“Well, I am leaving behind three older siblings and my parents,” Sarah told her dancing partner. “As to whether they’ll miss me... I suppose so, but only because people tend to romanticize the past. I was never really close to anyone to begin with, and things got worse a couple years ago. I won’t bore you with the long version, but basically my father wanted to dictate the course of my life, and I rebelled in a way that severely alienated the whole family. I haven’t seen them in person in two years, and all of them said some pretty hateful things to me initially. I was cut out of my parents’ will—as if I cared—and they didn't even bother to contest it when I got myself legally emancipated. Thankfully I already was working as a tech writer by that point, reviewing mostly commercial products.<br/><br/>“But things changed when everyone realized I had signed on with<em>the Exodious</em>—my father feared he’d driven me to it, which isn’t the case, but he’s never understood that. There were a lot of forced apologies and outright bribes—my father offered to put me back in the will. And give me any position I wanted in the company, up to and including VP of engineering. A teenage executive—talk about nepotism. I don’t think he even really thought that offer through, I think he was just desperate.” She shook her head slightly. “I can at least take it was indirect evidence he loves me—he’d certainly never say it.<br/><br/>“Anyway, in a couple hours I’ll have to leave the party because I agreed to see all of them one last time. I guess so they can all pretend they were closer to me than they really were, so they can then feel good about themselves and the terms we’re parting on. I guess I’ll just play along—I don’t want to leave on a sour note and make them all feel bad about it.<br/><br/>“Sorry, I guess I rambled a bit there. I think our song is ending—do you want to go back to the bar, or maybe take a walk outside?”