Page 93 of Just The Way You Aren't

"Do what?"

"Dismiss yourself." I tuck a strand of wild red hair behind her ear. "You can acknowledge every senior's value, see worth in the most difficult people, but the moment someone points out how remarkable you are, you make a joke."

She blinks, clearly caught off guard. "I don't?—"

"You do." I keep my voice gentle. "Just now. At the fundraiser when people were praising your work. Even when you talk about Silver Hearts, you always credit everyone else."

Willow shifts slightly, her gaze dropping to where her hand rests on my chest. "I guess I'm just not used to it. The attention."

"Why not?"

A long silence follows, and I wonder if I've pushed too far. Then she sighs, settling back against me. "It's… complicated."

"I've got time," I tell her, wrapping my arm more securely around her.

Another pause, then she slowly exhales. "I grew up poor. Not 'we-can't-afford-name-brands' poor, but 'sometimes-the-electricity-gets-cut-off' poor."

I remain silent, giving her space to continue.

"My parents tried their best, but there were six of us kids and never enough money." She traces abstract shapes on my chest, not looking at me. "When I was eight, there was a really bad patch. Dad lost his job, Mom got sick, and they couldn't manage all of us. So my sister Harper and I were sent to live with our grandparents."

Something in her voice changes when she mentions her grandparents—a tightness that wasn't there before.

"Were they good to you?" I ask, though I already suspect the answer.

"They had a roof that didn’t leak and plenty of food to feed two extra mouths, which was more than my parents could offer at the time." She shrugs, but it's forced. "But they were... strict. Very strict. Everything had to be perfect. Beds made with hospital corners, floor swept three times a day, dishes washed immediately after use. One speck of dust was a personal failure."

I think of Willow's apartment—colorful chaos, pets everywhere, dishes sometimes piled in the sink. The opposite of what she's describing.

"I was the oldest, so I was supposed to set an example," she continues. "Harper was only six, and she cried all the time. She missed our parents, and our grandparents had no patience for that. They'd tell her to stop being so childish." The irony in her voice is bitter. "She was six."

My jaw tightens. "What did you do?"

"I became the distraction. The clown. I'd do something silly when I saw Harper starting to get upset. Make faces behind our grandmother's back during her lectures. Create little games to keep Harper busy." A hint of a smile touches her lips. "I learned pretty quickly that if I could make my littlesister laugh, even when things were awful, it made everything more bearable."

"That's where it started," I realize, speaking my thoughts aloud. "Your perpetual cheerfulness."

She nods. "It was survival at first. Then it just became... me."

"What about your parents? Did they know how bad it was?"

"God, no. They were already devastated about sending us away. The last thing they needed was to feel worse. Besides, it's not like we were abused. Just... never quite good enough."

I think of my own privileged childhood—the massive family estate, a staff of servants, every opportunity imaginable. The worst emotional trauma I experienced was when my father missed my rowing competition in prep school.

"How long were you there?"

"Three years." She says it simply, but I mentally calculate what that meant—from eight to eleven, formative years spent feeling inadequate, bearing responsibility not just for herself but for her younger sister.

"What happened when you went back?"

"Things got better. Dad found steady work, Mom recovered. But they had four other kids to worry about, and Harper and I had learned to take care of ourselves." She shifts against me, her fingers still drawing patterns on my skin. "Honestly, by then I was used to making everyone else happy. It was what I was good at."

"And no one ever noticed that you were taking care of everyone but yourself?" I can't keep the edge from my voice.

Willow looks up, surprised. "It wasn't like that. I liked helping. I still do. It makes me happy."

"But who takes care of you, Willow?"

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