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Chapter Two

Andrew

He didn’t even recognize me.

My mind can’t let go of that fact. It lodges in my brain like a corrupted file that keeps trying to load. How is it possible that someone who starred in my nightmares for four years, who shaped every decision I made from which hallway to take to which college to choose, doesn’t even remember my face?

There was that time in gym class when we played volleyball, and Justin and his friends decided that instead of spiking the ball over the net, they would aim for me.

And one of them struck the ball so perfectly that it hit my stomach with a loud thunk, winding me.

I still recall that dizzy breathlessness, my panic when I couldn’t draw oxygen into my body, the struggle to make my lungs recover from fright and remember what their job actually was.

That’s exactly how I feel now.

How could he not recognize me? How? How?

Okay, due to my late growth spurt, I’m a few inches taller than I was in high school, rounding out to a decent five foot eleven. Back then, my dark hair was a floppy mess, whereas now, it’s been carefully cut in a style my barber assures me is the latest fashion. And my face has slimmed down since high school, along with my standard-issue nerd glasses being replaced by a trendier pair.

But I’m still recognizable. I haven’t changed that much.

In all the time I’ve spent thinking about this moment, I never considered the idea he might not recognize me.

How did I miss that possibility?

But then, why would he recognize me? I’m a tiny blip in his life.

Justin Morris is woven so intricately into the tapestry of my teenage years, one of the main antagonists in my story. Meanwhile, I was simply some mild entertainment to amuse him when he was bored.

My features are not etched into his consciousness. He has not spent years scripting our reunion. I’m nothing to him. A nobody.

The unevenness leaves me breathless.

But then the phrase repeats in my head in a different voice. Less defeated. More…intrigued.

He doesn’t recognize me.

According to technology sector analysts, I’m the guy who sees gaps in the market, problems that have yet to be solved. And while it makes me sound like a superhero coding ninja rather than simply a guy who spends countless hours hunched over my laptop muttering to myself, there is some truth to it.

While at MIT, I developed a system that revolutionized how computers share information, basically creating digital traffic lights to improve efficiency.

On the back of that, I started my tech company, which I sold a few months ago for the kind of money that sounds made up when you say it aloud.

Now, my brain is ticking faster than an atomic clock.

I take a large sip of my drink. The smooth tones of the red wine linger on my tongue after I swallow.

I’m a big believer in karma. What goes around, comes around. If you put enough good into the universe, some of it will return to you. I like to think I’ve always been a good person, and as the balance of my bank account testifies, a lot has made its way back to me.

But now, my faith in the all-encompassing might of karma has been shaken.

I study the restroom door with the same intensity a cat studies the red dot from a laser pointer.

Justin emerges after a few minutes. He weaves through the crowd effortlessly, sliding back into the fold of his friends, who greet his return with shoulder bumps and easy laughter carrying across the pub.

My chest constricts with an emotion I can’t quite name—something between rage and despair—watching him hold court. The carefully constructed walls I’ve built between my past and present suddenly feel paper-thin.

Because Justin’s still exactly who he was in high school. The golden guy surrounded by a circle of smiling admirers.

Yes, it definitely appears karma hasn’t caught up with Justin Morris.

Possibilities swirl in my mind. I’m currently footloose, with no set ties or projects lined up. I have almost unlimited funds at my disposal.

And there’s that one important, undeniable, inescapable fact.

He didn’t recognize me.

Maybe just this once, karma needs a helping hand.

It turns out my new project is exactly what I need. After years creating digital solutions, I’ve found an analog problem worth solving: designing a perfectly calibrated dose of payback for Justin Morris.

Like any good revenge scheme, it requires meticulous planning. I find myself creating spreadsheets categorizing Optimal Embarrassment Scenarios and Psychological Impact Metrics . The scientist in me demands data points, even for vengeance.

It’s actually a weird relief to have something to occupy my time.

I’d come over to Europe after selling NovaCore with the grand idea of traveling while working out exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

And I’d done the obligatory European tourist circuit—climbing the Eiffel Tower, getting lost in the Vatican Museums, eating my body weight in gelato in Rome. I’d imagined myself having profound epiphanies while gazing at Renaissance masterpieces. Instead, I mainly discovered that European restrooms are architectural mysteries and my capacity for carbohydrate consumption is truly impressive.

