Starved for a Jackpot: My Mother's Ultimate Betrayal

My mom always claimed my entire life ran on pure dumb luck. I aced a test? She scoffed. "Wild guesses." I took home gold in a competition?

She rolled her eyes. "The judges needed glasses." I got my acceptance letter to an Ivy League.

She paraded it around just to tell everyone, "Oh, she doesn't have an ounce of real talent. She just gets lucky!" So, on my first day of college, she didn't send a debit card.

She mailed me a thick brick of scratchoff lottery tickets. "Since you're so blessed," her voice crackled through the phone speaker, "let's see if that luck pays for your groceries.

One stack a semester. Whatever you scratch is what you get." "And to keep you from whining for cash, I'm blocking you.

I'll unblock you in the spring." "Mom, please, wait—" My voice cracked, fingers trembling around the phone. The line went dead.

I stared at the screen as my texts bounced back as green bubbles. She blocked my number. My socials. Everything. My chest hollowed out.

I dug my nails into my palms until the skin turned white. I grabbed a coin and started scratching. Two tickets a day. That became the rule.

A good day meant twenty, maybe fifty bucks. Most days yielded nothing but silver dust under my fingernails and zero dollars. Hunger clawed at my empty stomach.

I survived by waiting until my roommate, Bianca, left the dorm, then digging her stale, expired cookies out of the trash can.

By the last week of the semester, severe anemia turned my vision to static. The floor tilted every time I stood up. My hands shook.

I scraped a tarnished penny across the foil of the very last ticket. I stared at the revealed numbers. The corners of my mouth twitched, then stretched into a wide, cracked smile.

My mom was right. I really am lucky. Chapter 1 Black spots swam in my peripheral vision. The cinderblock walls of the hallway doubled, blurring into a gray smear.

The brick of scratchoff tickets my mom had mailed me felt like a countdown clock to my own funeral. Now, only one ticket remained. The last thirty bucks I won?

I stretched it across two weeks, surviving on nothing but plain bread and tap water. That was my absolute physical limit. An invisible fist crushed my stomach.

Acid gnawed at the lining, sending sharp spasms up my throat. Desperation forced my hand. I pulled out my phone, dialing my mom's number. Green bubble. Still blocked.

I stopped a random girl in the hallway, begging to borrow her phone.

My fingers trembled as I punched in the digits. "Mom—" "You still have one ticket left, don't you?" Her voice cut through the speaker, razorsharp. "Spare me the sob story.

I'm not buying it." "If you're so capable, let your famous luck pay for your meals—just like how you supposedly earned those scholarships!" Click. I called back.

Straight to voicemail. Phone off. I stared at the single piece of cardboard in my hand. It felt like an anvil. I couldn't bring myself to scratch the silver foil.

If I hit zero again, it was over. When I arrived on campus, I was a normal weight. Now? At fivefootfive, I weighed a skeletal eighty pounds.

Blue veins spiderwebbed against translucent, chalky skin. I pushed open my dorm room door. Empty. My legs dragged across the linoleum, moving on autopilot toward the trash can.

I bent over the rim, sifting through crumpled papers, hunting for halfeaten granola bars or expired snacks. This was how I survived the semester.

My fingers brushed a discarded bagel just as the door swung open. "Jesus, Maeve. Are you digging through the garbage again? That's revolting." Heat flared in my cheeks.

I yanked my hand back like the plastic bin had caught fire. Bianca stood in the doorway. Her eyes tracked from my trembling hands to the lone scratchoff ticket sitting on my desk.

Her lip curled in pure disgust. "I seriously don't get you," she snapped, tossing her bag onto her bed. "You have a massive gambling problem.

You're literally starving yourself and eating out of the trash just to buy more lottery tickets!" Chapter 2 "Even if you're obsessed with scratchoffs, couldn't you at least get a parttime job to buy food?" Bianca glanced at the last bite of cake in her hand. "Whatever.

Just my luck getting stuck with a roommate like you." She tossed the cake straight into the trash can, spun on her heel, and marched out of the dorm.

A highpitched ringing pierced my ears. I didn't care if it was pity or humiliation. I lunged at the trash bin. My fingers grabbed the frostingsmeared crumb.

I shoved it into my mouth, swallowing without chewing. Scalding tears spilled over my eyelashes. They soaked into the crumbs on my tongue. Bitter. Salty. I couldn't blame Bianca.

She didn't know the truth.

Before the semester even started, my mom printed my photo on flyers and plastered them across every business near campus: [Do not hire this girl.] She cut off every single escape route. "Since she's so lucky, let her luck feed her." Did my mom have the same disgusted sneer as Bianca when she said that?

