My mom died when I was born, so my father, Mike, had to figure everything out on his own. He packed my lunches before leaving for work, made pancakes every Sunday like clockwork, and by the time I was in second grade, he had even taught himself how to braid hair from YouTube videos.

He tried his best to fill every role.

Dad worked as the janitor at the same high school I attended. That meant I spent years hearing exactly what people thought about it.

“There goes the janitor’s daughter.”

“Her dad cleans our bathrooms.”

I never cried about it in front of anyone.

If I cried, it was at home.

But Dad always knew anyway. He’d slide a plate of food in front of me at the kitchen table and say softly, “You know what I think about people who try to feel big by making someone else feel small?”

I’d look up at him, eyes watery. “What?”

“Not much, kiddo. Not much at all.”

And somehow that always made it better.

Dad believed honest work was something to be proud of. I believed him too. By the time I was a sophomore, I made a quiet promise to myself: I would make him proud enough that all those cruel comments wouldn’t matter anymore.

Then last year, everything changed.

Dad was diagnosed with cancer.

He kept working as long as the doctors allowed—longer than they wanted him to. Some afternoons I’d find him leaning against the supply closet door looking exhausted.

But the moment he saw me, he’d straighten up and smile.

“Don’t give me that worried look, Emma,” he’d say. “I’m fine.”

But we both knew he wasn’t.

Still, he kept talking about two things.

Prom.

And graduation.

One evening at the kitchen table he said, “I just need to make it to prom. I want to see you all dressed up and walking out that door like you own the world.”

“You’ll see a lot more than that,” I always told him.

But a few months before prom, he lost his fight with cancer.

I found out at school, standing in the hallway with my backpack still on. I remember staring down at the shiny tile floor and thinking how much it looked like the floors Dad used to mop every night.

After that, everything felt blurry.

The week after the funeral, I moved in with my aunt, Linda. Her spare bedroom smelled like cedar and laundry detergent, nothing like the little house Dad and I had shared.

Then prom season arrived.

Girls at school compared designer dresses and shared photos of outfits that cost more than my dad earned in a month. I barely listened.