I’d extended my stay in London with the hope that maybe if I stayed in one place long enough, purpose would find me.

Unfortunately, I’ve been just as aimless here, spending my days wandering the city, buying overpriced coffee, and staring at pigeons in the park as if they hold the secrets to life’s meaning.

I’ve developed a first-name relationship with three different baristas, who now start making my order the moment I walk in. Yesterday, I left a hundred-pound tip in Maya’s jar after overhearing her talk about veterinary school. Her shocked expression was the most genuine human connection I’ve had in weeks. I almost asked if I could pay her tuition in exchange for occasional coffee and conversation before realizing that might come across as either creepy or pathetic—possibly both.

Who am I if I’m not Andrew Yates, young CEO of a top 500 company? My inability to work this out plagues me.

My life was supposed to follow a predictable script. The bullied kid gets rich and successful, and suddenly, everything makes sense. But somehow, the zeros in my bank account haven’t managed to erase the high school memories.

It doesn’t help that my personal life is like a computer in sleep mode. Technically still functional but not doing anything useful.

Initially, I was so busy in the early years of NovaCore that I had no time to date. When I finally emerged from my coding cave and joined some dating apps, I discovered that being a young tech CEO attracted a certain type. Like the guy who spent our entire first date pitching his cryptocurrency startup idea. Or the one who casually mentioned his student loans within the first five minutes. The final straw was the wannabe influencer who’d posted our coffee date on Instagram with the caption Living that #TechMillionaire life before I’d even gotten home.

My dating profile should read: Has money, terrible taste in men, and the emotional intelligence of a dial-up modem .

At least when I was working eighty-hour weeks, I could pretend I was too busy for relationships rather than admitting I have the romantic appeal of a Linux manual. But since I’ve been in Europe, I’ve had no excuse for not trying, besides the inevitable dilemma of how in the hell can I meet someone genuinely interested in me rather than my bank balance?

Anyway, at least I don’t need to worry about my pitiful love life right now. I’m too busy with my revenge plan.

I’ve found myself waking up every morning with a flush of excitement that I haven’t felt since the early days of starting my company.

My plan starts off with some serious online stalking of Justin. His cyber security is atrocious. He happily accepts my friend requests from the fake profiles I set up, adding Steven Williams and Daniel Thompson to his friend list despite their profiles being obvious burner accounts with barely any activity or connections.

It’s very easy to discover where he works, where he lives, and which gym he goes to, which is useful because I need to work out how to worm myself close enough to him to exact some revenge.

I don’t want to actually hurt the guy. I just want him to feel a smidgen of the humiliation he rained down on me over the years. To make him understand what it feels like to be the punchline of someone else’s joke.

Maybe then, the sixteen-year-old version of me who still lives in my head can finally stop flinching at sudden laughter in crowds. Although I’m aware that this isn’t like debugging software. There’s no simple if-then statement that can fix four years of systematic humiliation, no algorithm that can calculate the cost of learning to hate yourself before you’ve even figured out who you are.

I’m thinking about my new project as I sit in a café near Borough Market, watching tourists try to protect their food from entitled pigeons, when my phone starts to chime with the Imperial March .

It’s Leo, my former vice president of NovaCore Enterprises and one of my best friends.

Leo was the first person I met who saw past my defensive walls of coding jargon and sarcasm. He became the big brother I never had, someone who seemed to instinctively understand that building my tech empire wasn’t just about success. It was about proving something to every person who ever made me feel small.

Leo also became the public face of NovaCore for me, handling the interviews and conference keynotes with his model-worthy jawline and natural charisma while I happily retreated behind lines of code. I’d spent enough years being stared at in high school hallways to last a lifetime, and the thought of having my face plastered across tech magazines made my skin crawl in ways I couldn’t quite explain even to myself.

“Hey, Leo,” I say now.

“Hey, Andrew.” Leo’s deep voice makes me smile. “How’s London?”

“London’s great. I’m at the Borough Market and just bought a jar of honey made by London bees that cost more than my first laptop.”

Leo lets out a snort of amusement. “I’ll have to check it out when I’m over there.”

“Are you coming to London?”

“Yeah. I’m heading your way in a few weeks for some client meetings.”

When I sold NovaCore, Leo started his own company as a consultant. I’m completely unsurprised that he’s already gained a reputation for making Silicon Valley CEOs cry with his brutal honesty about their business plans.

