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compete, you have to be likable and outgoing, so you have to–”
    So I'm not even likable now. Fuck. I'm feeling nauseated. I don't want to talk about this anymore. “I've made my decision,” I say in a low voice, which, somehow, is no longer shaking. “I won't rush, and I won't join that sorority or any other.”
    Mom's brows come together and she gets up in my face, her own expression little more than a snarling mask. “This is no good. You have to change, god damn it, or you're going to fail in life. Do you hear me? You are going to fail in life !” She shouts the last three words, spraying her spittle on me, then turns on her heel and stomps away, out of the living room and probably to her bedroom and maybe to another glass—or a couple more glasses—of wine.
    I sit on the couch, put my head in my hands, and cry. Quietly, so nobody can hear me. Silent crying is a skill I developed long ago, before I can remember being able to think. Even before I could think, I was aware that I'm not good enough. I offend Mom on every conceivable level.
    But why? I just don't understand. All I've ever tried to do is to be myself.

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    Though I cry silently, Dad has a sixth sense where I'm concerned. Even when I was a little girl and received regular verbal thrashings from Mom about my failings, he would come and try to make things better.
    His footsteps approach and I try to stop crying because I hate for anybody to see me cry, even Dad, even Jake, but I can't stop. After a lifetime of this sort of thing, you would think it wouldn't hurt so much, but it does. Mom's disappointment in me doesn't just eat at her. It eats at me, too. And with every hateful fusillade she hurls at me, my belief in myself grows less and less. Maybe she's right. Maybe this world just isn't the right place for somebody like me. A fish always out of water, flopping and writhing and gasping for breath on dry land and getting castigated and criticized for being a water creature.
    But I'm a water creature. I always have been. What I need is a water planet.
    Dad, my fellow water creature, has learned to survive on dry land. Though he's found little use for his gentle gills, I guess he has developed a set of lungs so he can breathe, but only as necessary, the corrosive, toxic air of this world's ruthless expectations, and it doesn't destroy him. Maybe, somehow, he can teach me how to develop my own lungs.
    He pulls me into his arms and I cry against his shoulder, still silently. Making noise when I cry makes me feel even worse about myself, even more like a failure. If I can at least maintain a degree of stoicism about my shortcomings then I can retain a bit of dignity.
    He says, “I heard what she said, and honey, she's wrong. It's okay to be the way you are. You're like me, you're just like me, and I've done just fine in life. And you are doing great. I'm proud of you, proud of your beautiful piano playing and all you've accomplished. Please don't let her make you feel bad about yourself. Don't let her make you feel bad about who you are. Please.”
    It's what he's always said to me, ever since I was little, enduring criticism from Mom for not wanting to go to some stupid kids' birthday party, or when I would came home, miserable, from my own birthday parties to which she'd invited twenty children who couldn't stand me. I can't remember a time when Mom was happy with me. Even when she gives me praise, it's qualified, conditional. There is always a caveat: If only you were more outgoing. If only you were more extroverted. Your lot in life—and my love for you—depends on you changing your personality.
    As much as I love Nikesha Sloane and her music, even she sends me, however inadvertently, the same message that you have to be outgoing and expansive to succeed, even in music. But unlike Mom, Nikesha infuses me with a sense of possibilities for what a talented person can do. Surely, if I lack only the one thing... surely, if there's just this one hurdle I