The cold, sterile walls of the social services office felt suffocating, even to a child. The air was thick with a tension I couldn't understand, but I could feel it pressing against me, the weight of invisible expectations. At just ten years old, I sat quietly, legs swinging from the too-big chair, clutching a tattered backpack that contained all I had in the world. It was as if the room itself was saying: You don’t belong here. The social worker, a woman with tired eyes and a clipped tone, shuffled papers on her desk without looking at me. Her movements were mechanical, as if this moment, this scene, had been replayed too many times. “You’ll be fine,” she said, almost as if to herself, her voice hollow. “They’ll take care of you.”

But “they” never did.

I would learn, time and time again, that the promises made by the System were hollow. Fine wasn’t fine. They didn’t take care of me. They moved me, shuffled me around, a nameless face in an ever-changing sea of strangers, each new home only a brief stop in the ongoing journey of uncertainty. From as early as I could remember, I was bounced between homes, each one more temporary than the last. A week here, a month there. Sometimes, the foster parents seemed kind, their smiles warm, but that warmth would quickly turn to frustration when I didn’t behave the way they expected. I was a child, after all, trying to make sense of a life that had no stability, no roots, no sense of permanence.

Each move was a new set of rules to learn, new people to disappoint. The tension in each home was palpable, a low hum beneath every conversation, every gesture. I was never really there, always a little...