Places no One Stayed

The first house called me a miracle. The second one forgot I was there. By the third, I'd learned how to read faces the way others read books, looking for danger, kindness, or the cold indifference that said, "Don't get too comfortable."

I was the suitcase child. Carried from hallway to hallway. A name passed between social workers like a baton in a race that never finished. Some homes had warm meals. Some had slamming doors. None had permanence.

But in the cracks of those days, I found slivers of light. A librarian who let me stay past closing. A bus driver who always greeted me by name. A girl in fifth grade who gave me half her sandwich and didn't ask questions. I collected those moments like fireflies in a jar-fragile, flickering, but mine.

And somewhere deep down, even when the nights were long and the silences louder than any yelling, I held onto one quiet truth: I existed. Even if no one stayed, even if love was a rumor, I was still here. And that meant something.