My parents made me take the bus to my graduation while buying my sister a Tesla. My name is Daisy Parker. I’m 23 years old.
The morning of my college graduation, I stood at the bus stop in my cap and gown. The scratchy fabric of the gown felt heavy on my shoulders, and the cheap cardboard mortarboard kept slipping. It was a bright, sunny day in Nashville, the kind of day that’s supposed to feel full of promise.
But for me, it just felt empty. Down the street, in the driveway of our family home, a different ceremony was taking place. My parents, Lydia and Charles, were handing my younger sister, Amber, the keys to a brand-new pearl white Tesla.
Its chrome handles gleamed in the sun. A giant red bow was perched on its hood, looking ridiculous and perfect all at once. My mother cried.
They were big, happy tears that streamed down her face as she hugged Amber. “Oh, my baby,” she whispered, loud enough for me to hear from the sidewalk. “You deserve the world.”
My father beamed, his chest puffed out with pride.
He clapped Amber on the back, his expensive watch catching the light. “The safest car on the road for our girl,” he announced to no one in particular. Amber squealed, jumping up and down.
She was wearing a designer sundress, not a graduation gown. Her senior year of high school had just ended. Mine, the one I’d worked three jobs to get through, was culminating in a ceremony a forty-five-minute bus ride away.
No one even asked how I was getting there. No one looked my way. I was a ghost in a black gown, watching a perfect family portrait being painted without me in it.
The city bus hissed to a stop in front of me. The doors folded open with a tired sigh. I climbed the steps, paid my fare with a crumpled dollar bill, and found a seat by a smudged window.
As the bus pulled away from the curb, I looked back. My family was still gathered around the Tesla, laughing and taking pictures. They didn’t see me go.
That bus ride became the quiet beginning of everything. The sticky vinyl seat, the rumble of the engine, the faces of strangers — it all felt more real than the family I had just left behind. I stared out the window, watching the city blur past, and I made a promise to myself.
It wasn’t loud or angry. It was a cold, hard, silent vow. This feeling, this invisibility, would end.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
