My name is Sydney. I am eleven years old, and last summer, my mother left me with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and a single word that tasted like ash in my mouth: Independent.
“See, you are independent now,” she had said with a bright, brittle smile, hauling her Samsonite suitcase toward the front door. “You are not a baby anymore, Sydney. Just order food if you need to. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Independent.
That was her word, not mine. I stood in the foyer, staring at the bill in my palm. Twenty dollars. Not a plan. Not a list of emergency numbers. Not even a real goodbye. Just a distracted peck on my forehead, the click-clack of her heels on the hardwood, and the sound of a suitcase rolling down the driveway like thunder.
Then, the front door closed in my face.
