Jasmine Lee

The cramped apartment smelled of damp clothes and desperation. The flickering lightbulb overhead cast weak shadows against the peeling wallpaper. Jasmine sat at the rickety kitchen table, her fingers tracing the cracked surface, while her parents paced the room.

Her mother, Maria, looked exhausted—her hair unkempt, dark circles under her eyes. Her father, Luis, sighed as he stared at the overdue rent notice on the counter.

“We can’t keep living like this, mija,” Maria said, her voice weary. “The landlord’s already given us a final warning. If we don’t pay, we’ll be out on the street.”

Jasmine clenched her jaw. She had heard this conversation a hundred times before. They had already sold everything of value—the old TV, her father’s tools, even her grandmother’s wedding ring. Nothing was left.

“There has to be another way,” she muttered.

Luis scoffed. “Another way? Jasmine, we’ve been looking for ‘another way’ for years. No one’s hiring. The government isn’t helping. But this—” he slapped a pamphlet down on the table, the EIPRA logo gleaming in bold letters, “—this is our way out.”

Jasmine refused to look at it. She already knew what it said.

Maria crouched beside her, taking her hands in her own. “Please, baby. It’s just for a little while. You’d be safe. Fed. You wouldn’t have to worry about all this.” Her voice cracked. “And they’d take care of us too.”

Jasmine swallowed hard. The offer was clear—if she agreed to be adopted into the program, her family would receive a stipend large enough to clear their debts, put food on the table, maybe even move into a better apartment.

But at what cost?

“I’d have to give up my life,” she whispered.

Luis pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’d be taken care of,” he corrected. “You’d get to live like a kid again—no stress, no hunger, no worries. And once it's done, we’ll be in a better place.”

Jasmine’s stomach twisted. Once it was done. That was the part they never said out loud. Some people left the program. Others never did.

Maria squeezed her hands tighter. “Just think about it, mija,” she pleaded. “We don’t have much time.”

Jasmine’s eyes flicked to the eviction notice on the counter. The red FINAL WARNING stamped across the top. Her father’s hunched shoulders. The tremble in her mother’s hands.