When I was small, she woke me before sunrise so she could drop me at before school care. I sat on the counter and watched her lace up boots with cracked leather. She would kiss the top of my head and whisper, “I am doing this for you, Jays.” I wanted to tell her that I understood. I did not. Not yet.

School made me understand in ways I never wanted to. On my first day of third grade, a boy named Colin Tracer sniffed the air when I sat beside him. He leaned away and said, “My dad says the sanitation crew smells like money that died.” Another kid giggled and held his nose between two pinched fingers. “Your mom picks up diapers, right?” he asked, grinning. My face burned, but I did not know what to say. I sat there, hands under the desk, wishing I could dissolve into the floor.

By middle school, the teasing sharpened. Nobody yelled across hallways anymore. Instead, students exchanged glances that sliced sharper than insults. They slid their backpacks an inch closer to friends, as if the space between us could protect them from contamination. They muted their laughter when I walked by, then erupted the moment I passed. In the cafeteria, I pretended to study until a supervisor forced me to eat. I hid in the library until they closed for lunch, then behind the vending machine near the gym. The hum of the machine’s compressor became my soundtrack. I learned to eat quietly so nobody would hear me.