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I stare out the plane window at Chicago beneath me. My home for the next three months.

My best friends, Farrah and Veronica, didn’t believe the news.

They weren’t the only ones who didn’t believe the news. Nobody in the entire Hill Country believed me, not even my dream employer, Daniel Radisson, head of Radisson Investments in Austin, who refused my application for internship and told me to get some experience somewhere else and come back to him when I was ready. I stopped by to tell him that I’d found a job and I’d be coming back to work for him when I finished.

“You found an internship at the biggest firm in Chicago yourself?” he asked, shaking his head incredulously as he took in my fashionable pumps, miniskirt, cute little sequined top, and cross-body bag.

I blinked at his complete lack of belief in me, resisting the urge to steal my hand around my waist and cross my fingers behind my back as I said a little fib.

I loathed admitting that my brother got the job for me.

I hate lying, so I resisted, but I hate being underestimated more.

My brother may have gotten this job for me, but I’m going to be the one who keeps it and climbs the ranks on my own merit. No favors from anyone anymore. One day I will have my own business and help people realize their own dreams.

“My brother is friends with the CEO, and they were happy to have me on board,” I said—which, technically, is true. Tahoe actually only said, Talked to Carmichael. Send all paperwork to this email.

“Happy” wasn’t mentioned but if his friend agreed, then I assume he is happy I’m coming on board.

At least I am.

I’ve been underestimated my whole life. For my eighteenth birthday present, my brother sent me to France for the summer and all I came back saying was oui. Huge disappointment to my parents, who wanted me to come back a fully sophisticated, French-speaking lady. So I don’t pick up foreign languages easily? It’s not the end of the world. I have a business degree, and I have big dreams.

So the last week of May, all packed and ready and with one wistful last look at the bedroom I’ve lived in most of my teenage years and adult life, I take a risk—not only did I leave home, but I actually caved in to my brother’s insistence to send his jet to pick me up and fly me to the Windy City.

There were tears when my parents stuffed my luggage into the trunk of the family SUV, and more tears as we reached the airport.

Definitely I was the one most tearful. I’m just an easy person to make cry, don’t judge.

It doesn’t mean I cannot be badass. Ask Ulysses Harrison, who got punched in the nuts when he tried to feel my boobs just as they started growing.