The girl who fought everyone because her father came home drunk every night.
The quiet child who never brought lunch and insisted she “wasn’t hungry.”
In a town where survival often meant minding your own business, Maria did the opposite.
“You’ll wear yourself out,” the older teachers warned her.
Maybe she would.
But she had grown up poor herself. She knew what it meant to feel invisible.
And she had promised herself—quietly, fiercely—that if she ever had the power to make someone feel seen, even briefly, she would.
She didn’t know yet that promise would be tested under a sky the color of wet cement.
The rain began just after noon.
Not gentle rain.
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