Mom laughed. Twenty years in uniform and still no house. Dad said my sister’s our future.
Then a helicopter landed.
A colonel walked up.
“General. We need you.”
Dad staggered.
Sis dropped her flowers. The school froze.
“You’ve served for twenty years and still live like a ghost,” my mother said.
I smiled faintly.
Ghosts remember everything.
The sun had barely burned through the mist, clinging to Yale’s historic stone walls, when I took my seat at the edge of the back row.
The graduation banners flapped in the spring breeze, and the brass band’s bright fanfare cut through the murmurs of parents, trustees, and deans in tailored suits.
I was invisible here, and I had come to expect that.
Returning from the base in Colorado, I hadn’t told anyone I was coming.
I hadn’t told anyone I had been promoted either.
It didn’t matter.
Not to them.
Sophie stood on stage in her Crimson Honor sash, blonde curls bouncing as she laughed into a professor’s hug. My younger sister—the perfect daughter, the golden child.
Her name was printed in bold on every program.
Sophie Hale, Magna Cum Laude—future of global finance.
I glanced down at the program folded neatly in my lap. My own name was nowhere.
Robert doesn’t—
She looked radiant.
“My mother cooed from a few rows ahead, loud enough for the nearby row to nod along.
“Our Sophie, always destined for greatness.”
My father gave a tight nod.
“She’s everything we hoped for… unlike others.”
His voice dropped just low enough for plausible deniability, but loud enough to sting.
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
I didn’t flinch.
I’d spent too long learning how not to flinch.
A pause.
Then my mother turned slightly in her seat, catching my eye over her shoulder, her lips curled cold and amused.
“You’ve served for twenty years and still don’t even own a proper house. Imagine that.”
I kept my face still.
My smile was a sliver of breath, invisible to all but myself.
Ghosts don’t need houses. Ghosts remember foundations they’ve had to build with blood.
Elaine turned back toward the ceremony with the satisfied air of someone who dropped a final verdict.
The announcer called Sophie’s name.
She floated forward in heels that sparkled, taking the stage like she was born to it.
Applause erupted.
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