I stared at him. “I did.”
His brow furrowed. “No, you said you were working at the hospital.”
“I said I had clinical rotations. Exams. Labs. Residency interviews. Research presentations. You never listened long enough to understand.”
My stepmother scoffed. “Well, you were never clear.”
I looked at her. “I brought home anatomy books. I studied in scrubs. I received mail from the medical school for four years.”
Haley wiped her eyes. “You let us think you were just staff.”
“No,” I said. “You preferred that version because it made you feel superior.”
Her face flushed.
My father glanced around nervously. People were watching. Not openly, but enough. He lowered his voice. “This is not the place.”
I almost smiled.
“Funny. You had no problem humiliating me at the entrance.”
His face tightened. “I made a mistake.”
“You shoved me into the rain.”
“Clara—”
“You called me a low-level assistant.”
“I was upset.”
“Because I was going to ruin Haley’s photos.”
Haley flinched.
My stepmother stepped forward. “Don’t you dare blame your sister. She didn’t know.”
I turned to Haley. “Didn’t you?”
Haley looked down.
There it was.
She had known enough.
Maybe not everything, but enough. Enough to know the ticket was mine. Enough to know taking it hurt me. Enough to smile anyway.
My father’s voice softened, but in the way people soften when they want forgiveness quickly. “I’m proud of you.”
The words landed at my feet like something too late to open.
I had wanted them for so long. I had imagined them in hospital hallways, in libraries, in the bathroom where I cried after failing my first practice exam, in the parking lot after my first patient died during clinical rotation. I had wanted my father to say he was proud of me before the world proved I was worth being proud of.
Now he said it because the world was watching.
I looked at the flowers in his hand.
“No,” I said quietly. “You’re embarrassed that you were wrong.”
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