The morning after Layla left, the house felt too quiet.
Jayden sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the small pile of clothes folded on the dresser. None of them were his. The shirt was too big, the jeans smelled like someone else's detergent. Everything in this new life felt borrowed — even his name.
When the caseworker came by, she smiled too much. "How are we doing today, buddy?" she asked, like he was supposed to answer.
He just shrugged.
She wrote something down in her notebook. They always did. Every silence became a sentence, every look turned into a report.
That night, at dinner, one of the older boys at the table leaned over and said, "You new?"
Jayden nodded.
The boy smirked. "Don't get too comfortable. Nobody stays long."
He was right.
Two weeks later, Jayden was packed up and moved again. Miss Carol's house had been "temporary emergency placement." The next one was a foster home on the other side of the city — a two-story house with a porch swing and a mailbox shaped like a fish. The woman who answered the door had bright lipstick and tired eyes.
"Hi, Jayden! I'm Mrs. Thompson," she said, reaching out to shake his hand like he was an adult. "We're so happy to have you here."
He nodded, said nothing, and followed her inside.
The house smelled like pancakes and candles — a strange mix that almost felt warm. There were two other foster kids there: a little girl named Tia who talked too much and a teenage boy named Marcus who didn't talk at all. Marcus barely looked at Jayden, just pointed to the empty bed across from his and said, "That's yours."
The first few nights, Jayden barely slept. Every sound — every creak in the hallway, every car door outside — made him flinch. He missed Layla's breathing next to him. He missed knowing who to protect. Now he just had himself.
At school, it was worse.
The other kids whispered. Some said "foster kid" like it was a disease. Teachers spoke to him softly, too softly, like he might explode if they used a normal voice. He didn't know how to make friends, so he didn't try. When someone bumped him in the hallway, he shoved back. When someone laughed, he thought it was at him.
By his fourth week, he'd already been sent to the principal's office twice. Mrs. Thompson got a call and sighed the whole drive home. "Jayden, honey, you have to stop fighting," she said, her voice gentle but strained. "People are just trying to help you."
He wanted to yell that nobody ever had.
Instead, he said nothing, stared out the window, and watched the trees blur past.
That night, he sat on the porch and stared at the stars. He didn't know where Layla was — if she had a porch to sit on, or stars to look at, or someone who remembered her favorite stuffed rabbit. He wanted to ask Mrs. Thompson if they could find out, but the words got stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat.
A few weeks later, a new social worker came. Different name, same notebook. "Jayden, we're moving you again," she said like she was telling him the weather.
He didn't ask why. He didn't ask where.
He just packed his trash bag — because they never gave him a suitcase — and followed her out to the car.
That's when it hit him: he was becoming one of those kids. The ones who lived out of bags, who learned not to unpack, who stopped trying to remember anyone's name.
The drive was long and quiet. The social worker hummed along to a song on the radio. Jayden stared out the window, watching the world slide by — houses, people, lives that kept going without him.
When they pulled up to the next place, the sign out front said:
"Maple Ridge Group Home — Boys Ages 8–14."
He didn't need to go inside to know what kind of place it was. He'd heard the stories.
He walked in, clutching his bag like armor. A staff member at the desk smiled too wide and said, "Welcome home."
Jayden didn't smile back.
Home wasn't a word that meant anything anymore.
That night, as he lay on a thin mattress in a room full of strangers, he whispered the same promise he'd made before.
They took everything, but they ain't taking me.
And even though his voice was small, it carried — through the dark room, through the sound of kids snoring and crying, through the walls that smelled like old paint and disinfectant — it carried like a prayer