Chapter 1

I called Rita Sawyer, the dean of my college. "Ms. Sawyer, can I still apply for the Helios Program we talked about?"

"Of course! We've been holding a spot for you. You still have until the day after tomorrow to apply."

There was a brief pause before she added, "But once you're accepted, you have to stay for at least three years and can't go home. Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," I replied.

I hung up, and my phone suddenly buzzed.

At some point, someone had added me to a group chat.

"Looks like Liam isn't coming. Is he mad because I had too much luggage, and he couldn't ride in the car?" Harvey Gould, my younger brother, added a sad emoji.

My older sister, Janet Gould, replied right away. "He's even more difficult now that he's lost weight. Just ignore him."

Mom followed up. "Exactly. He's always been a troublemaker."

I stared at the screen as another message popped up.

"We didn't raise him, so he was never going to be one of us."

So they never saw me as family?

Harvey and I were twins.

There were three children in the family when we were born. Mom and Dad said they couldn't manage all three of us, so they sent me to live with my paternal grandmother in the countryside.

I wasn't brought home until I was six years old.

I still remember how excited I was. I told everyone that Mom was coming to take me home.

I washed the clothes I was going to wear three times. I even carefully applied face cream.

But when I arrived, Mom took one look at me and said, "He's so tanned and pudgy. How ugly."

Harvey ran out from the back room in a little suit. He studied me for a while, then suddenly laughed.

"Liam's such a porker!"

Back then, I stood frozen in the doorway, with a heavy chill in my chest.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed. I realized I had been removed from the group again.

The last message was from Dad. He wrote, "Who added him in here?"

I hesitated, then scrolled up through the messages.

That was when I noticed the group was called "The Four of Us," not "The Gould Family" like before.

So they had created another group chat behind my back.

I gripped my phone and almost laughed.

When I was overweight, they called me unpleasant to look at. Now that I'm skinnier, I'm too difficult.

No matter what I did, I was wrong. I couldn't even catch a break.

I didn't go to the restaurant. Instead, I hailed a cab and went straight home.

-

The apartment was on the sixth floor of an old complex. I dragged my bag up the stairs, one floor at a time.

The stairs seemed to stretch on forever.

By the time I reached the apartment, I was sweating heavily, and the back of my shirt was soaked.

The fingerprint lock on the door glowed blue.

I pressed my thumb against it, but it let out a loud beep.

"Fingerprint not recognized."

I tried again and got the same error.

On the third try, the lock sounded an alarm.

"Too many attempts. Fingerprint access is locked. Please contact the administrator."

Summer in Candon was hot. Sweat trickled down my forehead into my eyes, making them sting badly.

My phone ran out of battery, so I could only wait in the hallway.

The motion-activated light kept going out, so I would stomp my foot every few minutes to turn it back on.

Whenever it went out, I stomped again.

My legs were covered in mosquito bites and stiff from standing so long when I finally heard voices and laughter coming from the stairs.

"That crawfish was so good."

Then Mom looked up and saw me standing at the door.

Everyone suddenly went quiet.

Mom squeezed past me and pressed her thumb against the lock.

"Too many attempts. Fingerprint access is locked. Please contact the administrator." The cold electronic voice repeated the message.

Mom wiped the sweat from her forehead and couldn't help but complain. "You broke the lock again. Why is it always you? You break everything you touch."

It had always been like this. Whenever something broke at home, it was either Janet's or Harvey's fault.

After I came back, if no one knew who had done it, they blamed it all on me.

I wanted to explain that the lock didn't have my fingerprint registered.

But in the end, I decided it wasn't worth saying.

After all, I probably wouldn't be coming back often.