it was weirder than that. It felt more like waking up and realizing the phantom pain I’d been carrying for years was finally gone. The holidays were the strangest part. When November rolled around and people at work started asking about Thanksgiving plans, I braced myself.

“Going anywhere?” my boss asked in the break room one day, pouring coffee that smelled like burned sadness.

“Yeah,” I said. “Friendsgiving with my…friends.” I almost said “family,” but I caught myself. Not because it would’ve been wrong, but because I didn’t need to explain.

I joined a hiking group on Meetup after realizing I had zero idea how to enjoy the Rocky Mountains that surrounded my city. Every Saturday, a bunch of strangers in varying levels of fitness trudged up trails together. I learned how to layer properly, that “easy” on a trail app was a lie, and that my body was capable of carrying me up a mountain and back down again.

I signed up for a cooking class at a community kitchen in RiNo and discovered I liked making food that didn’t come from a microwave. I learned how to make curry that would’ve sent my mother running for a glass of milk. I made friends there, too—people who cared what I thought about saffron and not what my uterus was or wasn’t doing.

I spent more time with Danielle and Cole and Rosie. Sunday dinners became a regular thing. I was there for random Tuesday nights when Rosie had a meltdown because the socks I’d bought her were “too happy.” I was there the first time she flicked her booster seat and said, “I’m not in the mood to be buckled,” and Danielle whispered, “That’s you, that’s 100% your energy” out of the corner of her mouth.

On social media, I stopped editing myself for my parents’ comfort. I posted pictures from hikes. Crooked shots of meals I’d cooked that didn’t look like a magazine but tasted amazing. A mirror selfie in my work bathroom after my boss announced I’d be leading a new initiative and I felt like I might actually be good at my job.

I posted more about chosen family, too. Not in the vague, inspirational-quote way, but in specific gratitude. A photo of me and Danielle and Cole and Rosie piled together on the couch, captioned: “Some of us build our own families from the ground up. 10/10 would recommend.”

Strangers and acquaintances responded. People I barely knew messaged things like, “Needed to see this today,” and “My blood family sucks too, thank you for making me feel less alone.” It was weird and a little scary, being visible. But it also felt…right.

Three months after Bora Bora, an email showed up in my inbox from a name that pulled me back into the old world for a second.

Subject: From your cousin Ellie.

Ellie was my mom’s sister’s daughter. Technically my cousin, practically a stranger. I had vague memories of her from childhood: a girl a little older than me who hung around the edges of family reunions and kept getting sent on errands by adults. I remembered she moved to the East Coast after college. After that, she vanished from our gatherings.

I clicked the email.

Hi Georgia,

I hope it’s okay that I’m reaching out. I’ve been following you on social media for a while now (your Bora Bora trip looked incredible, btw!), and I felt like I should say something.

I don’t know how much you know about my mom’s side of the family history (your mom’s, too). But I wanted you to know that you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.

My mom—your Aunt Dorothy—was the odd one out in the family. They treated her a lot like they seem to have treated you. Excluded her from trips, made everything about her being “difficult” or “too sensitive.” She finally stopped putting up with it and went low contact. The story the family told, of course, was that she abandoned them.

She died three years ago. Cancer. Most of the family didn’t even bother to come to the funeral. They said they were “too busy” or that it would’ve “upset” your mom.

I’m telling you this not to upset you but because I see so many parallels. They choose a golden child and a scapegoat, and everyone else rearranges themselves around that dynamic. It’s not something you did. It’s a pattern. A messed up one.

I’m proud of you for choosing yourself. Not everyone does. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.

Love,
Ellie

I read it once. Twice. A third time. Tears slid down my face, dripping off my chin onto my phone screen, and I didn’t bother wiping them away.

Aunt Dorothy. The name tickled something in my memory: a woman with tired eyes who always offered to help with dishes at reunions, who brought store-bought cookies and got teased for it, who somehow never made it into the front of any family photos.

They’d done this before. To their own sibling. And no one had talked about it.

I wrote back.

Ellie,

Thank you. For this. For reaching out. For telling me about your mom.

I remember her, a little. I remember her seeming…separate. Quiet. I never knew why.

Everything you wrote makes a horrible amount of sense. It helps to know the problem didn’t start with me (and won’t end with me, unless somebody stops it).

