I answer this time because anger has a way of making me brave.
“Your brother has his reasons, Monroe,” he says before I can speak. “Maybe he thought you’d be uncomfortable with so many people. You know how you get.”
I stare at the wall across from my table, at the framed print of snowy aspens I bought years ago because I liked the idea of wide-open air and clean white silence.
“How I get?” I ask.
He exhales heavily, irritated now that I am not helping him smooth this over.
“Sensitive. Serious. It changes the mood sometimes. Just respect his decision. That’s all I’m asking.”
The words strike with a strange delayed force.
Sensitive.
Serious.
Changes the mood.
I end the call and sit perfectly still.
My laptop screen is still open to my bank account. The numbers stare back at me: years of careful saving, years of talking myself out of indulgence, years of picking responsibility over desire so automatically it stopped feeling like a choice.
My cursor drifts to another browser tab I left open weeks ago.
Aspen.
A ski resort I have daydreamed about for years and never booked because there was always a better use for the money. A more practical use. A family need. A household emergency. A last-minute request. Someone else’s crisis dressed up as my duty.
The website glows icy blue and white on the screen.
Mountain-view suite.
Ski package.
Six nights.
I stare at the Book Now button while something hard and quiet settles into place inside me.
Not anymore.
I click.
The purchase confirmation appears almost instantly.
First-class flight.
Six nights.
Mountain-view suite.
Private lesson package.
A pulse beats in my throat. It should feel reckless. It should feel irresponsible. It should feel like the kind of thing I would talk myself out of by the second page of checkout.
Instead it feels like oxygen.
When the confirmation email comes through, I pull out my passport, set it beside the flight receipt, and take a picture on my clean white countertop. The light in the apartment has gone cooler now, blue at the edges, winter evening moving in.
I upload the photo to Instagram with steady fingers.
When you’re not on the list, you make your own.
The first-class cabin is quieter than any space I have occupied in years.
Soft leather. Heavy glassware. A wool blanket folded with military precision. The kind of service that appears before you realize you need anything. I sink into the seat and feel the strange disorientation of being cared for in a place where no one expects me to earn it.
“Champagne?” the flight attendant asks.
The woman in me who spent years calculating every unnecessary expense almost says no.
The woman who booked the ticket says yes.
The bubbles are cold and elegant on my tongue. The little dish of warmed nuts sits untouched for a moment because I am too busy watching the ground pull away from the runway and feeling, with each foot of altitude, something loosen.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. But enough.
“Another?” the flight attendant asks later, lifting the bottle slightly.
I look at the half-empty flute in my hand. I think of all the times I said no to myself before anyone else got the chance.
“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”
