I felt a tug at my braid.
The boy had glued my braid to the metal frame of the desk.
The nurse had to cut it free, leaving behind a bald patch the size of a baseball.
For the rest of high school, they called me "Patch."
Humiliation like that didn't fade. It calcified.
It taught me that if I couldn't be popular, I would be powerful.
And that's how I ended up running the regional community bank 20 years later.
Now I don't walk into rooms with my head down.
The nurse had to cut it free.
When the previous owner retired, I bought a controlling interest with investors.
Now I review high-risk loans personally.
***
Two weeks before everything changed, my assistant, Daniel, knocked on my office door.
"You've got one you'll want to see," he said, setting a file on my desk.
I glanced at the name. Mark H. He was from my same town and had the same birth year, I remembered.
