Elizabeth—

Unfortunately, this money will not make you the woman I hoped you would be. When I am gone, remember the traits I struggled to engrain in you. Try not to be so odd. You carry my legacy into the world. Do not make a mockery of our family.

Always,

Mother

My uncontrollable tears soak the page, smudging the ink and blurring my mother’s final words. It doesn’t matter that they are no longer legible. They are forever carved into my broken heart.

* * * *

Familiar voices echo in my ear through my headset as I trudge through my game. What is normally my escape, my safe place, hasn’t kept my mother’s haunting words at bay. I’m following Jackie into battle, but my mind is somewhere else. My heart isn’t in it.

“Lizbit, get your shit together,” she snaps at me. I nearly sent my army into a crossfire. It’s the third time she’s had to tell me to focus.

“Sorry,” I mumble. I struggle for another thirty minutes before we give up, failing to vanquish Jackie’s latest in-game rival. We log out of the game, but she keeps our voice chat up.

Let the inquisition begin. “That’s it. You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on. You’ve been out of it all week and I’m sick of getting my ass kicked while you’re off in la-la land.”

“It’s nothing,” I deflect.

“Bullshit,” she challenges. “Did you get a B on a test or something?”

“Nothing that traumatic.”

“What then?” She waits for my answer.

My mother’s words torture me in the silence. “I got a letter from my mother.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“She is.”

“Creepy.” Jackie isn’t the most sensitive soul. “And?”

I sigh and pinch my eyes shut. The image of my mother’s disapproving scowl confronts me in the darkness. “She basically said I’m her legacy, so don’t be so weird.”

Jackie laughs. Her cackles fill my headset. “So?”

“So? I’m a disappointment.”

“Spoiler alert, babe. We’re all a disappointment. My mom wants me to be her little clone. Just because she loves spending her free time barefoot in the kitchen, she expects me to be Betty fucking Crocker. No thank you.”

I don’t point out that her mom is also a successful real estate agent while Jackie has been a barista in her grandpa’s coffee shop for five years and counting.

“She’s right, though. I can’t even have a conversation like a normal person. Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe it’s time I tried a change.”

“If you want to change, then change. Be something else. Someone else. Just do it for you, not for her. She was a bitch when she was alive and she’s still a bitch post-mortem. Who gives a shit what she thought?”

I do. I care. I need to make a change.

* * * *

I plop down in the seat across from him with a thud. The university library is so quiet the sound echoes through the nearly empty study hall. For someone so small, I’m surprisingly graceless. My mother’s turning in her grave. It doesn’t help that I’m so panicked to talk to him my knees practically gave out underneath me. I swallow down the lump in my throat, try to ignore my own awkwardness and press on with this crazy plan.