I had tried explaining. Millions of times. I didn't rely on luck. I bled for every single award, every grade. But she didn't believe me.

She slapped the word luck over my entire life, erasing years of grinding effort with a single breath. The vertigo dialed back slightly as the sugar hit my bloodstream.

I locked eyes with that final scratchoff ticket. I grabbed a coin. My knuckles shook as I scraped the foil. Flake by silver flake, the air left my lungs.

The final row appeared. [Winning amount: $20.] My chest caved in. Twenty bucks. That was all I had to survive on until spring semester.

I crumpled the ticket in my fist and dragged myself out of the dorm, heading for the convenience store offcampus to cash it in.

The heavy glass doors of the dorm building slammed shut behind me. "Maeve!" I turned. My academic advisor stood in the courtyard.

His eyes locked onto the crumpled lottery ticket in my grip, and his jaw tightened. "Someone reported this to me, but I didn't want to believe it," he said, taking a step closer. "You got into this university in the top ten percent of your state.

How did you get addicted to this gambling garbage?" He pointed a stiff finger at me. "Look at your grades. You're failing almost every class!

You've disappointed me." "Consider this your final warning.

If you keep this up, I'll have no choice but to follow university policy and expel you." The harsh afternoon sun baked my skin.

After minutes of his lecture, the sugar rush from that single bite of cake burned out. The concrete courtyard tilted.

My knees buckled. "Maeve?!" Panic shattered the advisor's stern tone.

He lunged forward, catching my arm. "Are you alright?" His gaze dropped to my wrist—bones practically slicing through translucent skin.

The anger drained out of him, replaced by a heavy sigh. "I'm taking you to the dining hall," he muttered. "Stop wasting your grocery money on lottery tickets.

Free money doesn't exist." I didn't fight him. Right now, whoever put food in my mouth was my god. My lifeline. Pride? Dignity? They didn't mean squat when you were starving.

I hadn't stepped foot in the dining hall all semester. I lived on plain rolls and free hot water.

I never had the energy to focus in class; the letters on the whiteboard always swam like tadpoles. My grades had tanked. My pride had shattered a long time ago.

I practically inhaled the hot meal. The thick fog in my brain finally cleared. The ground stopped swaying beneath my feet.

I wiped my mouth, thanked my advisor, and turned to leave. "Where are you going?" he asked, his brows knotting together. Chapter 3 I held up the crumpled ticket. "I have to cash it.

Or I don't eat." "Maeve!" My advisor's face flushed a dark, furious red. "Did you forget everything I just said?" He took a step forward, blocking the sun. "Are you hellbent on getting expelled?

I shouldn't have bought you that meal. I should have let you starve until you woke up to reality." He thrust his hand out toward me, palm facing up. A silent, unyielding demand.

I snatched the ticket back, hiding it behind my back. "I can't. You don't understand. I have no choice." His palm slammed against a nearby concrete table. "You're a lost cause!

I'm telling you right now, if you don't hand that over, I'm writing you up the second I get back to my office. You'll be put on academic probation!" I dropped my gaze.

My nails bit into the soft flesh of my palms until I felt the sting of broken skin. I gave him a stiff bow. "I'm sorry.

I can't." I spun around and sprinted toward the convenience store just offcampus, ignoring his voice shouting my name behind me.

The cashier snatched the foilcovered cardboard from my grip.

She rolled her eyes, heavily. "Got a serious problem, huh?" she muttered. "Blowing your parents' hardearned cash like this." Bile rose in the back of my throat.

If I told her this piece of cardboard was the only grocery money my own mother gave me, she'd probably think I was hallucinating. "Scan your barcode." She tapped her phone screen, glaring at me.

I pulled out my phone, the screen splintered with spiderweb cracks. I opened my digital wallet. Then, my thumb froze. A sudden, sharp impulse overrode my hunger.

I didn't want the twenty bucks. "I don't want the cash," my voice came out hollow, mechanical. "Give me a new ticket." The cashier let out a loud, exaggerated scoff.

She ripped a twentydollar ticket off the plastic roll and slapped it onto the counter. "Unbelievable. How did an Ivy League even let trash like you in?" I had heard it all before.

From Bianca. From strangers on the street. Now from her. The words bounced off me like static noise. Completely numb.

I grabbed the ticket, muttered a thanks, and walked out the door. I didn't scratch it right away. My phone buzzed against my palm. Mom. The caller ID lit up the shattered screen.

My breath hitched. It felt like looking at an artifact from a past life.