I’d really like to talk. Anytime.

Love,
Georgia

We set up a video call for the following weekend. When her face popped up on my screen, I saw echoes of my mother—the same cheekbones, the same brown eyes—but softer somehow. Gentler. Less brittle.

For an hour, we compared notes.

“They told everyone my mom was unstable,” Ellie said, sipping tea from a mug that said “World’s Okayest Human.” “That she was manipulative. That she ‘twisted things.’ Sound familiar?”

“Mom’s been telling people I’m having some kind of breakdown,” I said. “That what happened with Bora Bora was me ‘acting out.’ That she and my dad are ‘so worried’ but I ‘refuse to accept help.’”

“Yep,” Ellie said. “Same playbook. If someone won’t play their role, the family rewrites the character. That way the story can continue.”

We talked about grief—the weird kind you feel for things that never really existed. The fantasy of a mother who listens, a father who intervenes, a sister who doesn’t treat your emotions like inconveniences.

“Does it get better?” I asked her. “The missing-them part?”

She thought about it. “I don’t think you ever stop wishing you’d had different parents,” she said. “But eventually you stop wishing these parents would magically become those people. You mourn the version of your life you didn’t get. And then you build the one you can have. And that part? Can actually be pretty great.”

After we hung up, I sat in my quiet apartment and realized something: the grief was there, yes. But it wasn’t the sharp, panicky kind. It was more like a low, distant hum. Background noise. It didn’t drown anything out anymore.

Ellie and I kept talking after that. Texts. Occasional calls. Photos of her dog and her wife and the backyard they were slowly turning into a garden. She was, in many ways, the family I wished I’d had baked into my childhood. Steady. Funny. Honest.

As the months rolled on, the silence from my immediate family remained unbroken. They didn’t show up at my door. They didn’t email my boss. They didn’t send letters. They just…acted like I’d never existed.

Through Ellie, I heard things. My mother telling relatives I was “mentally unwell.” My father saying I’d “fallen under the influence of some friend” and “turned against them.” Vivien complaining that I’d “created a lot of unnecessary drama” and that my “weird little meltdown” had “made Mom sick.”

“They’re rewriting history,” Ellie said on another call. “It’s what they do. They can’t admit they did anything wrong, so they invent a villain. They make you the problem, so they never have to look in the mirror.”

“Is it bad that a tiny part of me wants them to miss me?” I asked. “Like, really miss me? Not just the idea of having two daughters.”

“It’s human,” she said. “But whether they miss you or not doesn’t change your worth. You know that, right?”

I was starting to.

At work, my numbers kept climbing. My boss started pulling me into more strategic meetings, asking my opinion on things that used to be decided in rooms I wasn’t in. Six months after Bora Bora, he called me into his office, closed the door, and said the words “promotion” and “vice president” and “you’ve earned this” in a way that made my lungs feel too small.

When the promotion email went out, my inbox filled with congratulations. I went out for drinks with coworkers. Danielle and Cole baked me a cake shaped like a briefcase and decorated it with tiny fondant syringes and hospital beds in honor of my medical equipment empire.

My mother did not call.

Vivien did not text.

The old version of me would’ve felt the lack like a knife. The current version noticed it, acknowledged the sting, and then turned back toward the people who actually showed up.

Almost a full year after Bora Bora, on a random Tuesday afternoon when I was buried in a quarterly report, my phone lit up with an unfamiliar number.

Normally, I let strange numbers go to voicemail. But something about this one made me tap “accept.”

“Hello?”

“Hi, uh…is this Georgia?” The voice was female, maybe around my age. A little hesitant.

“This is she,” I said. “Who’s calling?”

“My name is Whitney,” she said. “I’m Brian’s sister. Your…brother-in-law’s sister.”

My hand tightened around the phone. “Oh,” I said carefully. “Hi.”

“I know this is weird,” she rushed on. “I got your number from an old group email chain. If that’s not okay, I’m sorry. I just…I felt like I should tell you something directly instead of letting you hear it thirdhand.”

My stomach dipped. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Is everyone…alive?”

She let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Everyone’s alive. No one’s in the hospital. It’s just…well. Vivien and Brian are getting divorced.”

I sat back in my chair. “What?”

