My parents canceled my surgery. “It’s just a knee—your sister deserves a holiday,” Mom said. The pain froze me. When I recovered, I made them panic. They lost thousands, but… no going back.
My name is Morgan, and for the first twenty-five years of my life, I thought if I just ran fast enough, scored enough points, and kept my mouth shut, I could finally earn my place in my own family. I was wrong. I realized just how wrong I was while lying on a gurney with a knee that felt like it had exploded from the inside out, listening to the people who were supposed to love me choose a beach trip over my ability to walk.
But to understand why that moment didn’t break me—and instead turned me into something they should have feared—you have to go back to the beginning.
I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where the heat makes the air shimmer off the asphalt and the sun feels like a physical weight on your shoulders. My dad, Patrick, was a structural engineer. He was a big man with hands rough from work and a laugh that could shake a room. He used to take me to job sites on Saturday mornings. We’d stand in dust and noise, and he’d point at the steel beams of unfinished bridges.
“Morgan,” he would say, his voice serious, “see that wall? That is a load-bearing wall. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t have fancy wallpaper, but if you take it out, the whole house falls down.”
Dad was my foundation. He was my load-bearing wall.
But when I was twelve, a drunk driver ran a red light on Camelback Road, and just like that, my foundation was gone. The morning the police came to the door is burned into my memory like a scar. It was a Tuesday. I was eating cereal. I remember the knock—heavy, hesitant—like whoever was on the other side hated what they were about to do.
When my mom, Brenda, opened the door and heard the news, she didn’t scream. She didn’t collapse. She turned around, looked at me, and then looked past me to my younger sister, Kylie.
Kylie was six then. She was sitting on the floor playing with dolls. She had Dad’s curly hair and his dimples. Looking at her was like looking at a ghost of him.
Mom rushed past me. She physically pushed me aside, her hip hard against mine, and scooped Kylie up, burying her face in Kylie’s hair and sobbing.
“I’ve got you, baby,” she kept repeating. “I won’t let anything hurt you. We have to protect you.”
I stood there in the hallway, twelve years old, holding a spoon, completely forgotten. I wanted to scream, I lost him too. He was my dad too. But the look in Mom’s eyes stopped me. It was desperate, obsessive devotion—directed entirely at my little sister.
In her grief, Mom decided Kylie was the fragile piece of Dad left behind that needed to be preserved in glass. Me? I looked like Mom’s side of the family. I was tall, broad-shouldered, and quiet. In Mom’s twisted logic, I was the rock. And rocks don’t need hugs. Rocks don’t need comfort. Rocks are just there to be stepped on.
That day, standing in the hallway, a dynamic was set in stone. Kylie was the princess who needed saving. I was the background character who was expected to survive on my own. I didn’t know it yet, but I had just become the load-bearing wall for a family that would eventually try to crush me.
The resentment didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow accumulation, like sediment hardening into rock. It built up over missed choir recitals, forgotten parent-teacher conferences, and empty seats at my basketball games.
But the crack in the façade finally appeared on my sixteenth birthday.
My birthday falls two weeks after Kylie’s. Because Mom was always so busy with her job as a school district treasurer and managing Kylie’s social life, we usually did a combined dinner. I didn’t mind the efficiency. What I minded was the clear, undeniable difference in how we were valued.
That year, Kylie turned twelve. Mom decorated the dining room with a princess theme. Everything was pink and gold. There were balloons, streamers, and a custom cake with a tiara on it. I was sixteen—a tomboy who lived in gym shorts—sitting in a room that looked like a glitter bomb had exploded.
At dinner, Kylie was practically vibrating with excitement. Mom brought out a large, sleek box wrapped in silver paper. Kylie tore into it. It was a brand-new MacBook Pro. Even back then, it was a $1,200 machine.
“I need it for my creative projects!” Kylie squealed, hugging the laptop. Her “creative projects” mostly involved editing selfies and watching YouTube videos.
Mom beamed at her. “I know, honey. You have such a distinct artistic vision. I want you to have the best tools.”
Then Mom turned to me. She reached under the table and slid a small, soft package across the tablecloth.
“Happy birthday, Morgan.”
I opened it. It was a basketball jersey—not a team jersey, not a high-quality performance one. A generic mesh tank top from a discount store. The clearance sticker was still on the tag.
Price: $9.99.
