Not A Single Thing

The machine beeped as I tapped my card. Shimmying through the gate, suitcase in hand, I tentatively looked down at my phone. Seven minutes before my train. Seven minutes before every single thing I’ve had in life changes. I left home because I could. Simple as that. No big argument or screaming matches, just a packed bag and an exit. As much as I would like to have had my Hallmark moment, it clearly was never going to be that.

My parents and I never got along. Every night it was a debate at the dinner table over why my dresser wasn’t freshly dusted or why my AP Calc grade slipped below a 93%. None of it ever mattered, and they knew that. The world didn’t end when I left underwear on the floor. Nothing changed. The worst part, though, is that in all of my intelligence, I never had answers. As much as I detested almost every single one of my parents ideals or parental techniques, the words never came. Every time, I just sat there and let their words sear into my flesh, engraving the scent of self-loathing into my nose forever. Smells like mac and cheese.

I would take those words and scribble as many as I could onto a piece of paper and stuff it into my intellectually named “Hate Backpack” buried deep in the cavern of my closet. But one day, as I went to put one more note in the graveyard, the zipper on the choked bag got stuck. So many papers filled with slight remarks and subtle jabs. Too many. That same night, I packed everything that I knew I would need in the next week and left. Coming down the stairs through the living room, my parents looked at me, then my suitcase, and then me again as I walked out the door. I left my backpack on the porch, unzipped, open for the perpetrators to see. I thought it was fitting to leave the “murder weapon” at the scene of the crime.

I kept one note, though. Sitting on the train, I pulled the piece of crumpled paper out of my pocket. I slowly unfurled it, smoothing it out on my lap.

“For the love of…”

I flipped the paper over, and instantly the words seared into my eyes.

“How can we be proud of someone who isn’t proud of themselves?”

They were right. This is the one note that, no matter how much I tried to free myself from its grasp, held onto me too vindictively. As much as it would delight me to blame everything on my parents, it’s not their fault. Two messed-up kids forced into adulthood had another messed-up kid. Simple equation. They tried their best, even if their best was subpar, to put it kindly. That’s why I had to go. I can’t stay in an environment where the only room for growth was into the ground.

“Excuse me,” the person next to me said, timidly.

Ignoring them, I turned my music almost to the max, attempting to drown them out. After they tapped me though I took my earbud out because felt like turning my music up more wouldn’t really be an adequate excuse.

“Hi, sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to ask if you knew which way the train was going.”

I almost let my jaw fall to the floor as I turned to respond, but then I saw. A child. A literal child. Couldn’t be much older than twelve. He looked up at me with wide bug eyes and a shy smile.

“Um… I’m sorry, where are your parents?” I asked.

He looked down, pondering carefully this somehow profound question.

“At… home.” He looked up and smiled.

The pot of questions boiling in my mind started bubbling over. This kid, who’s clearly lying, is on a train alone. And I was so absorbed in my own stuff that I didn’t even notice.

“Really? Well, give me their number and I’ll call th—”

“No!” the kid shouted.

Everyone in our train car turned toward us. One lady looked particularly concerned as she turned toward her friend and whispered something with the words “teen” and “pregnancy.”

“Sorry for my brother. It’s his first time on a train,” I quickly blurted out.

I turned toward the kid, trying to keep my composure.

“Okay. I understand that you might be confused or something, but if I don’t know anything about your parents, how can I help you?”

“I’m not trying to go back to my parents,” he said, turning toward the window and folding his arms.

“Okay…”

I was never good with kids. Growing up an only child to the most helicopter, yet somehow absent, parents makes you not that great at social interactions. Especially with younger kids. All I see is a portal to the worst times of my life, another sponge susceptible to the harsh world that awaits them.

“Can you please tell me what way the bus is going?” the boy asked, looking up at me again.

“It’s going north.”

“Thank you.”

The kid looked back down, twiddling his thumbs nervously, clearly generating another question in his confused mind. I sighed, putting my earbud back down into my lap.

“Are there any other questions you wanted to ask?”

“What’s up north?” the kid asked quickly. He then looked away like he was scared of the answer.

It finally clicked for me what happened. This kid had the same expression on his face that I used to have. A face of longing. Longing for escape.

“You ran away, didn’t you?” I asked.

The kid’s cheeks burned bright in embarrassment. He started circling his thumbs faster, saying nothing. I touched the kid’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. Me too.”

“Wait, really?” the boy lit up. Not out of joy, but excitement to be understood.

“Yeah,” I said as I patted my suitcase.

“Woah. But you’re like… older,” the boy said.

I’d be lying if I said a ten-year-old calling me, a twenty-three-year-old, “older” didn’t sting just a little bit.

“Yeah. I’m a whole college student,” I joked.

The little boy’s eyes bulged like a bullfrog caught on camera mid-croak.

“Woah. So are your parents mean too?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah. They’re mean sometimes.”

“Makes sense,” the kid answered, nodding his head knowingly.

If only he could understand the full complexity of leaving a house that felt more like a coffin than a comfort because your parents don’t understand how to properly care for a young adult because of their own personal issues and instilled parental traumas.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “They’re mean.”

“Well, my parents are REALLY mean.”

“Really? How?”

“They—”

Before he could answer, the intercom rang out at Lake Merritt Station as the doors shuttered open. This was my stop. The little boy saw me staring at the open doors.

