The room fell into silence. The air between us felt too heavy to breathe, filled with all the things we couldn't say aloud.
Mom's hand wraps around mine, warm and trembling, her thumb brushing gently over my knuckles. She always does this when things get tense—when Dad's voice starts to feel like thunder and my chest feels too tight to breathe. She's the only one in this family who truly cares about me.
"I need to go," I murmur, pulling in a breath that tastes like exhaustion. "I have some urgent work to finish."
But before I can even stand, Dad's voice slices through the air, calm but heavy. "Evan, I didn't finish my talk."
The words make my shoulders tense. I slowly turn toward him—toward the man who looks at me like I'm a project that failed halfway through. My perfect father. The man who never once made me feel like his son. Since the day I was born, his love came shaped like rules, sharp and cold.
"What do you want to say, Dad?"