I stared at the price tag. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the message. $1,200 for Kylie. Ten dollars for me.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, my voice tight. “Hey—speaking of basketball—remember that elite camp I told you about? The one where the college scouts go? I’ve been mowing lawns all summer, but I’m still fifty dollars short for the registration fee. Do you think maybe, as part of my gift, you could cover the rest?”
The room went silent. Kylie looked up from her new laptop, bored.
Mom sighed, putting her fork down with a clatter. “Morgan, we really can’t afford that right now. This laptop was a big investment for your sister’s future.”
“But the camp is for my future,” I argued, heat rising in my face. “I have a shot at a scholarship, Mom. The laptop cost twelve hundred dollars. I’m asking for fifty.”
“It’s not about the amount, Morgan. It’s about equity versus equality,” Mom said, using her favorite buzzwords. “Kylie is delicate. She needs support to find her path. You… you’re tough. You’re naturally resilient. You’re like a tractor. You can figure it out. Just mow a few more lawns next week.”
I looked at Kylie. She was already typing away, oblivious to the fact that her toy cost more than my entire existence seemed to be worth to our mother.
“A tractor,” I repeated quietly.
“It’s a compliment,” Mom said, waving her hand dismissively. “Now cut the cake. Kylie wants the piece with the rose.”
That night, I didn’t eat the cake. I went out to the driveway and shot hoops in the dark until my hands blistered. Every time the ball snapped through the net, I made a vow to myself. I wasn’t going to be their tractor. I was going to be a jet plane, and I was going to fly so far away from that house they’d never be able to reach me again.
Fast forward to college.
I made good on my promise. I grinded until my game was undeniable. I landed a full-ride athletic scholarship to Arizona State University. It was my golden ticket, but a full ride covers tuition and books. It doesn’t cover living expenses, food during the off-season, or the random emergencies of life.
Most of my teammates had parents who sent them allowance money. I had a job at the campus library and another one stocking shelves at a grocery store on weekends.
I remember my sophomore year. I was walking back from the library late at night and stepped off a curb wrong. My ankle rolled. It wasn’t a break, but it was a severe sprain. I hobbled back to my dorm, foot swelling like a balloon, and I called Mom.
I didn’t ask for money. I just wanted to hear her voice. I wanted her to say, “Oh no. Take care of yourself.”
She didn’t answer. I called again. Nothing.
Three hours later, I got a text.
It was a photo. Mom and Kylie were at a luxury day spa. They were wearing white robes and holding cucumbers over their eyes. The caption read: “Mommy and me day.”
Kylie was “feeling stressed about her finals.” She was taking two classes at community college, so they “needed a reset.”
I sat on my dorm bed with a bag of frozen peas duct-taped to my ankle, staring at that photo. Kylie was stressed about two classes. I was taking eighteen credits, working two jobs, and playing Division I basketball. But she needed the spa day.
That was the day Coach Simmons found me.
He was the head coach—a man who yelled louder than a drill sergeant, but had eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He saw me limping into the training facility the next day.
“What happened to your shoes?” he barked, pointing at my worn-out sneakers. The soles were practically peeling off.
“They’re fine, Coach,” I muttered.
“They’re garbage,” he said. “Meet me in my office after practice.”
I thought I was in trouble. But when I went to his office, there was a shoebox on his desk. Brand-new, high-performance basketball shoes.
“Put them on,” he said gruffly. “Can’t have my star forward slipping around out there.”
“Coach, I can’t afford these,” I said.
“Did I ask you to pay for them?” he snapped. “Consider it equipment. Now get out of here.”
I walked out of that office fighting back tears. A man who wasn’t related to me by blood cared more about my feet than the woman who gave birth to me.
That realization stung, but it also woke me up.
I started to see that family wasn’t about DNA. It was about who showed up.
And there was Tasha—my roommate. Tasha was five-two, studied pre-law, and had a tongue sharper than a scalpel. She saw the way my family treated me and called it what it was.
“They treat you like an ATM they forgot the PIN to,” she told me one night. “They know there’s value there, but they’re too stupid to access it, so they just kick the machine.”
I laughed then. I didn’t know how accurate that metaphor would become until my senior year.
It was the most important game of my life. Senior year. The arena was packed. Scouts from European leagues were in the stands. This was it—the moment all the lawn mowing and late-night practices were for.