“You’re welcome to stay with me when you’re here,” I say. “It’ll be great to catch up.”

I mean it. Along with struggling with relationships, friendships are another thing that haven’t come easy to me in my adult life.

Because it turns out the impact of high school was hard to leave behind. I’d gotten so used to being alone during those four years, building an I-don’t-need-anyone defense system so sophisticated it would make Pentagon security look like a screen door with a broken latch.

I carried that attitude with me to MIT, remaining detached from my classmates, a loner even when surrounded by my kind of people.

Besides Leo, my only other good friend is Matthew, who I fell into a friendship with after meeting at a tech CEO conference. Similar to me, Matthew had started his tech business while he was at college, and as the only people at the conference under the age of twenty-five, we’d naturally gravitated to each other. We’d ended up swapping advice, complaints, and the occasional “is this real life?” moment as we navigated the bizarre world of being twenty-something tech CEOs running multi-million-dollar businesses while still being carded for alcohol.

I’d decided not to use Matthew as a confidant for my current project though. A few months ago, he’d accidentally hired the jock he’d hated in high school to be his fake date for his company retreat and then proceeded to fall in love with him. Therefore he probably isn’t the best person to give unbiased advice about revenge plots involving former high school tormentors.

“Thanks. It would be great to stay with you,” Leo says, and I snap my attention back to our conversation.

“How’s work going for you?”

“It’s going well. Busy.” I can almost hear the shrug in his voice. “What about you? Have you decided what you want to do with the rest of your life?”

“Um…not exactly. But I’ve got a project I’m working on.” Although I try to keep my voice as neutral as possible, I can hear the evasiveness threaded through my words.

I’m a terrible liar. Which may be something I need to rectify soon. I scramble to get a notepad from my tote bag and jot down Investigate acting classes on my to-do list.

Of course, Leo, with his supersonic sense for anytime Andrew is being slightly cagey, picks up on it. His ability to almost read my brain made him a fantastic second in charge.

I could do without that trait right now though.

“What kind of project?” he asks.

I hedge for a second about telling him but then give in. Because if I’m going to succeed in this project, I’ll need a sounding board. And Leo has a proven record in that department.

“Did I ever tell you about what happened to me in high school?” I begin.

“No. But you were gay and geeky, so my guess is you were the prom king and class president and had to fend off your adoring fans every day on your way to class.”

“Yeah, you got it in one.” I doodle on my notepad, drawing spiral galaxies.

“So, what happened to you in high school?” His voice is gentle. That’s the thing about Leo. He comes across as prickly and sarcastic on the outside, but deep down, he’s a softie. And I know he’s probably clenching his fists in anticipation of what I’m about to say.

“Well, my nickname was Handy Andy, and it wasn’t because of how useful I was.” I take a shaky breath. “I’m fairly sure any version of a fiery afterlife humankind has conjured up in their imagination would be a Hawaiian vacation compared to what high school was like for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

Although going by that theory, I should be stronger than Superman, Hercules, and the Incredible Hulk combined.

“Yeah, I’m not sure if mental health experts agree with that one.” Leo’s voice is still soft.

This is why Leo is so great. He calls me on my bullshit without making me feel worse about it. The day he agreed to become my vice president was the day NovaCore actually had a chance, not just because of his stellar business acumen but because he’s the only person who can tell me when my code is garbage without triggering my fight-or-flight response.

“Okay, it might not make you stronger, but it does give you an insane desire to succeed,” I say.

How much of my drive to succeed came from what happened to me in high school? Working eighty-hour weeks. Sleeping on the office couch more nights than in my own bed. Living off energy drinks and takeout, coding until my vision blurred and my fingers cramped. But I kept pushing, kept building because every line of code felt like I was proving my high-school bullies wrong.

I was someone worthy. I deserved respect.

But the problem with living that lifestyle is I burned myself out.

Somewhere along the line, the endless pressure to keep growing, keep innovating, keep being the tech wunderkind that had everyone in Silicon Valley in raptures, started to feel suffocating. Coding, which had always been my happy place, had become another source of pressure.

Which is why, when I was approached by the tech giant Synexis Enterprises to sell NovaCore, I agreed. Because I’d realized I was at the point where my beloved baby was like that plant from Little Shop of Horrors . It had grown to the point where it threatened to consume me.

