Mira Chen POV
The first thing anyone said to me at Ashford Elite Academy was: "Are those really your bags?"
Not hello. Not welcome. Not even a name.
Just four words that made my stomach drop to the floor.
I turned around. A girl stood in the doorway of our shared dorm room — tall, with perfect posture and a look on her face like she'd just stepped in something rotten. She stared at my two old suitcases sitting on the carpet between us, and I watched her nose actually wrinkle. Like I was a bad smell she couldn't get away from fast enough.
"Yeah," I said. "They're mine."
She pulled out her phone without another word and dialed. I heard her clearly as she walked back into the hallway, her voice low and firm: "Papa, I need a room transfer. Tonight."
I stood there in the middle of the room, alone, with my sad suitcases, while the sound of her expensive heels clicked away down the corridor.
I didn't cry. I wanted to. But I didn't.
You earned this, I told myself. One out of ten thousand applicants. You beat them all.
I needed to remember that.
Getting to Ashford had cost everything.
My mom, Lin Chen, had worked eighteen-hour days in our Chinatown restaurant for nine years — nine years after my dad died and left us with nothing but debt and a broken kitchen fryer. She never complained. She just cooked, and cooked, and cooked, while I studied by the light of my phone because our lamp broke and we couldn't afford a new bulb yet.
The day my scholarship letter arrived, she cried for twenty minutes straight. Then she made me my favorite dumplings and said, "My daughter is going to change our lives."
This morning, when she dropped me off at the gates, she'd held my face in both hands — her palms smelled like ginger and sesame oil — and said, "You are the smartest person I know. Don't you ever forget that."
I hadn't forgotten it. But standing in an empty dorm room after being rejected by someone who hadn't even learned my name yet, "smart" felt like the most useless thing in the world.
I unpacked slowly, folding everything neatly into drawers, trying to make my side of the room look normal. Like I belonged.
The door opened again.
I spun around, hopeful — maybe she'd changed her mind? Maybe—
It wasn't my roommate.
It was a boy.
He leaned against the doorframe like he owned it — like he owned the whole building, the whole school, maybe the whole county. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Eyes the exact cold grey of a winter sky right before a storm.
He looked at me, then slowly looked around the room at my belongings, my neatly folded clothes, my second-hand textbooks stacked on the desk.
Then he looked back at me.
"You're in the wrong room," he said.
"I'm not," I said. "Room 14B. It's on my letter."
"That's Claudette's room."
"Claudette requested a transfer."
Something moved across his face — not quite surprise. More like mild curiosity. Like I was a strange bug he'd noticed on the pavement, interesting for exactly two seconds before he'd step over me and keep walking.
"And you are?" he asked.
"Mira Chen." I kept my voice steady. "Ashford Merit Scholar. You are?"
His mouth curved — not quite a smile. More like the beginning of one that never finished.
"Sebastian Ashford," he said.
The name hit me like cold water.
Ashford. As in the Ashford in Ashford Elite Academy.
I didn't let my face change. I looked right back at him. "Nice to meet you."
For one second — just one — something shifted in his eyes. Like he was actually seeing me. Like I'd surprised him.
Then it disappeared.
"There's an orientation dinner tonight," he said, pushing off the doorframe. "Seven o'clock. Try not to be late."
He was gone before I could answer.
Orientation dinner was a nightmare in slow motion.
Round tables. Starched white tablecloths. Students who all seemed to already know each other, laughing loudly at private jokes, tilting their heads together. I walked in alone, scanning for an empty seat, and found one near the back.
I sat down. Introduced myself to the girl beside me. She nodded politely and turned back to her conversation.
I tried again with the boy on my other side. He looked at my blazer — the one from the second-hand shop that was slightly too big in the shoulders — and said "mm" in a way that wasn't agreement or disagreement, just a sound that meant you don't register.
I picked up my fork and stared at my plate.
Across the room, Sebastian sat at the center table — the best one, the one where the light fell perfectly and everyone could see him. Beside him was a girl in white. Blonde hair like a crown. Sitting like she'd been sculpted to sit exactly that way. She was laughing at something, but her eyes kept moving around the room.
They landed on me.
She didn't stop smiling. But something behind her eyes sharpened — like a knife being picked up.
She leaned over and whispered something into Sebastian's ear.
Sebastian looked up.
Found my eyes across the room.
And looked away.
Just like that. Like I wasn't there.
I felt something close. Like a door inside my chest, swinging shut.
You earned this, I told myself again, but it was quieter now. Smaller.
Smart isn't enough here, something answered back. And you already know it.
I got back to my dorm at nine o'clock.
The door was open.
My clothes were on the floor.
Not fallen — thrown. Deliberately pulled from the drawers and scattered across the carpet like garbage. My textbooks shoved off the desk. My mom's photo — the one I'd taped above my bed, her smiling outside the restaurant — lying face-down on the floor.
I stood in the doorway, not moving.
My suitcase was still in the corner. Everything I'd carefully folded, carefully arranged, carefully tried — destroyed in ten minutes by someone who hadn't even bothered to close the door properly on their way out.
I picked up my mom's photo first.
She was still smiling up at me from the glass. Proud. Sure I was going to be okay.
I pressed it to my chest and breathed.
You are the smartest person I know.
Then I heard it.
Laughter. Coming from the hallway. Getting closer.
I recognized the voice before I saw her — that sharp, perfect voice from dinner.
The blonde girl appeared in my doorway. Three others behind her. All of them looking at the mess on the floor, then looking at me.
"Oh," she said softly, eyes wide with fake concern. "Did something happen to your room?"
The girls behind her giggled.
"I'm Victoria Blackwell," she said. "And just so we start honestly?" Her smile didn't reach her eyes. Not even close. "We've already voted. You're not welcome here."
She turned to leave — then stopped, glancing back over her shoulder.
"Also," she added, "nice photo. Is that your mum's restaurant?"
She held up her phone.
On the screen was the restaurant's Google review page.
And someone — multiple someones — were leaving one-star reviews. Right now. In real time. The numbers dropping as I watched.
Dirty kitchen. Terrible food. Never again.
Avoid at all costs.
Worst meal of my life.
My mother's nine years. Her eighteen-hour days. Her ginger-and-sesame-oil hands.
Being destroyed.
Right in front of me.
"Sweet dreams, scholarship girl," Victoria whispered.
And the door clicked shut.