𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐭𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

𝐊𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐡

The car blurs by, dark streets stretching out endlessly, each turn pulling me further from anything familiar. I sit in the backseat, silent, wrapped in someone else's clothes — a borrowed life that doesn't fit.

Noah, the cop who handed me the sweatpants and shirt from his sisters closet, keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes shift nervously, like he's looking for a way to reassure me, but the silence is thick, heavy. Words would only make things worse.

The shirt hangs awkwardly, too loose, too bright, and the pants are baggy around my waist. I barely recognise myself in these clothes; every glance at my reflection feels like I'm looking at someone else — a stranger I don't know.

I feel exposed, like I've stepped out of my skin and into someone else's story.

The social worker, whose name I barely caught, shifts in her seat up front, her fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on her knee. She turns once, her expression full of something I can't place — maybe sympathy, maybe pity.

Her eyes linger on me as if she wants to offer some comfort, but whatever words she might have dissolve into the quiet tension in the car.

Finally, the car pulls into a neighbourhood, the kind with warm, settled houses and stops in front of a small, two- story home. The sun dips below the horizon, casting everything in soft shadows and a dusky light.

The social worker turns, her eyes soft with a smile on her face. "We're here."

Inside, the house is everything I've never had: warm, welcoming, like a home built on love. The air smells faintly of lavender, the walls are painted in pastel colours and there are photos everywhere.

Strangers' faces line the hallway, a family I don't know, smiling parents, happy kids — memories of laughter and joy that press against me with a weight I cant shake. I glance at those faces that belong to kids who'll never know what it feels like to loose everything.

The social worker leads me down a hallway, stopping at a door at the end. "This will be your room for the night," she says, opening it with a quiet creak.

I step inside, my eyes taking in the small space:the bed neatly made with a soft quilt, a few stuffed animals arranged on a shelf. A warm lamp glows in the corner, casting a soft light and the walls are decorated with bright drawings of flowers and smiling suns. It's all trying so hard to promise safety, like it's mean for a kid who still believes in good things. For kids who haven't had the edges of their world chipped  away until there's almost nothing left.

I sit on the bed, brushing my fingers across the quilt, the softness strange under my hands. For as long as I can remeber, I've dreamt of a room like this.

I've pictured the warmth of a cozy bed, the cheerful decorations, the sense of safety that comes with a place to call my own.

And yet standing here, I feel an overwhelming emptiness. Why doesn't my heart swell with happiness? Why don't I feel a flicker of recognition, as if I've stepped into a space I've always longed for?

It's as if my dreams have been materialised, but I've lost the ability to truly embrace them.

The social worker hovers in the doorway, watching me with that look that tells me she thinks she understands. "Sometimes kids stay here when they have nowhere else to go," she says gently.
"It's just for a night or two, until we can find something more permanent."

Something more permanent. As if my life is just a temporary problem to be solved. She doesn't understand. None of them do. They don't know the nights I spent waiting for my mom to come home, hoping for a change that never came, wishing for safety that was always just out of reach.

I think of the other kids who must've slept in this room before me, each one carrying their own heavy story. How many of them stared at these same walls, feeling a weight of a world that wouldn't let them breathe?

What were they like? Were they afraid? Angry? Did they lie awake, just like I'm about to, clinging to some stubborn hope that things could be different?

I want to believe that someday, I could be one of those kids who finds something worth holding onto, something that feels real. I want to know what it feels like to feel hope, to find a reason to keep going.

But how? How do I rise from the ashes when I'm still in the flames? How do I hold onto anything good when all I know is how to let go?

The social worker gives me one last look before slipping out of the room, leaving me all alone. I lie down, staring up at the ceiling, my mind churning, thoughts twisting into knots i cant untangle.

The darkness feels thick and heavy, pressing downs on me, filling the space around me with all the things I don't want to think about.  I close my eyes, but sleep feels distant, a stranger I'm too afraid to reach for.
 
I lie there for what feels like hours, wide awake, haunted by questions with no answers. Anger simmers, filling the silence around me, because it's all I have.

It's the only thing that doesn't feel like a lie. Anger is familiar. It's a companion thats never left my side, even when everything else has.

I close my eyes, hoping darkness will take me somewhere else, that I'll wake up and find me self far from here. I think about those other kids, about the lives they must have rebuilt, the new words they must have found.

I wonder if they ever look back on nights like this, if they ever think about the places that left scars on their hearts.

And when the darkness finally comes for me, when sleep opens its arms, i let myself fall.