Chapter 21: Offering

"So," Abigail turned to Mark, "What about you? What was it like for you growing up?"

"Hard," Mark said. "But not impossible. It was really only difficult for a few years, I made smart choices, and I got very lucky very early on. And everything just kind of went from there."

Abigail pursed her lips. He wasn't saying much about his life, and she didn't want to press him if she was asking too much. This was the first time they were properly sitting down together, after all. Where they hadn't just bumped into each other.

"I graduated high school with amazing results," Mark told her. "Got a full ride to college and business school. And everything got better from there."

Nothing had just been handed to him, then. Sometimes, Abigail still felt a little guilty about her own position. Because while she had struggled and lived a difficult life before this, it wasn't like anything here had been acquired through her own doing.

This had just been handed to her. Maybe, she mused, that was why s