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An MIT acceptance letter lay on my desk, a full-ride scholarship, my ticket to a dazzling future far from my foster home.
But my foster father, Rufus, scoffed, his voice flat: "You're not going."
Instead, he' d arranged a "tech internship" out West, promising big money and opportunities, while my foster mother, Sylvia, faked a panicked "premonition" about a bus crash to dissuade me.
They were lying. I knew it. All of it.
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