“He filed last week,” Whitney said. I could hear a car turn signal ticking in the background, the hum of traffic. “They’ve been having problems for a long time, but he finally hit his limit, I guess. He moved out. He’s staying at my place for now.”

I knew I shouldn’t have been shocked. The golden child’s life had always seemed too glossy, too curated. But somewhere I’d still believed it: that Vivien and Brian had the perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect little suburban kingdom.

“Why?” I asked.

“Honestly? He finally admitted how miserable he is,” Whitney said. “He says Vivien has been emotionally abusive for years. Controlling. Hypercritical. Nothing was ever good enough. The kids were always walking on eggshells. He thought that was just…marriage, I guess. Until he realized it wasn’t.”

My mind flashed back to Vivien’s texts. You’re being dramatic. Some of us can’t just jet off when we feel like it. Fix this.

Yeah. That sounded right.

“Why are you telling me?” I asked.

“Because of your Bora Bora post,” she said. “And everything that came after.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Brian showed it to me,” she said. “And the way your family reacted. The stuff they said about you. He started…seeing things differently. Seeing your mom and Vivien and the way they treat people who don’t fit their expectations.”

I remembered my dad’s voicemail about “abandoning your family” and “making this right.” My mother’s, You’ve always been difficult. Vivien’s, I don’t have time for this drama.

“He told me your post was the first time it clicked for him that he didn’t have to stay,” Whitney went on. “That it was possible to walk away from a messed-up family dynamic and still build a life. That it was okay to say, ‘I deserve better than this.’” She paused. “He said he kept thinking about you picking your ‘chosen family’ and how happy you looked. And he realized he wanted that for his kids. Something healthier.”

I sat there, letting her words sink in.

I had done something selfish. That’s what my mother had said. I’d hurt them. I’d abandoned my role.

But my selfish act—the one where I chose myself, my joy, my boundaries—had sent ripples outward.

“I…had no idea,” I said softly.

“I know you’re estranged from them,” Whitney said. “I know all of this might be the last thing you want to hear. I just…thought you deserved to know that what you did mattered. To someone besides you.”

I swallowed. My eyes burned. “How are the kids?” I asked.

“Honestly?” Whitney said. “Better than I expected. Brian got a temporary custody arrangement where they’re mostly with him. The house is calmer. They’re still confused and sad, obviously. But there’s a lot less shouting. Less…tension. McKenzie told me yesterday that ‘Dad’s house feels like taking a deep breath.’ Which I’m pretty sure means more than any of us want to think about right now.”

“I’m glad they have him,” I said.

“Me too,” she said quietly. “And I’m glad you got out when you did. Before they managed to convince you that you were the problem.”

We talked for a few more minutes. She told me Vivien was telling everyone Brian had “abandoned the family” and that my mother was painting herself as martyr-in-chief, devastated by her daughters’ betrayals. My father, predictably, was “tired” and “stressed” and “just wants everyone to get along.”

After we hung up, I sat in my office with the door closed, staring at the wall.

If my life were a movie, this would’ve been the moment of triumphant vindication. The line of dialogue: See? I was right. You were wrong. Karma came around.

But it didn’t feel triumphant. It felt…heavy. And oddly peaceful.

My family had always been cracked. The Bora Bora trip hadn’t broken anything; it had just let light into the fractures. The pieces had shifted, as they’d probably needed to for a long time.

And in the wreckage, some people—me, Brian, the kids—were finding ways to build something new.

That night, sitting on my couch with a bowl of takeout pho balanced on my knees, I called Danielle.

“So,” she said after I told her everything, “how do you feel?”

I thought about it.

“I feel like…my story and theirs finally split,” I said slowly. “Like we were all in this one tangled mess of a narrative, and somewhere around Bora Bora I started writing a different one. And now theirs is crashing, and mine isn’t. And that’s…weird. But also…kind of a relief.”

“I like your story better,” she said.

“Me too,” I said.

Rosie’s face suddenly appeared in the bottom corner of the screen, peeking over Danielle’s shoulder.

“Hi Auntie Georgia!” she chirped. “Guess what? I drawed the fish house.”

“You drew the fish house?” I said, setting my bowl aside. “Show me.”

