Superman's Cape Doesn't Exist
Dear Sophia, I believed that when something terrible happened, someone would come. A police officer. A judge. A bank. A government agency. Someone. Anyone. Surely there had to be adults whose job it was to fix things when people were hurt. Then you were scammed. And little by little, that illusion disappeared. The money was gone. The promises were gone. The people who had called you every day vanished as if they had never existed. And then came the second shock. Not the fraud itself. The loneliness. Everyone was kind. Everyone was sorry. Everyone understood. But understanding and helping are not the same thing. You discovered that sympathy is often free. Real solutions are not. Forms. Procedures. Waiting periods. Reference numbers. Departments. Transfers. Escalations. You sometimes felt as though you were screaming underwater while the rest of the world continued with its day. The strange thing is that nobody was intentionally cruel. Most people were simply busy living their own lives....

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