Chapter 3: The Name She Didn't Recognize
My name is Lily.
I'm seventeen years old, and until that afternoon I thought the worst thing my stepmother had ever done to me was make me feel invisible.
I was wrong.
I stood in the kitchen holding the withdrawal notice and I couldn't feel my hands.
The paper had my name on it.
My full name — Lily Anne Hartwell — typed cleanly in the university's official font, like it was nothing.
Like my entire future was an administrative detail someone had tidied away.
Dad was still staring at his phone.
"Who sent that?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away.
He turned the screen toward me.
Unknown number.
Four words.
*This wasn't the first.*
"What does that mean?" I said.
"First what?"
Sandra — that's my stepmother — made a sound in her throat.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a scoff.
Something in between that she'd perfected over the years, the sound she made when she wanted you to feel small without technically saying anything.
"Someone's playing games," she said.
"You don't know who that is.
Could be anyone."
"Then you won't mind if I call the university," Dad said.
He wasn't looking at her.
He was already dialing.
She minded.
I could see it in the way her jaw tightened.
But she didn't move.
Dad put the call on speaker.
The line rang twice before a woman picked up.
"Admissions office, this is Carol."
"Carol, my name is David Hartwell.
My daughter Lily received a full-ride scholarship offer approximately three weeks ago.
I'm looking at a withdrawal notice right now and I need to understand what happened."
A pause.
Keyboard clicks.
"Mr.
Hartwell, yes — we received a call on the fourteenth.
The caller identified herself as the student's mother and said Lily had decided to decline the offer.
We followed up with a confirmation email to the address on file."
Dad went very still.
"What email address?"
More keyboard clicks.
Carol read out an address I had never seen before.
A Gmail account with a slight variation of my name — an extra letter, easy to miss.
"That's not my daughter's email," Dad said.
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Mr.
Hartwell, I have to be honest with you.
If that account wasn't created by your daughter, then someone contacted us under false pretenses.
That's something we take very seriously.
I'd recommend you come in with documentation.
We can review the call log and the account registration."
"We'll be there Monday morning," Dad said.
"Don't close anything."
He ended the call.
The kitchen was completely silent.
My little stepbrother Caleb was still standing near the drawer where he'd found the envelope.
He was eight years old and he was watching his mother with an expression I didn't know how to read.
Not scared, exactly.
More like he'd been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally put it down.
"Caleb," Sandra said, her voice dropping to something that wasn't quite a warning but was close.
"Go to your room."
He didn't move.
"Caleb."
"There was another one," he said quietly.
"Last year.
A different envelope.
I saw you put it in the recycling."
Sandra's face didn't change.
That was almost worse than if it had.
Dad crouched down to Caleb's level.
"What kind of envelope, buddy?"
Caleb looked at his mother one more time.
Then he looked at my dad.
"It had a gold seal on it," he said.
"Like a stamp.
And Lily's name."
I thought about last year.
The regional science competition.
I'd placed second in the state.
The coordinator had told me personally that I'd be receiving a formal recognition letter and an invitation to apply for a summer research program at the state university.
I never received it.
I had assumed it got lost in the mail.
Dad stood up slowly.
He turned to Sandra.
She was already reaching for her phone.
"Don't," he said.
May you like
One word.
She stopped.