She held up a piece of paper. Crayon lines in wild blues and greens formed a lopsided rectangle on stilts. Little stick figures stood on a crooked deck—one with a triangle dress (Danielle?), one with spiky hair (Cole?), one with curly scribbles (Rosie), and one with straight shoulder-length hair (me). Beneath the house, she’d drawn ovals with eyes and smiles. Fish, I hoped.

“That’s amazing,” I said sincerely. “You even got the ladder.”

“And the fish,” she said proudly. “That one is Gerald. That one is Princess Sparkle. That one is Auntie Georgia Fish.”

“There’s an Auntie Georgia Fish now?” I asked, amused.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “She lives there all the time. When are we going back to the fish house? The real one. Not the drawed one.”

“Soon,” I said. “Sooner than you think.”

And I meant it. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this year—work and money and life were still realities—but someday. We’d go back. Because the fish house wasn’t just a vacation spot in my mind anymore. It was a symbol. A place where I’d proved to myself that I could take up space, that I could buy myself joy without asking permission.

The rest of the year slid by in a series of ordinary and extraordinary moments.

Work was busy, but I felt…good busy. The VP title came with more responsibility, but also more autonomy. I traveled to conferences, stayed in nice hotels my company paid for, and took secret pleasure in swiping my corporate card at airport Starbucks.

I still hiked most Saturdays. My legs were stronger now. My lungs, too. At the top of one particularly brutal trail, I stood looking out over a valley dusted with snow and thought, I did this. No one carried me. No one even knew I was here but me. And that was enough.

I nurtured friendships like they were living things. I sent “thinking of you” texts. I dropped off soup when someone was sick. I let people see me when I was struggling instead of pretending I was fine and then melting down alone in my apartment.

I made my life big and full and mine.

Word about my family filtered through occasionally. Via Ellie, via Whitney, via the internet.

I heard that my mother had a “stress-related incident” and spent a few days in the hospital after Brian’s divorce went public. I heard she told people it was “from worry over my daughters.” I heard my father had taken to working on his golf game and avoiding all conflict under the guise of “keeping the peace.”

I heard that Vivien had moved into a townhome not far from my parents’, that she’d decorated it within an inch of its life and filled her Instagram with quotes about “self-care” and “leaving toxic relationships.” I saw, once, a post of hers that popped up through somebody else’s comment: a black-and-white screenshot of some inspirational graphic that said, “Sometimes the people you think would never hurt you are the ones who do. Protect your peace.” The caption: “Working on me.”

I scrolled past. Not my circus anymore. Not my monkeys.

I also heard, with a satisfaction so quiet it almost didn’t feel like revenge at all, that the big family vacations had stopped. No more Florida rentals. No more Tennessee lodges. No more Hawaii houses.

Without the glossy image of Vivien’s “perfect family” to sell, the trips apparently felt less worth the effort.

As for me, I made other trips.

A weekend in Santa Fe with the hiking group. A long weekend in New Orleans with Danielle, eating our body weight in beignets while Cole and Rosie had a “besties weekend” at home. A work trip to Chicago that I extended by two days so I could wander around the Art Institute alone and take pictures of paintings that made my head feel weird in a good way.

Whenever people asked about my family, I told the truth in simple terms.

“We’re not close,” I’d say. “We’re estranged. It’s better that way.”

Sometimes people asked follow-up questions, their own stories itching to be told. Sometimes they nodded, understanding in their eyes, and changed the subject.

I never felt the need to explain.

One night, about two years after that first phone call about “no room” in Hawaii, I sat on my balcony with a glass of wine, my laptop open on my knees. The sky over Denver was streaked pink and gold, the evening air cool.

A Facebook memory notification popped up: a picture from the Florida Thanksgiving years ago. My mom had posted it originally and tagged me. Everyone stood in front of that beach house. Vivien in the center, kids in front, my parents on either side. In the back corner, half cut off, you could see the outline of the laundry room window.

The caption read: “So grateful for FAMILY. Couldn’t ask for more. ❤️”

I stared at it for a long minute.

Once upon a time, that picture would’ve gutted me. I would’ve looked at it and seen only what I didn’t have, what I wasn’t. I would’ve believed the caption over my own memories. I would’ve wondered what was wrong with me that I didn’t fit into that image seamlessly.

Now, I saw something else.

