After my announcement, the room went quiet. Not even the clinking of forks remained; my entire family was looking at me as if I’d grown a second head. The silence was so loud it hurt, the ringing in my ears deafening. I couldn’t even hear my sister breathing, though she was less than a foot away from me. The ineffable silence remained, nearly making my eardrums bleed.

“_What?_” I demanded. All I said was that I liked the Longhorns football team better than the Aggies.