We were playing our rivals, the University of Arizona. Fourth quarter. Tied game.
I had the ball on the wing. I saw a lane open and I took it. I drove hard to the basket, planting my right foot to pivot around a defender.
And then it happened.
It wasn’t a crack. It was a pop—a loud, wet, sickening sound, like a tree branch snapping in a storm. It was so loud that players on the bench later told me they heard it over the crowd noise.
I didn’t feel the pain immediately. I just felt the structural integrity of my leg vanish. My knee buckled inward and I collapsed to the hardwood floor.
Then the pain hit.
A white-hot lightning bolt shot from my knee up to my hip and down to my ankle. It took the breath out of my lungs. I tried to curl up, but the slightest movement sent waves of nausea through me.
The silence in the arena was deafening.
I saw Coach Simmons running toward me. I saw the concern on the faces in the crowd. But all I could think was, My ticket. I just tore up my ticket out of here.
An hour later, I was in an exam room with Dr. Wu, the team surgeon. He looked at the MRI scans on the lightboard with a grim expression.
“It’s a complete tear of the ACL and a bucket-handle tear of the meniscus,” Dr. Wu said. “Morgan, if you want to play professionally—or even run properly again without a limp—you need surgery, and you need it fast, before the scar tissue sets in.”
“Okay,” I said, teeth chattering from shock. “Let’s do it.”
Dr. Wu hesitated. “There is a complication. University insurance covers eighty percent. But because the surgery requires a specific specialist and high-end hardware for an athlete of your caliber, there’s an out-of-pocket deductible and specialist fees that need to be paid up front. You don’t have a credit history strong enough to bill it later.”
“How much?” I asked, my stomach dropping.
“Four thousand,” he said.
My heart stopped. I checked my banking app. I had $412.30.
“I need a guarantor,” Dr. Wu explained gently. “Someone to co-sign or cover the deposit. Can you call your parents?”
I looked at the phone in my hand. I didn’t want to call them. I knew, deep down, what asking them for help felt like. It felt like begging.
But I had no choice. This was my leg. This was my life. Surely, for something this serious—for something this physical and real—they would step up.
I dialed Mom’s number. My hand was shaking.
The twenty minutes I spent waiting for them to arrive felt longer than the twenty years I’d spent waiting for them to love me.
Tasha had rushed to the hospital and was sitting by my bed, holding my hand, her face tight with worry.
“They’re coming,” I told her. “Mom said they were on their way to the airport, but they’re swinging by.”
“The airport?” Tasha asked, eyebrows raised. “Where are they going?”
“San Diego,” I whispered. “For Kylie.”
When the door opened, the contrast was violent. I was lying there in a faded hospital gown, sweat drying on my forehead, my leg elevated and strapped into a massive, ugly foam brace.
Mom and Kylie walked in looking like they were ready for a fashion shoot. Kylie wore oversized sunglasses, a designer sundress, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Mom wore vacation linen and held a Starbucks cup.
Kylie didn’t even look at my leg. She looked around the room and wrinkled her nose.
“Ugh,” she complained. “It smells like bleach and sick people in here. Can we hurry? We’re going to hit traffic.”
Mom stood at the foot of the bed. She didn’t come to the side to touch me. She checked her Apple Watch.
“Well,” Mom said, looking at the brace, “it certainly looks swollen.”
“It’s torn, Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Dr. Wu needs the payment today to book the operating room. Four thousand. Can you put it on your credit card? I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll work for you for a year. I’ll do anything—just please.”
Mom pursed her lips. She looked at Kylie, who was now taking a selfie in the reflection of the hospital window, fixing her hair.
“Morgan,” Mom began, using the tone she used when explaining why I couldn’t go to camp, “we talked about this in the car. This trip—it’s non-refundable. And Kylie really, really needs this.”
“She needs a beach trip?” Tasha snapped before I could speak, and I felt her grip tighten on my hand.
Mom ignored her like she wasn’t there.
“She’s been so fragile lately,” Mom continued. “Her engagement on Instagram is down, and she’s feeling very disconnected spiritually.”
I stared at her.
A spiritual crisis.
“Mom,” I said, my voice thin, “my knee is exploded. I can’t walk. I’m losing my scholarship if I don’t get this fixed. How can you compare a beach trip to my entire career?”
Then came the sentence that killed the daughter inside me and birthed something else.