Just before it went to voicemail, I swiped accept. "Hello." Her voice immediately pierced my eardrum, sharp as a razor. "I figured you'd try to play tough and ignore my call." A dry chuckle drifted through the speaker. "You should be out of those tickets by now.

What did the last one hit?" "Twenty," I stated flatly. "Oh?" The mockery in her tone thickened. "Look at that." "You really are lucky.

You haven't starved to death yet." My throat seized. The dam broke. "Mom, do you have any idea what this semester has been like? I survived by eating garbage!

I dug my roommate's expired food out of the trash!

If my advisor hadn't literally forced me to eat a hot meal today, I would be hooked up to an IV in an emergency room!" I clamped my hand over my mouth, gasping for air.

I thought the ugly reality of it would snap her awake. Instead, a cold laugh drifted through the receiver. "And? Are you trying to brag about how lucky you are?

Finding a good roommate and a generous advisor?" My blood ran icecold. "Maeve, I am trying to break this fluke mentality of yours!

If you can luck your way into a top university, lucking your way into a full stomach shouldn't be that hard, right?" Burning liquid flooded my eyes, blurring the concrete pavement beneath my feet.

Chapter 4 I gripped the phone with both hands. "I got into this university because I worked for it! I won those competitions because I earned them!

I never once said I was just lucky!" The speaker crackled with a heavy, impatient sigh. "Stop putting on an act.

What effort?" Wanda scoffed. "I gave birth to you; I know exactly what you're made of." "When I was pregnant with you, I threw myself down the stairs on purpose to get rid of you." "You survived.

If that isn't luck, what is?" Ice injected straight into my veins. The background noise of the street vanished. My lungs stopped working.

It was the first time she had ever said it out loud. I had heard the whispers from relatives at family gatherings.

The rural doctor took her pulse, told her I was a girl, and she didn't want me.

Abortion access back then wasn't what it is now, and she didn't have the nerve to go through with a backalley procedure. So she kept me.

The traumatic birth ended in an emergency hysterectomy. My dad divorced her because she couldn't give him a son. Every twisted look she ever gave me suddenly made perfect sense.

The plastic phone case cracked under the pressure of my grip. "If I knew I'd be scraping by on lottery tickets, do you think I would have chosen to be born?" "Oh, so now you're complaining?" Wanda let out a dry, rattling laugh. "Fine.

Next semester, I'm downgrading your tickets to ten bucks a pop." "You're so lucky, right? Saves me the cash." The line went dead. Blocked again. I dragged my body back to the dorm.

I sat in absolute silence for an hour, just staring at the replacement ticket I had brought back from the convenience store. Finally, I grabbed a coin. Row one. Nothing. Row two.

Blank. Row three. Nothing. I closed my eyes, resigning myself to starvation, and blindly scraped the foil off the final row. I let out a shaky breath and forced my eyelids open.

The silver dust settled around a number. Five million dollars. Oxygen rushed back into my brain. The jackpot. I didn't waste a single second.

You had to claim the grand prize directly at the state lottery headquarters. It wasn't far from campus.

I didn't have bus fare, but my legs carried me through the thirtyminute walk on pure adrenaline. When the money finally hit my bank account, reality felt like a simulation.

Hot tears streamed down my face, blurring the impossible string of zeros on my banking app. I walked straight into the most expensive steakhouse in the city.

I didn't care about the judgmental stares from the affluent diners as I devoured plates of warm, rich food like a starving animal.

Sunlight streamed through the restaurant windows, seeping into my freezing skin. The knot in my stomach finally, blissfully unraveled. Wanda was right. I really am lucky.

I spent the rest of the day wandering the city. The second I stepped back into my dorm, my phone vibrated.

Wanda. "Maeve, sweetie, did you win the lottery?" The sickeningly sweet nickname made the hairs on my arms stand up. I couldn't even remember the last time she called me that.

She hadn't even smiled when I got my acceptance letter to an Ivy League. "Won what?

I don't know what you're talking about." Her sugary tone vanished, replaced instantly by venom. "Maeve, don't play stupid with me! I saw the local news.

Someone claimed a grand prize scratchoff in the city today." "I saw the back of the winner's head. I would recognize you even if you were burned to ashes." My jaw clenched.

The dopamine rush had made me sloppy.

I had been so desperate to secure the money and get a hot meal that I completely forgot to conceal my identity from the press cameras. "You saw wrong.

It wasn't me." I hit the red button. My phone buzzed again immediately. I ignored it. I opened her contact profile and tapped block. I thought that would be the end of it.