I saw a house full of people who considered themselves complete without me. I saw a narrative that never had space for my side of the story. I saw a younger version of myself behind the camera, taking the photo and then blowing up the air mattress in the laundry room and telling herself it was fine.

I closed the memory without sharing it.

Then, on impulse, I opened a new post.

I uploaded a recent photo: me, Danielle, and Cole on top of a mountain, sweaty and windblown and grinning, with Rosie in the middle, her cheeks flushed, arms thrown wide like she was trying to hug the horizon.

I typed: “Here’s to the families we build. To the people who will share trail mix on a hike, pick you up from the airport, tell you when you’re being an idiot, and celebrate when you stop accepting less than you deserve. Blood is biology. Love is choice. I’m so grateful for the people who choose me, over and over.”

I hit post.

Within minutes: likes, hearts, comments. From coworkers. From hiking friends. From Ellie, who wrote, “Amen to that.” From Whitney, who added, “The kids say hi.”

I set my laptop aside, leaned back in my chair, and looked up at the sky.

When I’d started this whole “revenge” journey—because that’s what it had felt like, in the beginning—I’d imagined some drama. A big confrontation where I got to say my piece and my mother finally broke down and apologized, sobbing and hugging me while an unseen audience clapped.

The reality had been quieter. Messier. Less cinematic.

There’d been no big showdown. No tearful reconciliation. My parents had not suddenly realized the error of their ways. My sister had not called to say she was sorry.

Instead, what happened was this: I stopped trying to get invited. I stopped offering to pay for my seat. I stopped contorting myself into shapes that fit their picture.

I took my bonus money and bought myself a week in paradise. I surrounded myself with people who had never once made me wonder if there was enough room for me. I posted about it. They got mad. I drew a boundary. They didn’t respect it. I walked away.

From the outside, that might’ve looked selfish. Dramatic. Unforgiving.

From the inside, it felt like the first deep breath after years of shallow ones.

And yeah, there had been fallout. The golden child’s marriage cracked. The family narrative fractured. People got hurt. But the hurt had been there all along, festering under the gloss. My leaving didn’t create it; it just exposed it.

I thought about Brian, tucking his kids into bed in a house that felt like a deep breath. About Ellie, building a quiet, gentle life away from the epicenter of our family’s dysfunction. About Rosie, growing up in a home where feelings were allowed to exist, where “you’re being difficult” wasn’t a weapon wielded every time she said no.

My revenge—if you could still call it that—was never really about making my parents suffer. That had been the angry, wounded fantasy version.

The real revenge was building a life so good, so honest, so full, that their opinion of me no longer mattered.

A life where there was always room for me, because I was the one drawing the floor plan.

My phone buzzed beside me. A photo from Danielle: their living room, blankets everywhere, Rosie in pajamas, a bowl of popcorn between her and Cole. The caption: “Movie night. Missing you. Get over here.”

I smiled.

Me: Be there in 15.
Danielle: There’s room on the couch. Always. 🖤

I finished my wine, grabbed my keys, and headed out into the evening. The air was cool on my face. The city hummed around me.

I used to think being left out meant there was something wrong with me.

Now I knew better.

Sometimes you’re not invited because they’re afraid you’ll change the story. Sometimes there’s “no room” because if you were there, they’d have to look at themselves.

I couldn’t change who they were. I couldn’t fix generations of golden children and scapegoats and people like Aunt Dorothy disappearing quietly from the frame.

What I could do—what I had done—was step out of their picture and take my own.

I walked toward the soft chaos of Danielle’s house, where a child who called me Auntie and a couch that always had a space for me were waiting. The streetlights flickered on one by one. Somewhere overhead, planes cut through the sky, carrying strangers toward destinations full of possibility.

I’d taken one of those planes once and landed in a place where the water pretended to be the sky. Where a little girl named fish Gerald and Princess Sparkle and Auntie Georgia. Where, for the first time in my life, I’d felt there was exactly enough room for me.

I carried that place inside me now. I didn’t need Bora Bora to remind me.

I was done begging for space.

I was done sleeping next to dryers.

I had my own table now. My own couch. My own fish house, even if, for now, it was just a crayon drawing on a fridge in the suburbs of Denver.

And around that table, that couch, that imaginary house on the water, sat people who saw me. People who chose me.

People I called family.

THE END.