After being blocked from Yanda, I went to another grad school. Unwilling to settle, I tried starting a business with friends. Predictably, it failed, leaving me with several hundred thousand dollars in debt.
I had tried to borrow from my parents, but they preferred throwing banquets for strangers.
I was on my own.
I moved into the graduate dorms at my university. A cramped double room, inconvenient and loud, but I only had to pay utilities. It saved me a fortune in rent.
Without my parents, I would still pay off this debt.
Despite the business failure, I had built a network. Outsourced projects started coming in. The profit margins were decent.
I became a machine.
Intense schoolwork and freelance projects blurred together. I woke up working and collapsed into bed working. Even in the shower, my mind raced with data models and code.
My mother, unable to reach me by phone, eventually ambushed me at the school gate. She brought Aunt Lucy as a mediator.
"Isabella, why are you living in a dorm?" Mom's eyes swept over my tired face. "You hate living with other people. Why did you give up your apartment?"
I checked the time on my phone. Twenty minutes until my meeting.