"Because after my parents died, everyone treated me like an inheritance waiting to happen," I said. "I was seventeen. People talked about trusts and board seats while I still had my mother's scarf in my suitcase. My grandfather shielded me from most of it, but the money was everywhere. In every introduction. Every smile. At twenty-three, I left. Got a job. Paid rent. Made friends who didn't know the name Kingsley unless it was on a wine label."
A memory surfaced, unbidden — Derek at that coffee counter years ago, wrinkled shirt, cracked laptop, ordering black coffee and staying until close, building pitch decks and pretending he wasn't hungry. I'd brought him a sandwich once and never charged him for it. He'd looked up at me like kindness was a language he'd almost forgotten.
That man had existed. I knew he had. That was the part that hurt the most.
"I loved you because you saw me," I said. "Not a name. Not a network. Me. And then the company grew, and the more the world saw you, the less you saw me."
