Chapter 4 - The Mispronounced Name
The diploma portion started with the business college. Names moved across the microphone in steady rhythm. Students rose, walked, shook hands, crossed the stage, returned to their seats holding proof that four years had happened. I felt strangely detached when my row stood.
When I reached the side stairs, I looked toward Section G.
Mom was looking down at her phone.
Dad had turned to Uncle Vance.
Grandma Lorraine was digging in her purse.
Colton, seated in another section now, was talking to the person beside him.
“Craig Webber,” the announcer said.
Not Weber.
Webber.
A small mistake. Tiny. Meaningless to anyone else. But after a lifetime of being mistaken for my brother when people cared and mispronounced when they did not, it landed like a paper cut on skin already worn thin.
I crossed the stage.
Sloan stood alone in the audience and cheered. Emmett clapped from his seat like he was trying to make up for two dozen people. Dr. Tulliver, my academic adviser, gave me a proud nod from the faculty section, his glasses catching the stage light.
Three people saw me.
May you like
That should have been enough.
For a long time, I had trained myself to make it enough.