My parents canceled my surgery. “It’s just a knee—your sister deserves a holiday,” Mom said. The pain froze me. When I recovered, I made them panic. They lost thousands, but… no going back.
My name is Morgan, and for the first twenty-five years of my life, I thought if I just ran fast enough, scored enough points, and kept my mouth shut, I could finally earn my place in my own family. I was wrong. I realized just how wrong I was while lying on a gurney with a knee that felt like it had exploded from the inside out, listening to the people who were supposed to love me choose a beach trip over my ability to walk.
But to understand why that moment didn’t break me—and instead turned me into something they should have feared—you have to go back to the beginning.
I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where the heat makes the air shimmer off the asphalt and the sun feels like a physical weight on your shoulders. My dad, Patrick, was a structural engineer. He was a big man with hands rough from work and a laugh that could shake a room. He used to take me to job sites on Saturday mornings. We’d stand in dust and noise, and he’d point at the steel beams of unfinished bridges.
“Morgan,” he would say, his voice serious, “see that wall? That is a load-bearing wall. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t have fancy wallpaper, but if you take it out, the whole house falls down.”
Dad was my foundation. He was my load-bearing wall.
But when I was twelve, a drunk driver ran a red light on Camelback Road, and just like that, my foundation was gone. The morning the police came to the door is burned into my memory like a scar. It was a Tuesday. I was eating cereal. I remember the knock—heavy, hesitant—like whoever was on the other side hated what they were about to do.
When my mom, Brenda, opened the door and heard the news, she didn’t scream. She didn’t collapse. She turned around, looked at me, and then looked past me to my younger sister, Kylie.
Kylie was six then. She was sitting on the floor playing with dolls. She had Dad’s curly hair and his dimples. Looking at her was like looking at a ghost of him.
Mom rushed past me. She physically pushed me aside, her hip hard against mine, and scooped Kylie up, burying her face in Kylie’s hair and sobbing.
“I’ve got you, baby,” she kept repeating. “I won’t let anything hurt you. We have to protect you.”
I stood there in the hallway, twelve years old, holding a spoon, completely forgotten. I wanted to scream, I lost him too. He was my dad too. But the look in Mom’s eyes stopped me. It was desperate, obsessive devotion—directed entirely at my little sister.
In her grief, Mom decided Kylie was the fragile piece of Dad left behind that needed to be preserved in glass. Me? I looked like Mom’s side of the family. I was tall, broad-shouldered, and quiet. In Mom’s twisted logic, I was the rock. And rocks don’t need hugs. Rocks don’t need comfort. Rocks are just there to be stepped on.
That day, standing in the hallway, a dynamic was set in stone. Kylie was the princess who needed saving. I was the background character who was expected to survive on my own. I didn’t know it yet, but I had just become the load-bearing wall for a family that would eventually try to crush me.
The resentment didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow accumulation, like sediment hardening into rock. It built up over missed choir recitals, forgotten parent-teacher conferences, and empty seats at my basketball games.
But the crack in the façade finally appeared on my sixteenth birthday.
My birthday falls two weeks after Kylie’s. Because Mom was always so busy with her job as a school district treasurer and managing Kylie’s social life, we usually did a combined dinner. I didn’t mind the efficiency. What I minded was the clear, undeniable difference in how we were valued.
That year, Kylie turned twelve. Mom decorated the dining room with a princess theme. Everything was pink and gold. There were balloons, streamers, and a custom cake with a tiara on it. I was sixteen—a tomboy who lived in gym shorts—sitting in a room that looked like a glitter bomb had exploded.
At dinner, Kylie was practically vibrating with excitement. Mom brought out a large, sleek box wrapped in silver paper. Kylie tore into it. It was a brand-new MacBook Pro. Even back then, it was a $1,200 machine.
“I need it for my creative projects!” Kylie squealed, hugging the laptop. Her “creative projects” mostly involved editing selfies and watching YouTube videos.
Mom beamed at her. “I know, honey. You have such a distinct artistic vision. I want you to have the best tools.”
Then Mom turned to me. She reached under the table and slid a small, soft package across the tablecloth.
“Happy birthday, Morgan.”
I opened it. It was a basketball jersey—not a team jersey, not a high-quality performance one. A generic mesh tank top from a discount store. The clearance sticker was still on the tag.
Price: $9.99.
