Chapter 3

I knew my parents. When they said they wouldn't pay for my college tuition, they meant they wouldn't pay a single cent.

So the next morning, I headed out into the sweltering heat.

The semester had just ended, and every student in town was looking for summer work, so the decent gigs were long gone. I went door to door down the main strip, asking at every place I passed.

"Are you guys hiring for the summer? I can do anything, dishes, busing tables, whatever you need."

After more than a dozen rejections, an upscale seafood restaurant finally took me on.

"80 dollars a day, lunch included. Shift runs from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm. Take it or leave it," Rick Weaver, the manager, said as he looked me over.

"I'll take it." I didn't hesitate.

80 dollars a day for two months would barely cover my first year of tuition and housing.

The work was harder than I'd imagined. I was on my feet the entire shift, carrying heavy trays back and forth between private dining rooms. The grease and smoke from the kitchen stung my eyes until I could barely keep them open, and my hands broke out in blisters from the burns.

But I gritted my teeth and pushed through, because I had no other option.

Two weeks later, my acceptance letter arrived. I'd gotten into one of the most prestigious colleges in the country, just like I'd hoped. Joseph, on the other hand, only got into some no-name school nobody had ever heard of.

But when Mom, Dad, and Joseph came back from their trip, they didn't say a single word about my acceptance.

One afternoon, the restaurant was slammed. Rick came rushing into the kitchen and shoved a platter of the house signature, garlic butter king crab, into my hands.

"Simon, hurry! Get this to the main VIP room!

"That's our biggest client today. They booked the whole room for a college acceptance dinner, so don't mess this up!"

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my shoulder, steadied the heavy tray, and headed down the hallway toward the most expensive room at the far end.

"Excuse me, your garlic butter king crab is—"

I put on a smile and started to announce the dish, but the words died in my throat the moment I saw who was inside.

The room was lit up and packed with two full tables of people, every single one of them a relative I knew by heart. Mom and Dad sat at the head of the table with Joseph between them, dressed up like some young heir.

It turned out they'd thrown Joseph a college acceptance dinner. They'd invited all these relatives, and the only person they hadn't told was their own son.

My uncle, Robert Banks, was the first to notice me. His eyes went wide as he blurted out, "Simon? It's your brother's celebration dinner. What are you doing here serving plates?"

The laughter and chatter in the room cut off instantly. Every pair of eyes locked onto me.

There I stood in an ill-fitting server's uniform, my hair plastered to my face with sweat. The contrast between me and Joseph, who was polished and gleaming, was brutal.

Still, I clenched my jaw and forced myself to walk to the table, setting the platter of king crab down with steady hands.

Before I could say a word, Dad shot to his feet. "You ungrateful little bastard! You dressed up like some beggar and came here on purpose to humiliate us, didn't you!"

Then he turned to face the relatives, wearing the look of a man bitterly disappointed in his own son.

"Everyone here knows we gave each of our boys a 100,000-dollar education fund. We were completely fair!

"Joseph took his money and went overseas, broadened his horizons, and came back a better man. But this one?

"He took his 100,000 dollars and blew every cent of it running around with lowlifes, wasting his time at pool halls and clubs!

"Now that he's burned through all of it, he's here busing tables and playing the victim, trying to make us look bad in front of all of you!"