A blond, blue-eyed man stood beside Yolanda, and she greeted me with a familiarity that felt completely rehearsed. "Lily, it's been a while."
As my reputation in the industry continued to grow, more and more people started turning their attention towards me.
A technology prodigy who had built everything from the ground up, a young woman from a rural background who earned her place in college through competitions, a 26-year-old whose fortune had reached hundreds of millions.
It was the kind of success story people loved to discuss.
No one knew I had once spent a night curled up on a freezing bench at a train station. No one knew I had once retrieved an old phone from beside a garbage pile.
"It's been a while." I lifted the champagne glass in my hand and gave her a distant nod.
Yolanda
