My mother dabbed at a tiny, imaginary drop of wine on her own pristine wrist. “Go on, Elena. You’re making a scene. It smells like cheap Merlot anyway.”
I looked at the three of them. My family. The squad I was born into. I realized in that moment that I wasn’t a person to them. I was a prop that had failed to function. I was a background extra who had ruined the shot.
“Okay,” I said. My voice was steady, eerily calm. “I’ll go change.”
“You don’t have anything to change into,” Kevin sneered. “Unless you have a janitor’s uniform in that beat-up sedan of yours.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. I turned and walked away. I could feel their eyes on my back, burning like brands. I could hear Kevin making a joke about how I probably bought the dress at a yard sale. But I kept walking.
I walked out of the ballroom, past the check-in desk where the hostess looked at my stained dress with pity, and out into the cool night air. But as the heavy doors swung shut behind me, sealing in the noise of the party, a thought crystallized in my mind.
They wanted a soldier? Fine. I would give them a soldier. But they had no idea what kind of war was about to walk through those doors.
The valet offered to get my car, seeing the wine soaked into my dress, but I shook my head and walked to the far end of the lot where I had parked my nondescript gray sedan. The night air was crisp, biting at my damp skin, but the cold felt clarifying.
I unlocked the car and popped the trunk. The yellow light flickered on, illuminating the chaotic mess of a life lived between bases—gym bags, MRE boxes, and a heavy, black garment bag with the gold seal of the Department of the Army stamped on the vinyl.
I stared at the bag. For fifteen years, I had played the game. I had let them believe I was a clerk. I let them believe I was a failure because it was easier than explaining the truth to people who would only measure my success against their own insecurities.
