I set the check down on the counter next to a collection notice from the hospital.
The numbers mock me. $387,443 printed in neat mechanical letters next to a signature I can't read. California Federal Credit Union. A legitimate bank, as far as I know.
This has to be a scam. An elaborate, incredibly well-researched scam designed to prey on desperate people like me. Someone hacked my credit report, figured out my exact debt, and now they're going to ask me to pay some kind of processing fee or give them my bank account information or…
But there's no ask. Just money and a note that says I deserve better.
I sit down on my bed because my legs won't hold me anymore.
Who is P.C.?
I run through everyone I know, searching for those initials. Patrick Chen from my writing workshop? No, he can barely pay his own rent. Penelope Carson, my thesis advisor? She's a tenured professor, not a secret millionaire. I don't know anyone with money like this. I don't know anyone who would help me even if they did.
My mother raised me to never depend on anyone. "The only person you can trust is yourself," she's told me a thousand times. "Accept help and you accept control."
She walked away from wealth once. Left behind family money, a trust fund, some kind of inheritance she never talks about. Chose to raise me alone, working herself to exhaustion rather than accept what she called "blood money."
I used to admire her independence and pride.
Now I just resent it. She walked away from comfort and dragged me down with her.
The check sits on my counter, and I can't stop staring at it. My phone buzzes. It’s another call from collections, the sixth one today. I silence it and go back to studying the check like it might reveal its secrets if I look hard enough.
What kind of person gives away almost four hundred thousand dollars to a stranger?
What do they want in return?
Because everyone wants something. That's the one lesson my mother got right. Nobody gives you anything without expecting payment, one way or another.
I pick up the check again, hold it up to the light like I'm looking for a watermark. It looks and feels real. The paper has that thick, official weight to it. The routing numbers are printed at the bottom. There's a reference number in the corner.
Everything about this screams legitimate except for the part where it's completely impossible.
I should rip it up and throw it away and pretend it never came.
Instead, I take a photo of it with my phone. Front and back. The note too. It’s evidence, in case this turns out to be something illegal.
My laptop is still open to my email inbox. Sixteen new messages, and I already know what they are without looking. Rejection letters from literary magazines. "Thank you for your submission, but this isn't quite right for us." "We're passing on this piece." "Unfortunately, we've decided not to move forward."
I write short stories that go nowhere, do nothing, say nothing important. Atmospheric pieces that are all vibes and no plot. Beautiful failures, my workshop instructor called them once. She meant it as a compliment.
No one pays for beautiful failures.
The tutoring keeps me fed. The coffee shop pays my rent. The writing pays nothing except in rejection and false hope.
And my mother is in a hospital bed with bills I can't pay, wondering if I'm going to let her die because I'm too proud to find help.
I turn the card over again.You deserve better. —P.C.
I should walk away. This is either a joke or a scam.
But what if I’m wrong? What if it’s real?
2
JADE
Twenty-four hours earlier, before the check, my life looks like this: I'm sitting at my kitchen counter, which is a generous term for the two feet of laminate that passes for a workspace, staring at my laptop screen and trying not to scream.
