A hard plastic chair with one leg slightly shorter than the others.
It wobbled under him.
Bradley sat across from him and folded his hands.
He had the expression some adults used when they were pretending to be patient with children while enjoying every second of their own power.
“Let’s try this again,” he said. “You say you have an account here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You say your grandmother left you money.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet you have no proper government ID, no parent with you, no proof of address, no documentation that makes any sense in the real world, and frankly, son, you do not look like someone holding this level of account.”
Wesley swallowed.
He had been called all kinds of things at school.
Slow.
Poor.
Charity case.
But there was something worse about hearing a grown man in a suit say you do not look like someone who belongs here.
Because it was not just about the money.
It was about the whole world.
“My uncle’s coming,” Wesley said. “He’s my guardian.”
Bradley leaned back.
“Oh, good,” he said. “The uncle.”
Wesley nodded.
“He’s in a meeting.”
“Of course he is.”
Bradley tilted his head.
“What kind of meeting? Is your uncle a senator? A movie star? The president?”
A few people close enough to hear laughed under their breath.
Wesley wished the floor would open.
“He works in finance,” Wesley said softly.
Bradley smiled.
“Finance. That’s adorable.”
Chelsea, the blonde teller, walked over with a file in her hand and leaned against the desk.
She did not need to be there.
She came anyway.
The way people gather when they smell humiliation coming.
Bradley flipped through the documents.
The death certificate.
The custodial paperwork.
The account transfer forms.
Grandma Eleanor had prepared everything because that was the kind of woman she was.
She labeled file folders.
She wrote dates on envelopes.
She left instructions in neat blue ink.
Bradley glanced through them too fast to understand, too arrogant to care.
Then he looked up and said, “Where are your parents?”
The question hit harder than anything else had.
Wesley stared at the desk.
“My mom died.”
The whole little area changed.
Not into kindness.
Into that uncomfortable stillness people get when tragedy makes them briefly aware of themselves.
Bradley was unmoved.
“And your father?”
“I don’t know him.”
Chelsea shifted.
For one second her face softened.
Only one.
Then Bradley snorted softly and the softness disappeared.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “No parents. Uncle in a mystery meeting. A dead grandmother who supposedly left you money. And now you walk into a bank with a high-tier card and expect us not to ask questions?”
“I didn’t say don’t ask questions,” Wesley said, almost pleading now. “I just need to know what she left.”
Bradley’s voice sharpened.
“What she left?”
He tapped the paper.