I stared at the price tag. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the message. $1,200 for Kylie. Ten dollars for me.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, my voice tight. “Hey—speaking of basketball—remember that elite camp I told you about? The one where the college scouts go? I’ve been mowing lawns all summer, but I’m still fifty dollars short for the registration fee. Do you think maybe, as part of my gift, you could cover the rest?”
The room went silent. Kylie looked up from her new laptop, bored.
Mom sighed, putting her fork down with a clatter. “Morgan, we really can’t afford that right now. This laptop was a big investment for your sister’s future.”
“But the camp is for my future,” I argued, heat rising in my face. “I have a shot at a scholarship, Mom. The laptop cost twelve hundred dollars. I’m asking for fifty.”
“It’s not about the amount, Morgan. It’s about equity versus equality,” Mom said, using her favorite buzzwords. “Kylie is delicate. She needs support to find her path. You… you’re tough. You’re naturally resilient. You’re like a tractor. You can figure it out. Just mow a few more lawns next week.”
I looked at Kylie. She was already typing away, oblivious to the fact that her toy cost more than my entire existence seemed to be worth to our mother.
“A tractor,” I repeated quietly.
“It’s a compliment,” Mom said, waving her hand dismissively. “Now cut the cake. Kylie wants the piece with the rose.”
That night, I didn’t eat the cake. I went out to the driveway and shot hoops in the dark until my hands blistered. Every time the ball snapped through the net, I made a vow to myself. I wasn’t going to be their tractor. I was going to be a jet plane, and I was going to fly so far away from that house they’d never be able to reach me again.
Fast forward to college.
I made good on my promise. I grinded until my game was undeniable. I landed a full-ride athletic scholarship to Arizona State University. It was my golden ticket, but a full ride covers tuition and books. It doesn’t cover living expenses, food during the off-season, or the random emergencies of life.
Most of my teammates had parents who sent them allowance money. I had a job at the campus library and another one stocking shelves at a grocery store on weekends.
I remember my sophomore year. I was walking back from the library late at night and stepped off a curb wrong. My ankle rolled. It wasn’t a break, but it was a severe sprain. I hobbled back to my dorm, foot swelling like a balloon, and I called Mom.
I didn’t ask for money. I just wanted to hear her voice. I wanted her to say, “Oh no. Take care of yourself.”
She didn’t answer. I called again. Nothing.
Three hours later, I got a text.
It was a photo. Mom and Kylie were at a luxury day spa. They were wearing white robes and holding cucumbers over their eyes. The caption read: “Mommy and me day.”
Kylie was “feeling stressed about her finals.” She was taking two classes at community college, so they “needed a reset.”
I sat on my dorm bed with a bag of frozen peas duct-taped to my ankle, staring at that photo. Kylie was stressed about two classes. I was taking eighteen credits, working two jobs, and playing Division I basketball. But she needed the spa day.
That was the day Coach Simmons found me.
He was the head coach—a man who yelled louder than a drill sergeant, but had eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He saw me limping into the training facility the next day.
“What happened to your shoes?” he barked, pointing at my worn-out sneakers. The soles were practically peeling off.
“They’re fine, Coach,” I muttered.
“They’re garbage,” he said. “Meet me in my office after practice.”
I thought I was in trouble. But when I went to his office, there was a shoebox on his desk. Brand-new, high-performance basketball shoes.
“Put them on,” he said gruffly. “Can’t have my star forward slipping around out there.”
“Coach, I can’t afford these,” I said.
“Did I ask you to pay for them?” he snapped. “Consider it equipment. Now get out of here.”
I walked out of that office fighting back tears. A man who wasn’t related to me by blood cared more about my feet than the woman who gave birth to me.
That realization stung, but it also woke me up.
I started to see that family wasn’t about DNA. It was about who showed up.
And there was Tasha—my roommate. Tasha was five-two, studied pre-law, and had a tongue sharper than a scalpel. She saw the way my family treated me and called it what it was.
“They treat you like an ATM they forgot the PIN to,” she told me one night. “They know there’s value there, but they’re too stupid to access it, so they just kick the machine.”
I laughed then. I didn’t know how accurate that metaphor would become until my senior year.
It was the most important game of my life. Senior year. The arena was packed. Scouts from European leagues were in the stands. This was it—the moment all the lawn mowing and late-night practices were for.
