“I see.” Mom plops three pieces of broccoli on my plate. “So you have a steady income then?”

Here we go.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ryot answers.

“Is that why you’re with him?” Mom asks me. “Because of his paycheck?”

“No,” I answer. “I don’t even know how much he makes.”

“You’re not that dumb, Myla. He’s a professional athlete, a starter, no less. He’s making more than you would ever see in a lifetime serving lemonades to people.”

Clearing his throat, Dad says, “Have you done something different with your hair, Myla?”

I glance over at my mom and feel Ryot squeeze my leg, reminding me not to let her get to me. “Just curling it a lot lately.”

“It looks nice.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Better than the time she thought she looked good with bangs.” Mom picks up some chicken on her fork. “I was so embarrassed having her walk by my side with those things.”

“My forehead was too short,” I say, finding myself starting to turtle in.

“Or the time she permed her hair with Nichole. What a disaster. I don’t think she’s ever been uglier than with that perm.”

I push my broccoli around. “We left the solution in too long.”

Ryot squeezes my thigh again. “I bet you were adorable,” he whispers.

“What has Myla told you about us?” Mom asks, clearly fishing for incriminating evidence.

“What has she told me about you two? Well, that you were both very successful in the Air Force. Mr. Moore was an engineer and you, Mrs. Moore, were a therapist. That you’ve moved around a lot. Uh . . . oh, and she’d never had s’mores, which I thought was kind of funny—”

“Because she was overweight as a child, and we didn’t want to encourage her journey to obesity.”

“Mom,” I say, feeling so humiliated that my heart is nearly pounding out of my chest.

“Is it not true? Being a daughter of parents in the military, you’d think she’d have more control around a breadbasket.”

“That’s enough,” Dad says, finally speaking up. “We’re here to meet Ryot, not travel down memory lane.”

I want to throw my dad an appreciative smile for changing the topic, but I also think he should have stepped in sooner. I’m his daughter, after all. He shouldn’t let my mom sit there and berate me like that. He might not say anything, but his silence is just as bad. And that’s more prevalent than ever as I sit here with Ryot. When I’m alone with them, I let the insults just roll off me because what am I really going to do? But now that someone else hears what my mom has to say to me, it’s creating this overwhelming sense of deep-rooted anger that’s been there for years. But because I have no voice where they’re concerned, that anger rolls into a ball of humiliation for being unable to muster the confidence to stand up for myself.

After a few bouts of silence, Ryot says, “Dinner is very good, Mrs. Moore.”