The first time I met Jake, he was just a skinny, quiet 13-year-old boy with wide brown eyes and a backpack that seemed to swallow him whole. My husband, Tom, had him on weekends back then—part of the custody arrangement with his ex-wife. Jake was polite, reserved, and painfully shy. He hardly said more than a few words during dinner. Honestly, I figured he just wasn’t a talker.
Over time, things got… strange.
