Ariel's knuckles whitened against her thigh from deep clenching.

Her chest tightened. Her throat ached.

Her eyes stared blankly at the floor as she kept listening to what her parents were saying.

" We're not supposed to keep you here; people have been watching since then," Sonia, her mother, said. " They pointed at us, cussed at us."

" We wanted to move out, but Dad's company went bankrupt and we started struggling," Ava mumbled sadly.

" Honestly, you have a very good parent," ...