But when the bell rang and I tried to stand up, pain shot across my scalp.
The classroom erupted into laughter before I even understood what had happened.
The boy had glued my braid to the metal frame of the desk.
The school nurse had to cut it loose, leaving behind a bald spot the size of a baseball.
For the rest of high school, everyone called me “Patch.”
Humiliation like that doesn’t disappear. It hardens.
It taught me that if I couldn’t be popular, I would become powerful.
And that’s how, twenty years later, I ended up running the regional community bank.
These days I don’t enter rooms with my head lowered.
When the previous owner retired, I purchased a controlling share with help from investors.
Now I personally review high-risk loan requests.
Two weeks before everything shifted, my assistant Daniel knocked on my office door.
“You’ve got one you’ll want to see,” he said, placing a file on my desk.
I glanced at the name. Mark H. Same hometown. Same birth year. I remembered immediately.
My fingers froze on the folder.
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