Chapter 1: The Fever and the Phantom Debt
For a full decade, my loved ones treated my burgeoning digital empire like an embarrassing parlor trick, squandering every last penny into the bottomless pit of my older sister’s medical fortune. It was a masterclass in blind devotion. My name is Alysia Thompson, I’m thirty-four years old, and my story begins wrapped in a cocoon of heavy down blankets in my attic in Fort Worth, Texas. I was battling a nasty flu, the kind that makes your joints feel like broken glass and your skin radiate a dry, unbearable heat.
It was day four of my self-imposed quarantine when my phone vibrated against the mahogany nightstand. The screen lit up the dark room, displaying a glossy, overly polished portrait of my mother, Alyssa. I let it vibrate once, a metallic buzz against the wood, before closing the screen.
“Hello?” I growled, my throat dry as if I’d swallowed a handful of gravel.
“Alysia. You have a terrible voice. Are you still lounging around here sick?” Her tone was brutally dry, devoid of any maternal warmth. It sounded more like a project manager checking off an overdue delivery.
“Yes, Mom. This is tough. I’m just trying to sleep through it.”
“Well, I don’t want to drag this out,” she sighed, the labored breath that always preceded an order. “You know your sister, Catalina, has the last installment of her medical school tuition due by the end of the month. Your dad and I are in a bit of a bind. Property taxes in Arlington went up again, and on top of that, we had to deal with that unexpected foundation repair.”
I leaned against the headboard, the room tilting momentarily. “How much?”
“Oh, it’s nothing insurmountable,” she chirped in a mellifluous voice, using that saccharine tone she always used to downplay astronomical requests. “Just the last bit. Twenty thousand dollars.”
I coughed, a hoarse, raspy sound that rattled my ribs. “Mom, that’s a huge amount. It’s no big deal. It’s a down payment on a house.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Alysia. We’re talking about her future. Medical school at Yale. It’s not your little app gig. We sacrificed everything for this family fortune. We even mortgaged the house. Could you step up and help your own flesh and blood for once? Surely that online hobby of yours earned you some pocket change?”
There. The inevitable, sharp stab of belittlement. My little app gig. The business I’d started ten years earlier in a musty, 500-square-foot garage was now a thriving educational technology company. I’d hired fifteen brilliant minds, operated a 20,000-square-foot fulfillment warehouse, and proudly served users in thirty different countries. But for the Thompson family, it was just a fun diversion. A joke. Meanwhile, Catalina soaked up their adoration and their dwindling pension funds like a sponge, completely convinced she deserved the universe handed to her.
“Mom, I can’t,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “The paychecks arrive this week, and I don’t have that kind of cash to give away.”
It was a lie, of course. I had that sum deposited in a low-yield cash account, but these were uncrossable boundaries.
The silence on the phone dragged on, thick and suffocating. When he finally spoke, his voice had turned icy. “I understand. Good. I hope you recover soon from this little ailment. Some of us have to build something real in this world.”
He hung up. The sharp click echoed in my silent room like the slamming of a security door. Just three minutes later, the phone rang again. A text from Catalina illuminated my mind: “Mom just told me you’re leaving us in the lurch. Don’t be such a greedy brat, Alysia. This is our family’s only chance at real prestige.”
Greedy. The audacity burned me more than the fever. This accusation came from a woman who had never worked a full hour, whose exorbitant brunches and signed textbooks had always been subsidized by our father, Eric. I knew her slimy, sycophantic boyfriend, Tyler, was surely nipping at her heels, telling her jokes. He always took immense pleasure in mocking my “tech gadgets” during our stifling Sunday gatherings.
