“Yo, Faith,” Tyler said, not looking away from the screen where a game character was running through a war zone.
“Dad said you were freaking out. You need to chill. Your vibe is messing with my focus.”
“You knew,” I said softly. “You knew he took my computer.”
“I needed the upgrade,” Tyler shrugged, clicking his mouse furiously. “My old setup was lagging.”
“Dad said your laptop was just sitting there gathering dust anyway. You’re always just reading on it.”
“I was coding,” I said. “I was building a career.”
“Eat while it’s hot, honey,” she cooed.
“Faith, honestly,” Susan sighed, wiping her hands on her apron. “Don’t look at your brother like that. He’s sensitive. You know how hard it is for him right now.”
“Hard?” I laughed a dry, cracking sound. “He’s playing video games, Mom. I’m about to fail out of university because dad sold my property. It’s family property. Susan corrected me instantly, her voice dropping to that steel tone she used whenever I challenged the status quo. And we do what we have to do for family. Your father decided this was best. Your smart faith, you always land on your feet. Tyler. Tyler needs help. I looked at them. The tableau of dysfunction. The mother feeding the grown manchild, the father counting the cash he made from cannibalizing his daughter’s future. I felt a strange clarity wash over me. It was cold and sharp, like inhaling ice water.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I am smart.”
“Where are you going?” Susan called after me.
“I need you to help me clear out the study. Tyler wants to move his desk in there for better acoustics. I’ll be right back, I lied. As I walked down the hallway, I passed the calendar hanging on the wall. The date of my graduation was circled in red ink. My ink. Frank had written Tyler’s dentist apt over it in thick black marker. They thought they had broken me. They thought I was trapped here, dependent on their whims, bound by the guilt they had fed me since birth. They thought that by taking my tool, they had taken my power. But they had forgotten one crucial thing. I didn’t need their house or their internet or their permission to build my code. I carried the architecture in my mind. To understand why a father would sell his daughter’s future for a gaming console, you have to understand Frank. Frank was a man who believed the world owed him a living. He was a consultant, which in our house meant he spent 6 hours a day on LinkedIn reposting motivational quotes and the rest of the day complaining about how diversity hires were ruining the corporate landscape. He had never held a position of real authority. Yet, he spoke with the absolute confidence of a Fortune 500 CEO. And then there was Tyler. Tyler was Frank’s mirror. In Tyler, Frank saw his own wasted potential. Tyler was the golden boy, the one who was too creative for school, too spirited for a 9 to5. When Tyler failed math, it was the teacher’s fault. When Tyler got fired from the warehouse job for stealing boxes, it was a misunderstanding. I was the overhead costs. I was the one who kept my head down. Since I was 16, I had paid for my own clothes, my own school supplies, my own transport. I worked nights at a data entry firm, keying in numbers until my fingers cramped just to save enough for that refurbished workstation. I remembered the day I bought it. I brought it home, beaming, proud of the machine that would help me become a software engineer. Frank had looked at it and sneered. What do you need all that horsepower for? You plan on hacking the Pentagon? Waste of money. Could have fixed the transmission on the van with that. He had always resented my ambition. He saw it as an insult. Every A I brought home was a reminder of Tyler’s D. Every scholarship letter was a spotlight on Tyler’s lack of direction. Now standing in my bedroom, listening to the muffled sounds of explosions coming from the living room. The full picture came into focus. This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t just about money. Frank hadn’t sold the laptop just to buy the gaming rig. He had sold it to sabotage me. He couldn’t stand the idea that in two days I would outgrow him. I would have a degree he didn’t have. I would have a starting salary he couldn’t match. He wanted to keep me here. He wanted me to fail so I would stay in the study fixing the Wi-Fi, doing their taxes, and paying rent to live in the closet while Tyler played soldier in the living room. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were redrimmed, my hair a mess. I looked weak, but inside the gears were turning. I reached under my mattress, and pulled out a manila envelope. I had hidden it there 3 weeks ago. It was an acceptance letter, not from a university, but from Nova Systems, a ruthless high octane tech accelerator program in Seattle. It was a live-in residency. They provided housing, equipment, and a stipend in exchange for intellectual property rights to whatever you built in the first year. It was prestigious, incredibly competitive, and started in 4 days. I hadn’t told them. I wanted to surprise them after graduation. I wanted to say,
“Look, I made it. I’m going to be a success.”
