Growing up, I was the invisible sister. Marissa, the oldest, was perfect in my parents’ eyes—especially my mother’s. If she struggled, the world stopped to help her. If I succeeded? A pat on the head, if that.
So at seventeen, I enlisted in the military without fanfare. When I finally told my family, Marissa smirked. “You’ll quit in a month.” But I didn’t. For six years, I served, eventually managing security at a high-level facility. To my family, though, I was still “just the girl who guarded a gate.”
When Marissa got engaged to Major Landon, my mother gushed. “A real military man,” she’d say, eyeing me like I’d chosen the wrong uniform. At the wedding, I was stuck at the worst table while Marissa glowed in the spotlight. Then, during her toast, she raised her glass. “Shoutout to my sister, the gate guard!” The room laughed. My mother added, “Our little embarrassment.”
I stood to leave—until Landon did first.
Silence fell as he walked to me. “She’s the reason I’m alive,” he told the crowd. In Kandahar, when his team was ambushed, I coordinated their rescue under fire. “She pulled two men to safety. Saved my life.” He glared at Marissa. “And you mock her?”
Then he took my hand. “We’re leaving.”
The aftermath was ugly. My family blamed me. Landon ended the engagement. But slowly, he and I built something real. One day, he said, “I’d risk everything for you.”
I finally understood: I didn’t need their approval. The sister they laughed at walked out with her head high—and never looked back.
