Chapter 1

The day I received the Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award, I stared into the camera and said what I'd been holding back for years.

"Grateful to her? No. The driving force of my entire life has been the refusal to end up like her."

The host awkwardly held the microphone toward me. On the screen behind us, a live feed showed my mother, Linda, slouched on the couch picking at her feet while playing video games.

I went home and dropped the trophy on the coffee table. I stood there in the cold silence, staring at the takeout containers littering the floor.

"Linda, can you at least get a job? Sweeping streets, anything."

She kept her eyes on the screen, thumbs working the controller.

"Sweeping streets sounds exhausting. I've got a daughter to support me — why would I work? Ugh, I died again. Top up my account, would you? I need sixty bucks for the battle pass."

A mother like that? I was done with her.

I dropped the crystal award — the one engraved with Outstanding Young Entrepreneur — straight into the trash can. Right in front of Linda.

It hit the bottom with a sharp crack.

Linda was buried in the couch, her flannel pajamas stained with grease at the collar, her hair a tangled mess.

She didn't even turn around. Her fingers kept pressing buttons on the controller.

On the screen, a little pixel character ran into a wall, died, and respawned. Over and over.

"Ellie, honey," she said, eyes still fixed on the screen, voice thick and unfocused, "if you don't want it, you don't want it. Why all the drama?"

"Oh, and this month's allowance still hasn't come through."

"My premium subscription expires tonight."

I laughed — the kind of laugh that comes out when you're too angry for words. My chest heaved.

"Linda, you make me sick."

I grabbed my bag and slammed the door behind me.

The deadbolt clicked shut. Inside, the apartment went still.

I didn't go far. I stood in the hallway catching my breath.

It was quiet in there.

No shouting after me. No sounds of things being thrown.

Just the tinny loop of game music bleeding through the wall.

On the other side of that wall —

The moment the door slammed, Linda's controller slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor.

The hands that had been pressing buttons were curled inward now. Her knuckles were swollen and misshapen, trembling.

She tried to bend down to pick it up, but her back seized and she slid off the couch entirely, hitting the floor hard.

"Hss—" She sucked in a sharp breath. Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead.

The takeout containers spread across the floor smelled of rot.

She moved through the garbage, arm stretched out, reaching for the pill bottle wedged under the coffee table.

The bottle rolled a few inches further away.

Linda closed her eyes. Tears ran down the creases at the corners of her eyes and disappeared into her hair.

"Ellie…" she murmured, barely audible. "Mom's useless… I'm sorry…"

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I checked into a five-star hotel in the city center.

I lay on the king bed and didn't sleep a single hour.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Linda's back.

The mother in my memory always wore blazers and heels.

She'd been the top sales rep at her company. She was the one who could scoop me up with one arm and spin me around.

Back then my father was still around — but he was a compulsive gambler. Every time debt collectors showed up at the door, Linda would drive them off with a broom, then pull me out of the corner where I was hiding and hold me close.

"Ellie, don't be scared. Mom's here."

Later, he cleared out every dollar in the house. He maxed out Linda's credit cards. Then he ran off with another woman.

That night, Linda held me and cried until morning.

The next morning she made me breakfast with red-rimmed eyes and said: "Ellie, from now on it's just the two of us."

"Mom is going to give you a good life. I won't let you make the same mistakes I made."

To pay off the debt. To keep me in private school. Linda worked three jobs at once.

She sold insurance. She sold real estate. She washed dishes at a diner late into the night.

I remember one winter, her hands were covered in chilblains — the cracks raw and weeping — and she still came home smiling with a keyboard for me.

"Girls need grace. Hands are for playing piano, not washing dishes."

That version of Linda was the light I carried inside me. She was the person I swore I'd spend my whole life paying back.

Then everything changed the year I was a senior in high school.

I came home from school one afternoon and found out she'd quit her job.

She was lying in bed. She looked at me and said: "I'm tired. I'm done."

"Ellie, you're grown now. You're on your own. Mom's going to start enjoying her life."

At first I told myself she just needed rest.

But one month passed. Then two. Then a year. She never looked for work again.

She fell into video games. The apartment turned into a mess she never touched.

When debt collectors came, she just shrugged. "No money. Come back when I'm dead."

In the end it was me, working part-time around my classes, chipping away at the interest payments one by one.

I got into a top university. I came home with the acceptance letter, hoping to see relief on her face.

She stared at the TV screen.

"Oh, you got in? Good."

"Don't forget to take care of me once you're making money. It wasn't easy raising you, you know."

My phone buzzed.

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