“If?” I interrupted.
She hesitated, then pushed forward anyway.
“We didn’t mean it like that. They were just jokes. We’re sorry.”
And just like that, twelve years of humiliation were reduced to a careless excuse.
I felt something snap inside me.
I reached out and took the check from Jordan’s hand.
“No,” I said.
Silence.
“What do you mean, no?” my mother asked.
“You don’t get to insult him for 12 years and fix it in 12 seconds with a fake apology.”
“But we did what he asked,” my father argued.
“No. You rushed through words you didn’t mean just to get what you wanted.”
My father leaned back, frustrated. Then he turned to Jordan.
“You’re not seriously going to let her do this. We came to you.”
Jordan didn’t hesitate.
“We make decisions together. If Jen isn’t satisfied, I trust her judgment.”
That shifted everything in the room.
