Chapter 1: The wrong child
The letter was three paragraphs long. Ava read it four times in the parking lot before she understood that the first paragraph said we regret, the second said academic dismissal, and the third said we wish you well in your future endeavors.
Future endeavors. As if she had any.
She drove home with the letter on the passenger seat like a passenger she didn’t want to talk to. When she pulled into the driveway, every light in the house was on. Balloons were tied to the mailbox. Silver ones, shaped like stars.
For one stupid second, her heart lifted.
Then she saw the banner over the garage. CONGRATULATIONS ETHAN! And under it, smaller: LA VANGUARD’S NEWEST STAR.
Ava sat in the car for a long time.
Inside, the kitchen smelled like her mother’s braised pork, the dish she only made for birthdays and good news. Her father was opening champagne. Her brother was leaning against the counter in a brand-new Vanguard jersey, scrolling through his phone with a grin so wide it looked painful.
“There she is,” Ethan said without looking up. “Did you see? Two-year contract. Starting roster.”
“That’s amazing,” Ava said. And she meant it, which was the worst part.
Her mother turned from the stove. Her eyes went straight to the envelope in Ava’s hand. Mothers always knew.
“What is that?”
There was no good way to say it, so Ava just said it. “I didn’t pass. They’re dismissing me from the program.”
The champagne cork popped. Nobody cheered.
Her father set the bottle down very carefully, the way he did when he was trying not to throw something. “Dismissed.”
“I can appeal. Or I can reapply somewhere else, maybe in a year, if I...”
“Do you know,” her mother said quietly, “how much we spent? Do you know what I told my sisters? My daughter, the doctor. Twenty-one years I said that.”
“Mom, I tried. I really tried. I just... it’s not what I’m good at.”
“And what are you good at?” her father asked. “Tell me. I’m listening.”
Ava looked at Ethan. Ethan looked at his phone.
She could have said it then. She could have told them about the nights she couldn’t sleep, when she logged into Skyfall Arena just to feel like her hands knew what they were doing. She could have told them about the ranked games, the anonymous account that had climbed to the top of the North American ladder, the strangers in chat begging to know who she was.
She could have told them that two years ago, when Ethan was stuck and about to be dropped from his amateur team, she had logged into his account every night for a month and played his ranked games for him. That the climb that got him noticed by scouts was hers.
But Ethan finally looked up, and his eyes said please don’t, and she loved her brother, so she didn’t.
“Nothing,” Ava said. “I’m not good at anything.”
“Then why,” her mother said, “should we keep paying for nothing?”
They gave her until the end of the week.
It wasn’t said like a punishment. That was what made it so cold. Her father explained it at dinner, between bites of the celebration pork, like he was explaining a change in the cable bill. They had supported her. She had failed. She was an adult now. Ethan had earned his support by succeeding. It was only fair.
“Ethan plays video games,” Ava said. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“Ethan has a contract,” her mother snapped. “Ethan is a professional. That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“Because he’s winning.”
Ethan didn’t say anything. He just kept eating, and when their mother wasn’t looking, he slid his phone across the table to show Ava a picture of the Vanguard training facility. Like that was supposed to help.
That night Ava packed two suitcases. Her med school textbooks she left on the shelf. Her old gaming headset, the one with the cracked left ear cup, she wrapped in a sweater and packed first.
At midnight she sat on her bare mattress, opened her laptop, and logged into Skyfall. Her anonymous account was still there. Rank one. Undefeated in thirty-two games. Her inbox had forty-seven unread messages, most of them some version of WHO ARE YOU??
She didn’t answer any of them. She queued for a match and played until the sky went gray, because it was the only place in the world where she wasn’t a disappointment.
At 5:14 a.m., her phone buzzed.
The caller ID said AUNTIE LAN (SHANGHAI).
Ava hadn’t spoken to her mother’s sister in almost six years. The family didn’t talk about Auntie Lan. Auntie Lan was the one who “threw her life away,” though no one would ever say how.
Ava picked up.
“So,” said a warm, raspy voice on the other end, “I hear my sister finally did something stupid enough for me to steal you.”
