I Opened a .mil Email the Night My Family Buried Me Alive

for months. Investors were there. City people. It would’ve caused a whole thing if they skipped.”

“You mean if they chose me.”

He exhaled through his nose. “You always do this.”

I laughed once. Short. Ugly.

“Do what, Ethan?”

“Make everything a competition.”

That was the moment. Not the empty seats. Not the lie.

That.

Because it told me he had built himself continue reading …