I stared at the thick paper. I had thought I knew the whole story. I thought they had left me just because I was sick. But as my thumb slid beneath the flap and tore the aged paper open, I pulled out a clinical psychiatric evaluation belonging to Victoria Montgomery, dated two days after my birth, containing a truth so dark and calculated that the air in my lungs turned to ice.
Five years later.
The autumn wind whipped across the quad of Ellsworth University, carrying the scent of turning leaves and old stone. The campus looked the same, a bastion of privilege and history, but the geography of its power had fundamentally shifted.
I adjusted the cuffs of my tailored suit as I stood at the podium. I was not wearing an academic gown.
The crowd before me was vastly different from the one that had gathered in the auditorium half a decade ago. There were no billionaires in the front row. There were no politicians. Instead, the folding chairs were filled with cafeteria workers, groundskeepers, administrative assistants, and plumbers.
I looked up at the gleaming facade of the newly constructed building behind me. The letters carved into the fresh granite read: The Thomas Miller Scholarship Hall.
