Chapter 2

2: 2

At the records office window, the clerk glanced up at me.

“Have you settled on the new name?”

“Valerie Stewart.”

She paused, then bent over the register and flipped through it.

“This surname……it doesn't match either of your parents'. Is there some particular reason?”

I touched the medal I'd glued back together and lowered my head.

“My grandmother's name was Stewart. She raised me.”

There was another reason I didn't mention.

My grandmother had been an orphan, and my mother was the only child she ever had.

After my mother married my father, she never once went back to tend the graves, not even on the days you're supposed to.

I asked her about it once, and all she said was,

“A wife follows her husband. I married into the Harpers, so of course I tend the Harper graves.”

When I was small, I used to go with my grandmother to tend my grandfather's grave.

After she died, there was no one left to tend hers.

People in the village said it wasn't proper, that I had no standing to do it.

That standing was exactly what I wanted.

The clerk looked at me and didn't ask anything more.

The paperwork was done quickly.

“Leave an address. Your new ID will be mailed to you in a week.”

I thought about it and wrote down the school's address.

Back home, I shipped off the clothes and bedding I'd already packed.

If the old things still worked, there was no point spending money on new ones.

I'd barely finished when my parents came back, Hunter trailing behind them.

“Is the surname changed?”

I took out the receipt.

“It's done.”

Neither of them read it closely. They just nodded.

“Changing the surname is only the legal part. The family rite still has to be done.”

His voice was a little low.

“Come to the family hall tonight and we'll go through the process.”

He seemed about to say something more, but my mother tugged at his sleeve, and in the end he shut his mouth.

Inside the Harper family hall, Elder Harper sat in the head seat, three other family elders beside him.

They looked over my situation, brows drawn deep.

Third Elder Harper spoke first.

“Richard, this girl of yours got into the National Defense University. She'll be serving the country one day. In all the towns around here, she's the first. The very first.”

Second Elder Harper nodded too.

“That brings honor to the whole family. How can you push her out?”

Before my father could open his mouth, my mother clicked her tongue.

“She's a girl. What's there to show off about getting into a military school?”

“When Hunter gets into an Ivy-tier school someday, that's a real prodigy. That's what brings honor to the family!”

My father nodded along.

“Both children are excellent.”

He said it beautifully, but his eyes never came to me.

“Valerie's already made something of herself. Whatever surname she takes, she's still our good daughter. Hunter, though, we still have to plan for……”

Elder Harper looked troubled.

“Valerie hasn't done anything wrong. We can't strike her from the family register on our own say-so. It isn't right.”

My mother panicked. She grabbed me, her nails digging into the soft flesh inside my arm.

“Valerie agreed to it herself. Isn't that enough?”

She turned to me, her eyes carrying a threat.

“Go on, tell the patriarch. Is this your own choice or not?”

I wanted to pull my arm free.

But she held on hard, so hard I couldn't break away at all.

Elder Harper looked at me, his face kind.

“Valerie, say it yourself. Are you willing to leave the Harper family register?”

The whole room went quiet, waiting on that one word from me.

I didn't hesitate. I gave a small nod.

“I'm willing.”