“Don’t exaggerate,” my younger brother Aaron muttered, glancing at the damage with a smirk. “Honestly, it looked boring before.”
I turned toward my father, Colonel Raymond Hale, a man who had built his identity brick by brick from discipline and reputation, a man who spoke endlessly about honor while practicing very little of it at home.
He didn’t ask if I was okay.
He sighed.
“For the love of God,” he said sharply, “now you look cheap. This is a formal military benefit, not a neighborhood cookout. Go change.”
“I don’t have anything else,” I replied.
“Then go sit in the car,” he snapped. “You’re embarrassing us.”
The word landed harder than the wine.
I looked at all three of them—my mother already scanning the room for witnesses to reassure, my brother suppressing a laugh, my father adjusting his jacket as if I were an inconvenience that would resolve itself if ignored.
