Her confidence did something interesting to me in that moment. It didn’t scare me. It didn’t even anger me in the ordinary hot way. Instead it created a sharp clean quiet in my head. Because if she was this sure, this immediate, this practiced in the seizure of someone else’s space, then she was not improvising. This was not a random overstep. It was a system. And systems can be observed.
“I’d like to speak to my father,” I said.
“He’s asleep.”
The answer came too fast.
“At eleven forty-seven?”
“He’s tired, Bianca.”
There it was. The first mismatch. My father had not been asleep before midnight in twenty years. He was one of those men who read the news on a tablet until half past twelve and then claimed he was cutting back on screen time.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” I said.
“No need,” she replied, and now a little brightness entered her voice because she thought the matter was settled. “We’ll see you around noon. And Bianca? Don’t start this off on a sour note. If you have a problem with our arrangement, you’re free to stay somewhere else. You’ve always liked being independent.”
That line landed the way it always landed: polished enough that anyone overhearing it would think it complimentary, cruel enough in context to leave a bruise.
You’ve always liked being independent.
