Chapter 7: The Gifted and the Damned

That night, after my wife and daughter fell asleep, I sat on the back porch under the desert sky. The porch light spilled gold on the grass, cicadas humming, the air tinged with pine and the faint metallic scent of a coming monsoon.

I flipped through my old graduation photo. Their faces are mostly a blur now, but their talents are burned into my memory.

The girl next to me—she’d hack into the school’s WiFi to change her grades, then brag about it on Snapchat. She called me a country bumpkin for not even owning a computer.

The chubby boy behind me was a math prodigy—he’d draw equations on the back of his hoodie in Sharpie. He’d slam his notebook shut and mutter that idiots like me were an insult to math.

The guy with black-rimmed glasses—ran a crypto scam before anyone knew what crypto was. Now he’s a big-shot investor, but back then he’d sneer and tell me I’d always be poor.

...

Derek Marshall was right. I really did hate them. I stared at their faces, my fingers tingling, humiliation sharp as broken glass.