The whispers that once echoed like bedtime lies, "She's getting better," "She'll be back soon," finally turned into something real. After a grueling time in drug rehab, my mother didn't just survive; she transformed. The streets that had once swallowed her whole had spit her back out, refined, sharpened, and awake. She wasn't the woman who had disappeared into addiction anymore. She was someone else, someone stronger, someone I could see standing tall.

I lied like it was second nature smooth, believable, strategic. I became a magician with words, spinning stories that wrapped themselves so tightly around the truth that even I began to believe them. Missing homework? I had a saga ready: the dog ate it, the wind blew it away, anything to escape punishment. Each lie became a performance, and the world was my stage. Teachers never saw it coming.

The sugarcane fields burned, smoke thick as a hand closing around my chest. Kids laughed, teachers walked on, and I was drowning in a sea no one else could see. Then came the bus — pulling away without me, dragging opportunity out of reach. That day I swore: time would never steal from me again. If it meant being early to everything, so be it. I would never let the bus leave me behind twice.

When the state scattered us, six of us were processed like papers in a drawer, while three were spared by family hands. I kept asking myself, Why them? Why not us? The silence gave no answer, so I made my own. That’s when the seed of survival began to grow — small, stubborn, reaching for light even in the dark.

Excerpt – Chapter 1: The First Cut

The Florida heat wrapped around us like a suffocating blanket, every breath thick and heavy. Relief was all we wanted, and the Westgate apartment pool shimmered like forbidden treasure across the highway. It wasn’t meant for kids like us—not by the rules, not by our class, not by our skin. But the water called, and with pounding hearts we jumped the fence anyway. For a moment, we were free—laughing, cannonballing, forgetting the world.

Then I surfaced and saw him.
The guard.
Arms crossed, face cold as stone.

Our sanctuary was over. Towels dragged at our shoulders as we trudged home, freedom slipping with each reluctant step. But what waited for us there was worse.

Flashing lights.
Red. Blue. Red. Blue.
Neighbors whispering. Police too calm. My mother standing motionless, eyes hollow, as if she had already lost everything.

And just like that, child protection workers split us apart. Nine kids scattered like leaves in a storm. No warning. No bags packed. Just taken.

That day—July 6, 1990—was the first cut.

And from that cut, I learned the truth: greatness isn’t just about trophies or applause. Sometimes greatness is survival. Sometimes it’s refusing to let the world strip away your soul, even when it takes everything else.