S1 Week 2 Bonus Story: An American Dream (Pt. 1)

The Orphaning of Sebastian Velasquez

Author’s Note: This bonus chapter is exclusively for paid subscribers. For $5 a month (or a discounted $50 a year), you will receive an extra bonus story every week. Your paid subscription will be reinvested into the series in the form of artwork and advertising!

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Seven-year-old Sebastian Velasquez had never thought his life was different from anyone else’s, which may have been the reason the scene before him took on a dreamlike quality.

There he sat, strapped into his mother’s car like a good, law-abiding citizen. Blue and red lights chased each other across the dashboard. A police officer with a bushy blond mustache peered in at him while another ran after Sebastian’s mom, who’d bolted for the surrounding woods at a breakneck speed. He could still see her retreating form, stumbling over roots and weeds.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the officer at his window, “she doesn’t understand English. That’s why she hasn’t stopped.”

But something in his gut told him that if he called out to her in Spanish, she wouldn’t stop for him, either.