Hours later, the chemotherapy began.

I lay in the dark, shivering as cold, toxic fluids dripped into my veins through an IV port, waiting for my mother to come back, waiting for the teddy bear my father promised.

At nine, a woman with a kind face and a state ID badge came in. Her name was Susan.

She sat beside my bed, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and took my freezing hand.

“Emily, honey,” she said gently. “I’m your assigned social worker. Your parents… they aren’t coming back. The paper you signed — it gave you up to the foster system.”

The monitor beside me began to shriek as my heart rate spiked. I couldn’t breathe.