Chapter 5 Early the next morning, Bianca shoved my bed frame. "Maeve, get up!

Something insane is happening!" Her next words ripped me out of my sleep. "Your mom is on the roof of the science building!

She's screaming that if you don't come out, she's going to jump!" The residual exhaustion vanished.

I vaulted out of bed, sprinting out the dorm in my wrinkled pajamas and tangled hair. "I am exposing my daughter!

Maeve, a student at this Ivy League university!" Wanda's voice echoed through a megaphone across the quad. "She thinks she's so lucky, so she gambles!

She doesn't even respect her own mother!" "And now that she hit the jackpot, she's cutting me off completely!

Does a student like this deserve to be here?" It was early, but the campus was already crawling with students on their morning runs.

They stopped in their tracks, swarming the courtyard. Whispers erupted. Some glared at me in disgust, some muttered about the jackpot, but most just stared, hungry for the drama.

I stared up at the roof. Wanda paced near the ledge, screaming like a maniac. I opened my mouth to yell for her to get down, but the words died in my throat.

If she wanted to paint me as a reckless gambler, fine. I'd make a bet right now. I bet she wouldn't jump.

I turned my back to the crowd, walked straight into my dorm room, and booted up my laptop. I started filling out an application for a study abroad program. I won the bet.

Wanda valued her own skin too much. When she realized I wasn't coming out to coddle her, the howling wind on the roof shattered her nerve. She climbed down.

The university administration called me in for a private meeting, desperate to sweep the PR nightmare under the rug.

But when I sat in my advisor's office and told him the scratchoff tickets were my grocery money sent by my mother, the room fell dead silent. He dropped the issue immediately.

Campus security tightened up, banning nonstudents from entering the grounds. The study abroad program wasn't hard to get into.

Considering my high entrance exams, they approved my slot. My advisor told me to expedite my passport application. I didn't waste a second.

I gathered my documents and headed straight to the passport agency. The clerk at the counter typed my social security number into her computer.

She stared at the screen for a long time. People around me came and went, securing their documents. A cold knot formed in my stomach. "Ms. Maeve, I'm sorry.

Your application is being denied." The clerk finally shook her head. "Our system shows an active, pending lawsuit filed against you.

Under federal regulations, we cannot issue a passport while you are a flight risk for an ongoing civil case." I pulled out my phone, my thumb swiping to my blocked messages folder.

A notification from a few days ago sat there. I clicked it. The sender was an automated court notification system. The text on the screen was crystal clear.

Wanda was suing me for "failure to provide financial support to a dependent parent." I stared at the digital summons. Since she refused to let this go, fine.

I would fight this lawsuit. I would end this toxic motherdaughter charade once and for all. The court date was set for next week.

For the next seven days, Wanda used burner apps to flood my phone with texts. [You're just a college student. What do you need all that money for?] [You're my only child.

If you give it to me, I'll just hold onto it for your future. Be a good girl. Transfer the money, and I'll drop the lawsuit.] [You're still in school.

A legal record won't do you any good…] I didn't reply to a single one. I read them, deleted them, and blocked every new number.

I logged into my banking app, stared at the massive balance, and hired Maxwell, the most ruthless, toptier defense attorney in the city.

On the day of the hearing, Wanda spotted me walking into the courtroom with Maxwell in a tailored suit. She froze. Then, her face twisted, and she jabbed a finger right at my face.

Chapter 6 "Maeve, you ungrateful little parasite! You really blew all that money on a lawyer just to fight your own mother in court!" I shrugged.

Now that I had money, why would I waste my own breath arguing with her? My silence fueled her fire.

She gripped the wooden railing of the witness stand. "I am suing my daughter, Maeve!" "I broke my back raising her, and the second she hits the jackpot, she cuts me off!

She refuses to pay my living expenses!" She slammed her hand down. "I bought that winning ticket! I have the purchase records!

Therefore, I demand she return the five million dollars and pay my elder support fees!" Maxwell adjusted his glasses.

He looked at her with pure professional apathy. "First, my client is a fulltime university student with zero active income." "Furthermore, you are neither of retirement age nor legally disabled.

My client has zero legal obligation to pay you a dime in elder support." He took a step toward the center of the room. "Second, the fact that you supplied your financially dependent daughter with nothing but a stack of scratchoff tickets for a semester's worth of groceries is… highly questionable." He paused. "And finally—" "Finally, the winning ticket wasn't from your batch." I cut in, my voice dead flat.

Wanda's eyes bulged. Her face flushed a dark, blotchy red. "Nno! Impossible