The Snowball Effect

by Haley Cass

“So, congratulations, Emma; you finally get exactly what you’ve wanted since you moved in. I’ll stop texting you, stop trying to hang out with you. You wanted a roommate you barely have to speak to, and you finally got her. Because I am so done trying.”

But those wants had died a long time ago, when she’d realized she’d much rather be like herself – ADHD and all – than like her judgey, snobby family.

“The trick to never letting that get to you is knowing that if someone doesn’t truly know you, ninety-nine percent of the time? Their opinion says far more about them than it does about you. Or, in the words of my grandmother: judgments made in ignorance are better left ignored.”

“Looks like we have a real what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object situation on our hands,” Emma mused. “The force wears the object down,” Regan answered easily. “It’s called erosion.”

Because she wasn’t a part of this family. Not in that way. It was a truth that stung when she was confronted by it so blatantly, but it was a truth nonetheless.

“I wish you’d told me that your little crush on the barista had becoming something more.”