Chapter 2 - The Stolen Scholarship
Marcus stared at the official letter in his hands, his eyes tracing the printed words over and over again. The paper bore the embossed seal of the State Academic Foundation, listing Nia’s name as the sole recipient of the prestigious STEM Vanguard Fellowship and its accompanying full-ride hardware grant. The brand-new laptop that Marcus had secretly purchased using every spare dollar from his overnight shifts was not just a gift; it was intended to be Ava’s primary tool for her newly accepted advanced coding program. Yet Nia had somehow intercepted the correspondence, claimed the award as her own administrative achievement, and quietly redirected the technology to someone else entirely.
“You didn’t just take the computer, Nia,” Marcus said, slowly rising to his full height. “You hijacked her application. You used her social security number from the tax files, didn’t you?”
Nia took a half-step back, her hands tightening into fists against the dark green velvet of her dress. “I didn’t hijack anything. I fixed a mistake. Ava is sixteen years old; she doesn't even know what burnout looks like. I am the one who proofread the essays, even if I had to rewrite the final paragraphs to make them sound professional enough for the committee. If I hadn’t stepped in and put my name on the secondary contact line, the judges would have thrown the whole packet away for formatting errors.”
Ava looked back and forth between the two adults, her breathing shallow. “Mom, I wrote every single line of code in that project. I stayed up until three in the morning for four months straight.”
“Quiet, Ava,” Nia snapped, before turning her sharp gaze back to Marcus. “You’re encouraging this delusion that she can compete with kids from the prep academies downtown. We are working-class people, Marcus. We buy sponges and cleaning supplies because that is our reality, not high-end electronics.”
Marcus didn't yell. His calm demeanor was far more frightening than any outburst. He walked past Nia toward the entryway table, where he spotted her leather handbag resting beside her car keys. Without asking permission, he reached inside and pulled out a second piece of paper—a physical pawn shop receipt dated just three hours earlier.
“You didn’t give it to a relative, and you didn’t give it to a classmate,” Marcus said, holding up the slip of thermal paper so the numbers caught the living room light. “You sold it for four hundred dollars cash to the pawn shop on Fourth Street.”
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Nia’s face drained of color, her mouth parting slightly as she realized her carefully constructed excuse had completely collapsed.
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