Snow scraped across the sidewalks like shards of glass while a tiny girl dragged a rattling cart behind her. The cart was taller than she was, patched together with bent wire and stubborn hope. Inside were empty bottles, crushed cans, and everything the city had already decided didn’t matter.
Her name was Ava Carter.
She was five years old.
One glove was too big. The other had a hole at the thumb. Every breath she took turned into a small cloud that disappeared just as quickly as it came.
People walked past her like she wasn’t there.
No one asked why a child that small was alone in the cold.
No one cared.
Ava didn’t cry.
Crying wasted energy.
She climbed onto the edge of a trash bin, balancing carefully, and reached inside. Her fingers stung from the cold, but she smiled when she pulled out two intact bottles.
“Mom will be happy,” she whispered.
In her pocket was a folded prescription with her mother’s name on it:
Rachel Carter. Age 32.
Ava couldn’t read the long medical terms.
But she understood the number at the bottom.
Too expensive.
Home was a single room above a broken-down auto shop.