Then he looked at me.
“Maya,” he said, “we’ve decided we won’t be paying for Northlake State.”
For a moment, the sentence refused to become real.
Northlake State wasn’t Briarwood, but it was a good school. A respected public university with a strong economics department, practical tuition, and the kind of sensible value my father always claimed to respect. I had earned that acceptance.
I had studied late, kept my grades high, helped at home, worked quietly, and applied without making demands. I had not asked for prestige. I had not asked for luxury. I had only wanted the same beginning.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
My father leaned back and folded his hands. Grant believed any decision could sound fair if he explained it calmly enough. He owned a small commercial remodeling business in Denver, Colorado, and had spent our whole childhood teaching us that money followed discipline, success followed choices, and emotions were what people used when facts failed them.
