Chapter 3: When Hope Feels Like a Lie
Morning came the same way it always did in the slums of East Valley — without warning, without mercy.
Fred woke up with a sore neck, curled in the same broken chair he had been sitting in all night beside his mother's sickbed.
The cold had crawled into his bones.
The small, cracked window did nothing against the biting winds.
Rachel, his mother, still shivered under a heap of patched-up blankets.
Her breathing was rough, like gravel grinding against glass.
Her hair — once thick and curly like Fred's — was now dull and thinned from the sickness and stress.
Fred didn't have time to cry.
Crying was a luxury.
Instead, he moved robotically: wringing a cloth in cold water, brushing his mother's forehead, checking the tiny bottle of medicine on the wooden crate that served as their table.
Empty.
Like their fridge.
Like his pockets.
---
Fred dressed in the dark.
His uniform — a white shirt and navy-blue trousers — hung off his skinny frame.
The shirt, faded almost grey from too many washes, was frayed at the cuffs.
His shoes, once black, now carried the color of every street he walked — muddy brown, cracked at the soles.
As he buttoned the shirt, Fred caught a glimpse of himself in the broken mirror nailed to the wall.
He looked... invisible.
Forgettable.
Which was probably why no one cared enough to hurt him directly — they hurt him by ignoring him.
He grabbed his backpack — a ripped, stitched-together mess — and slung it over his shoulder.
It contained exactly three things:
A torn notebook
A half-chewed pen
A crumpled school ID card with his picture already fading
---
Fred walked the familiar path to Royal Crest High, his head bowed low against the morning wind.
Around him, other students made their way too — but not like him.
Some were dropped off in sleek Audi SUVs, license plates flashing gold frames.
Some strutted in groups, wearing customized varsity jackets, latest Jordans, laughing too loud about nothing.
Some carried coffee cups from the city's luxury café, one cup costing more than Fred's entire month's meals.
He was a ghost among kings.
An unwanted smudge on a polished painting.
Nobody called out to him.
Nobody cared to.
---
The school's marble courtyard sparkled under the sun.
The students gathered, standing by class groups, whispering, laughing, some scrolling through their phones.
At the front, under the massive school flag, the principal stood:
Mr. Harrison Maddox — mid-fifties, towering, pale-skinned with silver hair, always dressed in thousand-dollar suits, rumored to have bribed half the education board to stay principal.
Beside him, Mrs. Clarissa Bane, the Assistant Principal — early forties, icy beauty, cruel smile, thin red lips — whose stilettos clicked like gunshots on the marble floor.
Principal Maddox raised a hand for silence.
> "Good morning, students," he said, voice booming through the expensive speakers mounted everywhere.
"A reminder — this Friday is the Annual Sponsors Gala."
Cheers erupted.
Fred clenched his fists.
The Sponsors Gala — where the city's richest citizens would come to "invest" in "promising students."
Meaning: the beautiful ones, the rich ones, the connected ones.
Not him.
Never him.
---
As students were dismissed, Fred saw a commotion near the main stairs.
A group of handpicked students — the elite — were receiving Golden Invitations to the Sponsors Gala.
Each card was thick, glittering gold, with calligraphy so beautiful it almost hurt to look at.
Jasmine Taylor got hers first, smiling for the cameras.
Leon Wright accepted his with a cocky grin.
Tiffany Lane posed, flicking her hair.
Fred waited.
Maybe — just maybe — by some miracle...
But no.
No card.
No call.
He wasn't even an afterthought.
He was just background noise.
---
In Economics class, the lesson was about wealth management.
Mrs. Goldstein droned on about stocks, real estate, offshore accounts.
Fred could barely hear her.
His stomach hurt — not from hunger this time, but from shame so sharp it felt like a knife.
Beside him, Victor scrolled through his phone openly.
A picture flashed on the screen: Victor's brand-new Porsche Cayman, bright red, glistening.
Fred blinked back tears.
Not because he wanted the car.
But because it reminded him that life had winners and losers... and he had been born on the wrong side.
---
When the last bell rang, Fred didn't rush home.
He couldn't.
Instead, he walked around the courtyard, slow, aimless.
That's when he saw it.
Melissa Vane — the girl who refused to work with him — was laughing with her friends.
Behind them, pinned to the school's public bulletin board, was a massive list:
Candidates for Royal Crest's Prom King and Queen Elections.
Fred's name wasn't there.
Of course not.
But something else was:
Worst Dressed Student of the Year — FRED LAYTON.
His name.
Big.
Bold.
Humiliating.
Students were already snapping pictures, giggling, sharing it to their socials.
> #PoorFred
#CharityCase
#MaybeNextLife
Fred stood frozen.
The world spun.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to cry.
Instead, he just turned and walked away.
---
The streets blurred around him.
Cars roared past.
People laughed.
Billboards flashed images of luxury watches, perfect bodies, vacations in paradise.
Fred trudged through puddles and broken glass.
He could still hear their laughter ringing in his ears.
His body was moving, but his mind was somewhere else.
Somewhere darker.
Somewhere colder.
---
Home was silent except for the occasional cough from his mother.
Fred sat by the broken window, knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the distant city lights — so close, yet galaxies away.
He felt something inside him quietly snap.
A soft voice in his mind, too tired to shout:
> "Maybe you weren't born to win."
And for the first time, Fred didn't argue back.
He simply let the darkness settle around him like a second skin.
---