Then one rainy afternoon, my father fell from scaffolding at a construction site.

He didn’t die.

But he never fully recovered.

The medical bills came first. Then the debt. Then the silence between my parents. And eventually, my father left—not because he didn’t love us, but because he couldn’t live with feeling like a burden.

My mom dropped out of nursing school.

She took the only job she could get quickly—working sanitation for the city.

To the neighborhood, she became “the trash lady.”

And at school, I became “the trash lady’s kid.”

Kids are cruel in quiet ways at first. It started with whispers when I walked past. Then exaggerated nose-pinching. Someone once sprayed air freshener behind me in the hallway and laughed when others joined in.

No one sat next to me at lunch.

No one partnered with me for projects unless the teacher forced them.