They had named it Kingsford Cruise Crew. And in it, Brynn had posted a photo of herself wearing one of the shirts I had bought and paid for, under a caption that read: Can’t wait for a drama-free vacation.
So glad Imogen decided she was too busy to come!
Too busy.
That was the story they had chosen.
They hadn’t pushed me out; I had chosen not to come.
They were already wearing my shirts and spending my money and rewriting the history of it before the ship had even left port, casting me, in the version they would tell at dinner, as the workaholic who couldn’t be bothered — so that no one, least of all themselves, would ever have to look directly at what they had actually done.
I sat with that screenshot for a long time.
And somewhere in that long time, something in me that had been bending for thirty-three years quietly, finally, stopped.
I have tried, since, to describe what that moment was like, and the closest I can come is this: it was not an explosion.
I had always assumed that if I ever reached my limit with my family, it would arrive as rage — that I would scream, or weep, or type something scorching into that group chat before they blocked me from it.