“They say living well is the best revenge,” Leo says.

“Yeah, well, in this case, I want my part in revenge to be more hands-on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I ran into Justin Morris, one of the guys from high school who tormented me, and he’s doing fine. In fact, he seems to be doing more than fine…” I trail off, then take a shuddering breath. “He shouldn’t be doing okay after everything he did to me. It’s not fair.”

I’m aware there’s a childlike petulance to the way I say that last line. It’s channeled from the wounded boy who still lives inside me, the one who used to comfort me that I’d eventually get the last laugh.

How many videos from It Gets Better did I watch during that time? Too many to count. And they were so right. It definitely did get better.

But the thing is, it wasn’t just supposed to get better for me.

It was also supposed to get worse for the guys who bullied me. They were supposed to get their comeuppance.

“Did you say anything to him?” Leo asks.

“No. He… He didn’t even recognize me.”

“He didn’t recognize you?”

“Yeah, I know. Crazy, eh? And that’s the thing. There’s no way I would ever forget his face. It made me realize exactly how unimportant I was to him. I was a nothing, a nobody, while he was the lead villain in my life. It just feels so…wrong.”

My spoon clinks against my cup as I stir sugar into coffee I’ve forgotten to drink, creating a tiny whirlpool before I continue.

“I got this email the other day about my ten-year high school reunion next year, and honestly, even seeing the school’s name made my heart pound. And I don’t know. I guess I’ve always had this fantasy of swooping back in as this triumphant tech mogul, but now I realize the guys who made high school hell for me probably wouldn’t even…care. It wouldn’t make any difference to their lives.”

I can hear Leo huff a sound that means he’s about to go into protective mode.

“So, what did you mean you want your part in revenge to be more hands-on?”

“I’ve just got some ideas of a few things I can do to get him back for what he did in high school. And because he doesn’t recognize me, he’ll never suspect I’m doing it. I’m not going to do anything illegal or physically harm him. Just…some carefully orchestrated social humiliation. I just want him to feel how he used to make me feel.”

Part of me knows this whole scheme is ridiculous. I’m not a scared kid anymore. I’m a successful guy who’s built something meaningful to make people’s lives better.

But then I remember Justin’s laugh as his friends made crude gestures every time I raised my hand in class, and suddenly, my revenge plan doesn’t seem ridiculous at all.

It’s just karma finally calling in its debts.

There’s silence after I trail off. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve left Leo speechless or if his silence is pointed. Knowing Leo, it’s probably the latter.

“It’s David vs. Goliath,” I speak again into the quiet space between us. I’m aware I’m at the point of overexplaining, but I continue, “I’m taking a stand for the little guy.”

“I think you might have misinterpreted who is David and who is Goliath in this situation,” Leo says.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, you’re a multi-millionaire tech genius who can bring considerable resources to this project. Do you think he stands a chance against you? And you need to think seriously about whether embarrassing him will make you feel better about the past.”

My stomach swirls at Leo’s words. Will embarrassing Justin help me come to terms with my memories from high school? Knowing I got the last laugh?

I guess we’re about to find out.

Because plans are already in motion. Justin Morris is about to discover that karma sometimes wears glasses and knows how to code.

“It’s a bit too late for second-guessing everything now,” I say.

“What do you mean it’s too late?” Leo’s voice is layered with suspicion.

“Well, I’m moving into an apartment down the hall from him this weekend.” I decide to skip telling Leo how the previous tenant of the apartment three doors down from Justin is now settling into a riverside apartment in Chelsea that comes with her new job in developing sustainable housing. But hey, I’ve been meaning to diversify my investments into the property market.

“You’re moving into his apartment building?”

The incredulousness in Leo’s voice makes me aware of how close I am to flirting with stalker behavior. But there’s something strangely liberating about admitting I’m being ridiculous. It’s like I’ve circled all the way around from trauma, through success, past maturity, and landed back at “elaborate high school prank” territory. But instead of toilet-papering Justin’s house, I’m infiltrating his life with the precision of a black ops mission. I’m like James Bond. If James Bond were a socially awkward coder with unresolved issues.

“Yeah, I figure being in close proximity will help me execute my plans.” I take a deep breath. “I’m also starting work at his company on Monday.”