Just my name. That's it.
She wasn't asking. She wasn't even really calling me out. It was more like... a gentle save wrapped in maternal disappointment.
"A Michelin-star restaurant." She enunciated each word like she was reading my charges in a courtroom. "When exactly were you planning to mention this or—" and here her eyes narrowed just slightly, the way they do when she's charting something particularly stupid a doctor did "—let your sisters tell me and never discuss it?"
Thanks for the save, Mom. I mouthed.
She knew I hated talking about myself—hated explaining the things I built, the things that lived inside my head like noisy roommates. And the ARIA was secret. She got it, the way only someone who's been wiping your nose and your tears for seventeen years can get it.
