“Stay Home — It’ll Be Easier.” My Parents Celebrated My Twin’s 25th Birthday And Left Me Out

candle I’d planned to light for my birthday stood waiting, still in its paper wrapper. Untouched. There was something about that candle—the small defiant hopefulness of having bought it for myself, of having planned the small ritual of birthday-for-one—that made my throat close for reasons that had nothing to do with almonds.

I thought about Harper’s continue reading …