Plot Twists Romance Short Stories & Bias Awakening Novels

On the night of the final showcase for the three-year designer development program, my parents weren't in the family seats reserved for me. They were sitting at the VIP table with Sophie, my foster sister. My boyfriend, Adrian Cole, was giving interviews in a silver-gray outfit that matched hers. A reporter smiled and asked, "You're both headed to New York, and tonight you're even dressed as a couple. Did the two of you plan that?" The people around them whooped. Adrian only smiled. "We've known each other for years. We have similar taste." No one knew that the dress Sophie was wearing was mine. I'd drafted the pattern and sewn the dress myself, and Adrian and I had planned our matching outfits around it. When I found her wearing it that morning, all my mother said was, "The gown her sponsor sent is ruined. You're the designer. Just wear something else." Adrian frowned at me, too. "There's a lot of press here today. Don't embarrass Sophie over a dress." So I threw on a black suit at the last minute and stood alone outside the interview area, watching an entire room assume the two of them were a couple. The bigger joke was that they all assumed I'd lost. Adrian had lined up an assistant position for me at a second-tier studio, and my parents thought I should stay in Boston and apply again next year. Only my mentor knew the truth: I was the sole winner of this year's Grand Fellowship. My contract already guaranteed me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in grant money and an eighteen-month independent residency in San Francisco. After the showcase, she asked me, "You're really going to San Francisco?" I looked over at my family, still gathered around Sophie and talking about apartments in New York, and for the first time, I felt no guilt at all. "I am." I wasn't going to let anybody else decide my life again.