UNCLE HAROLD’S ESTATE

I grew up in Millbrook, a small town in Oregon, in the household of Gerald and Susan Carter.

My sister Tiffany, two years older than me, was the daughter the whole family pinned its hopes on — pretty, outgoing, chasing dance competitions and kiddie pageants all over the region since she was small.

I was different.

I was obsessed with numbers, with how machines worked, and I spent most of my free time teaching myself to code from library books.

The year I turned thirteen, I was the only student at my school selected for the Kessler STEM Scholarship — a rare, full-ride award funded by the Ellis family’s charitable foundation, covering boarding tuition at Kessler Academy, one of the best science and engineering schools on the West Coast.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, one I’d quietly prepared and studied for over two years, too afraid of failing to tell anyone.

But the Ellis fund had an unwritten rule the whole town knew: only one award per family, per year.

At the same time, Tiffany needed funding from that very same foundation to compete at the national dance championships in Orlando — an opportunity that, according to my mother, “could decide her entire career.”

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you to study, Diana,” my mother said, sitting across from me at the kitchen table, her voice sugary-sweet, though her eyes had already gone hard with irritation, as if I were being difficult about something obvious that shouldn’t even need explaining twice.

“But Tiffany only gets this one shot, don’t you understand that?

Just turn down the scholarship, so the Ellis fund can go to your sister instead.

It’s not that hard, why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“It’s my scholarship, Mom, it’s not the fund’s to just hand over to someone else,” I tried to explain, my voice shaking, half fear, half hurt.

“Even if I turn it down, it doesn’t automatically become dance funding for her.”

My father slammed his hand on the table, the sound making me flinch.

“It doesn’t matter how the mechanism works!” he snapped, biting off each word, looking at me like I was something filthy, something contemptible.

“Mrs. Ellis is your mother’s close friend — the second you withdraw your application, she’ll find a way to make it work for Tiffany.

You’re selfish, you know that?

Disgustingly selfish, clinging to that scholarship when you know full well this family needs that money more.”

I refused.

Not because I didn’t love my sister, but because it was the one chance I had to escape a town where no one had ever once looked at me as anything other than my sister’s shadow.