Little by little, he began to open up. One afternoon, he asked me, “Have you ever been scared to go home?”
That question broke something inside me. I told him the truth — about my own childhood, about fear that hides in the walls, about how being scared doesn’t make you weak. It means you still believe life can be better.
That one word said everything — the bruises, the silence, the way he hid behind that hat. It wasn’t rebellion. It was survival.
The Night Everything Changed
A few weeks later, I saw Jaden sitting on the front steps after school, a duffel bag beside him. There was a fresh bruise near his eye.
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