My eyes stung with tears. This was my student, Beanie Morrison.
Every child here was an underprivileged kid, born to parents who vanished and barely seen their mothers more than a handful of times.
Nobody loved them. Nobody loved me, either.
So I took on all of it. I washed their clothes, trimmed their nails, scrubbed their hair.
I held them in my arms, over and over, and told them I loved them.
Two months later, the dull, vacant eyes of my students had come alive, bright as stars.
I thought Mom would be proud of me. But she just stared at Beanie, her expression unreadable.
The live comments exploded with shock:
"Rosemary Delgado, that drama queen, was actually this good to the kids?"
"I grew up as an underprivileged kid myself. I swear, that child's expression can't be faked! Unless... we really did have her all wrong?"
"No way! The first six months after she left the industry, she kept popping up like a clown begging to get roasted, all for the cash. She was greedy! A greedy person doesn't do this kind of thing!"
The group continued forward. Up ahead, a crowd had gathered, blocking the path.
Men, women, old, young. The moment they saw the officers, they dropped to their knees:
"Please! You have to get justice for Miss Delgado!"
"We heard you came from the city to investigate what happened to her!"
"Miss Delgado was a good person! The school building was falling apart, so she went into the city again and again, letting the media tear her apart just to earn money. The things people said about her online, I'm a grown man and I couldn't stomach them, but she'd read the worst comments out loud to me with a smile on her face. She said she was used to it. Six months later, she'd finally saved enough to rebuild the school."
"We begged her to tell the press the truth, that the money was for a good cause. She flat-out refused. Said nobody would believe her anyway. She was truly a good person!"
Every comment that had cursed my name went silent.
I smiled through my tears.
Mom, I didn't bring you shame after all.
At home, I was the invisible one, always overshadowed.
In the entertainment world, I was the scandal-ridden drama queen.
Here, I finally found my worth.
Mom, are you proud of me now?
But Mom just stood there with her arms crossed, and when she couldn't take it anymore, she let out a cold laugh:
"Quite the performance."
"Carina told me she saw that wretched girl take a bus out here in the middle of the night. How much did she pay you all to put on this show?"
"This acting is a bit much, don't you think? Where's that wretched girl's grave? I'm going to tear it open myself and see if she's really dead!"
The pain in my chest nearly split me in two.
Why, Mom? Why won't you believe me, even now?
How could this be an act? In that cold, dark stretch of woods, you already stripped the flesh from my bones with your own hands...
Mom marched toward the gravesite with the detectives in tow, fury in every step.
I let out a bleak smile.
Go, Mom.
My last letter to this world is buried there.
They stood before my memorial grave.
Mom picked up a hammer herself and brought it down, shattering the headstone in a single blow.
My black-and-white photograph broke apart on the ground. She glanced at it, then stepped on it without a second thought.
Mom, that was my only photograph.
Will you hold it someday and miss me?
There were never any pictures of me in our house.
Carina's photos were stacked in little mountains, every single one tucked carefully into beautiful albums by Mom's own hands.
But mine were all swept into the trash like garbage.
Soon they were digging, shovels biting deep into the earth.
Mom stared at the grave, raw dirt piling up around it, and a sudden, sharp pain seized her chest.
The next second, one of the search team spoke up:
"Found something! There's a small piece of bone here!"
Mom's voice trembled before she could stop it, thin and threaded with fear:
