Chapter 1

1: 1

The SATs were over, and Mom sat there with her notebook, running the numbers.

"Four years of tuition and fees comes to a hundred thousand. At market rates, the two of you should be able to work at least ten jobs over these two months."

My sister and I both smiled, thin and bitter.

Mom believed in self-reliance as a parenting method.

Wanted spending money?

Earn it.

Fifty-two cents a load of dishes.

A dollar sixty a floor mopped.

Even the time I ran a high fever and landed in the hospital, Mom fronted the medical bill, then made us pay it back in installments once we recovered.

To scrape together our tuition, my sister and I were out from four in the morning until midnight. Ten jobs a day.

Every time we crossed paths, both of us dragging our exhausted bodies home, she would choke up.

"Angie, I'm so tired."

I made myself a quiet promise: I would take her with me and get us both out of this family.

But that day, I got a delivery order to an upscale gated community.

I'd just raised my hand to knock when I heard Mom's and Margot Finch's voices coming from inside.

"Angie actually thinks I'm out running deliveries too. Can you believe it? A hundred and four degrees out and I'm at home in the AC!"

"Hide it well. Don't let her find out. And that paycheck of hers this month, is it enough for your trip?"

Clack.

The takeout hit the floor.

And my heart dropped right along with it.

1

Margot's footsteps came closer.

"Mom, the food's here."

The door opened, and I slipped sideways into the stairwell.

A face I knew.

Margot picked up the bag, the hem of her pure white nightgown trailing lace.

I'd seen that nightgown while running deliveries at the mall.

Three thousand dollars, after the discount.

I looked down at myself, at the yellow T-shirt plastered tight against my sweat-soaked skin.

"Weird. Where's the delivery guy?"

Margot muttered it and shut the door without a second thought.

A second later, my phone buzzed with a message from her.

"Angie, have you eaten?"

"It's so hot and I'm so tired. I think I'm getting heatstroke."

Inside, Mom's voice came through clear.

"Sweetie, go wash your hands, dinner's ready."

"Don't forget to keep up the act with her."

Margot laughed.

"Relax, Mom, my acting's top-notch."

My thumbs paused over the screen.

"Not yet."

"I think I've got heatstroke too."

A hundred and four degrees, six hours without a break.

Twelve flights of stairs climbed in one go.

I really did have heatstroke.

"Ha, Angie says she's getting heatstroke."

"She'd never guess I'm sitting in the AC drinking boba right now. So comfy!"

There was a smug lift in Margot's voice.

I wiped the cold sweat from my temple and couldn't stand to hear any more.

On unsteady legs, I fled.

A photo popped up on my phone.

Plain bread and pickles.

Margot's messages kept coming.

"Angie, I really don't want to keep gnawing on bread, but for our future, I'll work hard and save up."

But what she'd just carried inside was a nine-hundred-dollar salmon combo meal.

When I'd picked it up, I'd even let a little private glee slip out to the sushi place's owner: nine dollars for delivery meant today's food money was covered.

Margot sent another.

"Angie, I'm heading back out to deliver! Let's both keep at it!"

The photo attached showed someone riding an e-bike.

My hands shaking, I ran a reverse image search on it, along with that photo of the bread from before.

Dozens of identical photos came up.

Still not willing to believe it, I searched the construction site photo she'd sent yesterday.

The restaurant kitchen from the day before, the convenience store, the underground mall...

It wasn't until the secondhand-market flip-phone in my hand started overheating and lagging that I finally gave up.

So all of it. All those signs of hard labor that had broken my heart, they were stolen photos.

The world spun.

My legs buckled, and I went down with the e-bike, the whole of me crashing to the ground.

A crowd gathered around me fast.

Someone used my phone to reach Mom.

"Your daughter's got heat— hey, she hung up."

They called again. It wouldn't connect.

Someone wanted to take me to the hospital.

I bit down on the tip of my tongue.

"Not the hospital... take me... to the neighborhood delivery depot..."

The words were barely out before I couldn't hold on any longer, and everything went black.

I passed out cold.

"You're awake."

Alison Lawrence's voice reached me, startled and glad at once.

"You got heatstroke, and your blood sugar crashed with it. I got the medicine into you. Rest up, and tomorrow you'll—"

She stopped halfway.

Because she saw me struggling to sit up, to get to my next job.

"Alison, thank God you were here. The hospital's too expensive. I can't afford to go."

"You should be resting right now!"

My lips pressed into a flat line.

"Alison, you know how it is. I need the money."

My legs were weak, but I kept walking toward the door.

"Stop right there!"

Alison's voice was urgent.

"If you keep working today, you're going to pass out again!"

"You're only eighteen! You'll ruin your health!"

"Two hundred. I'll give you two hundred dollars, just rest for half a day. Come on, sweetheart, listen to me..."

The other riders had crowded around too.

"Kiddo, I'll give you fifty, just stop running for today."

"I just got a ten-dollar tip, it's all yours. You're the baby of this depot, we can't have anything happening to you!"

My eyes stung.

My shoulders sank.

My hand gripped the phone tight.

Kindness from strangers, coming in like a tide.

And my mother, from start to finish, hadn't given me a single word.