Chapter 1

After deleting the photos, Gavin Mercer tossed the phone right back to Charlotte Hale so she could keep scrolling through her options.

Right as she took it, an email with a rejection letter from the company she had just interviewed with came through, and she immediately started tearing up.

"Am I really that incompetent?" Charlotte asked. "I can't even get a foot in the door anywhere."

Mom wasted no time pulling her into a tight embrace.

"What are you talking about? If anyone's going to struggle to find a job around here, it's Natalie, not you. You've always excelled at everything since you were a kid, so there's no way you're going to end up unemployed."

She threw a pointed look over her shoulder at me before continuing, "That company obviously doesn't know real talent when it's staring them in the face. Don't worry about it. We'll take our time and find you the perfect fit."

I stood nearby, silent and stationary, yet I had somehow been dragged into the conversation to serve as the default standard for failure just to make Charlotte look better.

Growing up, I spent countless nights wondering if I had been switched at birth, convinced that Charlotte was my parents' real biological daughter.

Unfortunately, a DNA test eventually cleared up any doubt about my lineage.

For a long time, I tried to convince myself that the problem was just my own flawed personality or that I simply wasn't smart enough, which drove me to work myself to the bone just to prove my worth to them.

But by the time I finally earned enough to catch their attention, I realized that their blatant favoritism toward Charlotte had already become hardwired into their daily routine.

They were so accustomed to this, knowing that no matter how badly they ignored me, I would always find my own way home anyway.

As I stood there watching Gavin coax Charlotte, Dad already had his phone out, dialing the HR manager at Stellar Group.

Once he hung up, he turned to Charlotte with confidence.

"Don't you worry. I'm going to sort this out for you," he promised. "That first step on the career ladder is absolutely important, so we can't be careless about it. You need to be starting at a major corporation like Stellar Group at the very least."

It felt like Charlotte always had an invisible safety net stretched beneath her feet, ensuring that the moment she faltered, everyone would desperately scramble to catch her.

During our freshman year of college, she flunked one of her core classes, and Mom immediately pulled every string she had to hire a senior student as a private tutor.

She dropped 300 dollars per lesson and paid for 20 sessions upfront without a second thought.

That same semester, I scored 95 points on my own exam.

I proudly brought the paper home to Mom, desperately craving even a shred of validation or praise. Instead, she frowned and chided me, "I thought you said you were actually studying for this class? How did you manage to lose five points?"

After that, I stopped telling them my grades entirely.

Then there was our junior year, when an acute gastritis attack left me collapsed on the steps of the lab building, unable to stand up.

I called Gavin to beg him to take me to the hospital for the first time in our relationship, but the line went quiet for a few seconds.

"Lottie has a massive presentation tomorrow, and she's a nervous wreck right now. She really needs me to help her prepare for it," he finally said. "Natalie, you've always been the independent one anyway, so you should be fine catching a taxi by yourself, right?"

When the driver noticed how pale I was, he actually got out to help steady me as I stumbled into the emergency room.

Even a stranger could tell I needed help, yet Gavin genuinely believed I could handle it all on my own.

I suppose I had been the reliable, well-behaved child for too long. Eventually, everyone just assumed I was made of stone and was immune to pain or heartbreak.

It took what felt like an eternity before Mom casually asked about my own job-hunting experience.

I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could say a single word, Dad dismissed the topic with a sharp wave of his hand.

"What kind of career is she even expecting to jump into with a major like that? She just needs to find some run-of-the-mill desk job and get it over with."

My brother, Nolan Sinclair, shot a glance in my direction, his brow furrowing as he chimed in, "He's right. You need to get your foot in the door somewhere so you don't end up freeloading off Mom and Dad the second you graduate."

Gavin even went so far as to suggest that if I hit a total dead end, he could look into a receptionist opening at his own company.

He made it sound so casually sincere that anyone would think he was actually concerned about me.

I kept my head down, quietly unlocking my phone to look at the offer letter from Selton Space Center.

The salary package was incredibly generous, and the position carried an immense amount of prestige, but the massive downside was that the facility sat 2,000 miles away from home.

For the last seven days, I had been intentionally dragging my feet on accepting the offer because I was holding out hope.

I was waiting for Mom to ask me just once where I actually envisioned myself living, or for Dad to pick up the phone and make a single call to help me out.

I was also waiting for Gavin to remember the promise we had made to build a life in the same city after college.

Yet with the confirmation countdown ticking down to its final six hours, the silence from my family was deafening.

I finally tapped the confirmation button, and an automated message popped up on the screen.

"Welcome to Selton Space Center, Natalie Sinclair."

The very first genuine welcome I had received regarding my future came from a computer system located 2,000 miles away.