My father looked at me and said, “You’re not coming.”
I stared at him. “What?”
My mother answered before he could. “Your sister’s wedding is off-limits for you. Your weird social anxiety will embarrass the family.”
Emily barely looked up. “Claire, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
I cried, then begged—and I still hate that part. I promised I would stay out of the way. I promised I would leave if I felt a panic attack coming. My father stood up so fast his chair scraped across the floor. “For once in your life,” he snapped, “stop making everything about you.”
That night, I packed a single suitcase.
What they didn’t know was that six months earlier, I had applied for a skilled worker visa to Canada. I had a remote accounting contract, a small emergency fund, and an approval letter hidden inside an old novel.
