Chapter 2

On the fourth day in the new house, I went upstairs to get detergent and happened to overhear Susan on a video call with the contractor.

"Once Nora leaves for school out of state, take that temporary partition wall in the basement straight out and open it into the storage area. In Leah's studio, run custom cabinets along every wall. The whole space is hers."

I stopped at the top of the stairs. I did not push the door open or make a sound.

That afternoon Leah came running downstairs, glowing, waving the acceptance letter for the campus design showcase. Getting into the show was worth celebrating, and the whole family gathered around her at once with congratulations.

Susan decided on the spot to convert that south-facing sunroom into a full professional design studio. Ethan volunteered to cover whatever the budget did not and said he would make up the difference. Adam cleared his entire weekend and promised to take her to three different supply stores to pick out the best materials.

At that same moment, my thesis had just been put forward by my advisor and selected for the national young researchers showcase. The university's official email sat quietly on my phone, and I never said a word about it to anyone.

I did not want attention I had to win that way. If my family did not love me, I would leave quietly.

Susan turned to me and said matter-of-factly, "Nora, you're the best at spreadsheets and lists. Put together the materials breakdown for Leah's entry."

Before I could answer, Leah jumped in with a smile. "Nora's busy too. Hasn't she been working on her grad school applications? Don't bother her."

"It's just an ordinary grad school application, and nothing is settled." Susan waved a hand. "Leah's competition is what matters most right now. It's the top priority."

After dinner Adam showed up with two paper bags of gifts. Leah's was a top-of-the-line set of professional markers, the color families and shade numbers all chosen to match the theme of her entry. He had chosen every detail with painstaking care.

What he handed me was a plain thermos left over from a company event, the corporate logo glaring on the side. Cheap, and thoughtless.

"You've always liked practical things. This works perfectly." He said it like it was obvious.

"I already have a cup," I said flatly.

Adam turned and passed the thermos to Leah without missing a beat. "Then this is perfect. You can use it to hold your brushes."

Leah did not take it. Instead she pulled a coral pink scarf out of her bag and held it out to me. "I picked this out just for you. It'll look great on you."

For years I had worn nothing but navy, black, and pale gray, plain and restrained. I did not like the scarf, yet I could never bring myself to say so.

It seemed like nobody in this house had ever really cared about me or seen me. They all took it for granted that I was just an ordinary nerd, that my studies did not matter, that I did not matter.

Never mind. I was leaving soon anyway.

I took the scarf and said quietly, "Thank you."

That night I went down to the basement for my laptop, and the laundry room was thick with the smell of detergent.

The document envelope I had left on the folding table was down in the laundry basin. Inside were the security clearance notice from the research center, the blind trial summary for my model, and the confidentiality pre-registration forms. The paper had swollen and wrinkled, the logos had bled, and several numbered documents were soaking in the murky water.

Leah was standing by the washing machine, still holding a wet sweater. She froze when she saw me, and then her eyes went red.

"I saw your clothes piled down here, and I knew you'd been busy, so I thought I'd just wash them for you. I had no idea those papers were mixed in."

I raised a hand and pointed at the desk. "The documents were on the table. The clothes were in the hamper."

Her face went white and she looked down, twisting the hem of her shirt. "Nora, I really was only trying to help. Don't make this into something so serious just because everyone's been busy helping me get ready for the show."

Susan and Ethan came down at the noise. Leah got her explanation in before I could speak, saying she had only wanted to do my laundry and had not expected to find "a few printouts" there.

I said they were my onboarding documents from the research center.

Leah looked up at me, her voice trembling. "Nora, if you really had landed a project that important, we'd all be happy for you. Your family loves you. You don't have to say some research center is fighting over you just to get people to look at you a little longer."

Susan frowned. "Leah was trying to help. How can you turn around and blame her? Nora, don't make everyone uncomfortable with talk like that just because your feelings got hurt."

Ethan looked at the ruined paper in the basin, and his voice went colder. "A five-year core project, a whole test group waiting on you? If any of that were real, why have you never mentioned it? Now you want us to believe a pile of soaked paper. Who knows what any of it says."

Adam stood off to the side and said quietly, "I know you're not trying to lie. But right now you really do look like you're competing with Leah over who deserves more attention. Don't blow this up any further."

I did not open my email to show them. Even if I laid the messages, the contract, and the model results out on the table page by page, all they would see was me trading my future for a scrap of approval.

I bent down and fished the envelope out. Calmly, I said, "It doesn't matter whether you believe me. I was leaving anyway."