We were playing our rivals, the University of Arizona. Fourth quarter. Tied game.
I had the ball on the wing. I saw a lane open and I took it. I drove hard to the basket, planting my right foot to pivot around a defender.
And then it happened.
It wasn’t a crack. It was a pop—a loud, wet, sickening sound, like a tree branch snapping in a storm. It was so loud that players on the bench later told me they heard it over the crowd noise.
I didn’t feel the pain immediately. I just felt the structural integrity of my leg vanish. My knee buckled inward and I collapsed to the hardwood floor.
Then the pain hit.
A white-hot lightning bolt shot from my knee up to my hip and down to my ankle. It took the breath out of my lungs. I tried to curl up, but the slightest movement sent waves of nausea through me.
The silence in the arena was deafening.
I saw Coach Simmons running toward me. I saw the concern on the faces in the crowd. But all I could think was, My ticket. I just tore up my ticket out of here.
An hour later, I was in an exam room with Dr. Wu, the team surgeon. He looked at the MRI scans on the lightboard with a grim expression.
“It’s a complete tear of the ACL and a bucket-handle tear of the meniscus,” Dr. Wu said. “Morgan, if you want to play professionally—or even run properly again without a limp—you need surgery, and you need it fast, before the scar tissue sets in.”
“Okay,” I said, teeth chattering from shock. “Let’s do it.”
Dr. Wu hesitated. “There is a complication. University insurance covers eighty percent. But because the surgery requires a specific specialist and high-end hardware for an athlete of your caliber, there’s an out-of-pocket deductible and specialist fees that need to be paid up front. You don’t have a credit history strong enough to bill it later.”
“How much?” I asked, my stomach dropping.
“Four thousand,” he said.
My heart stopped. I checked my banking app. I had $412.30.
“I need a guarantor,” Dr. Wu explained gently. “Someone to co-sign or cover the deposit. Can you call your parents?”
I looked at the phone in my hand. I didn’t want to call them. I knew, deep down, what asking them for help felt like. It felt like begging.
But I had no choice. This was my leg. This was my life. Surely, for something this serious—for something this physical and real—they would step up.
I dialed Mom’s number. My hand was shaking.
The twenty minutes I spent waiting for them to arrive felt longer than the twenty years I’d spent waiting for them to love me.
Tasha had rushed to the hospital and was sitting by my bed, holding my hand, her face tight with worry.
“They’re coming,” I told her. “Mom said they were on their way to the airport, but they’re swinging by.”
“The airport?” Tasha asked, eyebrows raised. “Where are they going?”
“San Diego,” I whispered. “For Kylie.”
When the door opened, the contrast was violent. I was lying there in a faded hospital gown, sweat drying on my forehead, my leg elevated and strapped into a massive, ugly foam brace.
Mom and Kylie walked in looking like they were ready for a fashion shoot. Kylie wore oversized sunglasses, a designer sundress, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Mom wore vacation linen and held a Starbucks cup.
Kylie didn’t even look at my leg. She looked around the room and wrinkled her nose.
“Ugh,” she complained. “It smells like bleach and sick people in here. Can we hurry? We’re going to hit traffic.”
Mom stood at the foot of the bed. She didn’t come to the side to touch me. She checked her Apple Watch.
“Well,” Mom said, looking at the brace, “it certainly looks swollen.”
“It’s torn, Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Dr. Wu needs the payment today to book the operating room. Four thousand. Can you put it on your credit card? I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll work for you for a year. I’ll do anything—just please.”
Mom pursed her lips. She looked at Kylie, who was now taking a selfie in the reflection of the hospital window, fixing her hair.
“Morgan,” Mom began, using the tone she used when explaining why I couldn’t go to camp, “we talked about this in the car. This trip—it’s non-refundable. And Kylie really, really needs this.”
“She needs a beach trip?” Tasha snapped before I could speak, and I felt her grip tighten on my hand.
Mom ignored her like she wasn’t there.
“She’s been so fragile lately,” Mom continued. “Her engagement on Instagram is down, and she’s feeling very disconnected spiritually.”
I stared at her.
A spiritual crisis.
“Mom,” I said, my voice thin, “my knee is exploded. I can’t walk. I’m losing my scholarship if I don’t get this fixed. How can you compare a beach trip to my entire career?”
Then came the sentence that killed the daughter inside me and birthed something else.