the opposite.
She had pageant trophies, designer handbags, eighty thousand social-media followers, and parents who celebrated every minor accomplishment like a presidential inauguration.
When she graduated high school, Mom rented a ballroom.
When I earned a full scholarship to Westbridge University at sixteen, Dad said, “Try not to become one of those antisocial computer people.”
I became one anyway.
What they never understood was that while they mocked my cheap clothes, I was building things.
At seventeen, I created an encryption protocol for financial transactions.
At eighteen, I founded Asteron