“Oh,” he said sadly.

This boy clearly needed someone right now, and it just so happened that a worse, more screwed-up version of him was the only support he was getting. Plus, he’s an elementary schooler on the train alone. My parents, being a multitude of things, weren’t stupid. I barely ever went on any sort of public transportation at his age, and definitely not alone.

“No. My stop isn’t for a little while. So tell me about your mean parents.”

The boy sat up in his seat with a small smile creeping onto his face.

Turns out the way to win over a sixth grader is with ice cream and comic books. I, after arduously negotiating with him, finally convinced Jacob to go home. He only had three stipulations: ice cream, comics, and I had to talk to his parents first. I agreed because the only other foreseeable option was to body-drag this child off a train.

I also realized that eleven-year-olds are very directionally challenged. After four “make a rights,” I realized Jacob had no idea where he was going.

“Do you have the address?” I asked, tired and regretting the absence of Lactaid from my “essentials” bag.

“I know like two of the numbers. It’s 62 something something,” Jacob said proudly.

I stared at him, trying my hardest to put my reassuring face on.

“Can I call your parents, please, Jacob?”

“No…” Jacob whined. “They’re gonna be mad.”

“You’re going to have to go home eventually.”

“No. I could just stay out here. I packed all of my stuff.”

Jacob sat down on the curb and unzipped his Marvel backpack. Inside was his Nintendo, one day’s worth of clothes, Sour Patch Kids, an emergency patch-and-sewing kit, and a dollar-store first aid kit.

“Do you even know how to sew?”

“Well, not right now. But I can learn.” He smiled optimistically.

“Look,” I kneeled down to Jacob, now eye level, one hurt child to another, “I know how bad it feels to be in a house where everyone treats you badly. Your parents don’t listen to you, and that makes you upset. But your parents miss you and—”

“No they don’t.”

Jacob sat down on the sidewalk. The wind picked up, brushing through his hair. An autumn leaf fell on his head.

“I know they don’t. When I left, all they said was ‘you’ll be back.’ Nothing else.”

Nothing. Silence. All-consuming silence.

I can’t lie to him like he lives in a fairy tale. He doesn’t.

I looked up at the sky, a plea to the clouds for help. All that responded was rain droplets as it began to drizzle. I looked over at Jacob and came to the conclusion that, considering we’re both in T-shirts and rain seemed imminent, something had to be done.

“Look. Let me—”

Before I could finish my sentence, Jacob handed his ringing phone to me. He pointed to his top contact.

“You can call her. I don’t know if she’ll even answer,” he said sadly.

“Okay. Thanks,” I said, getting up and walking a few steps forward out of direct earshot from Jacob. “Don’t worry. I’m very convincing.”

“Come home now. Dinner will be ready in twenty.”

A cold, sharp voice answered the phone.

“I—”

“Your running-away stunt has run its course. We get it, you’re sad. We’ll get you a therapist. Come home for dinner.”

The words landed colder on my ears than the water droplets on my face. Even though these words weren’t directed toward me, each one hurt like redressing an old wound. Old wounds for me that never closed, and new wounds for Jacob that shouldn’t have ever opened.

“Are you Jacob’s mom?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m Jordan, and your son is with me, and he’s okay, so you don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried. I assumed he was safe. I just wanted to know which one of his friends talked him into this stupid idea. Bring him home now,” she said unwaveringly.

Her tone was harsh. Her words cut deeper than even my parents’. But her sting didn’t last long. Maybe it’s because there’s a random woman I’ve never talked to before on the other line that I might never talk to again, or maybe I just grew a pair in the three hours from leaving my house to now.

“Well, he’s safe because I happened not to be a weirdo that your son ran into on a public train. But if it was anyone else, I couldn’t say the same. Your son ran away not because he’s sad, but because he’s not cared for. And I don’t know if you’re the asshole of the family or if everyone in his house is like this, but you raised a sweet, nice child that was forced to grow up because you wouldn’t help him. And from what I’ve heard, at every instance you’ve been a terrible excuse of a parent,” I spat out.

There wasn’t hate behind this, just an inconsolable hysteria. A surge of emotions that had been building for twenty-three years finally culminated in me yelling at this random mom of a kid I met a couple hours ago.

“I’m sending you our address. Come pick your kid up,” I said, then hung up.

I sent her our location, then shut the phone off. I stood there looking at the black screen, the world still around me. My reflection looked distorted and shifted. Maybe it was from the rain splashing on the phone or the water bubbling in my eyes, but it just looked foreign. A version of me that I’d never seen before. Maybe it’s a divine metaphor for the character journey I’ve been on today. Or maybe the ice cream is finally seeking retribution on me.

“Your mom’s coming.”

“Really?” Jacob lit up, clutching his comics closer.

“Yeah.”

I sat down and opened my suitcase, pulling out a dingy umbrella. After a few clicks, it sprung open. I held it above both of our heads as we looked down the street and counted the cars passing by.

A couple hours after Jacob got picked up, I was walking in the rain. One foot in front of the other. I had enough money to stay at a motel for a while, so I figured I’d head to the closest one. Only about a half hour more of walking.

I looked down at my phone. Two texts.

One text was from Jacob, letting me know that he got home and that he and his mom were going to talk about how they could change things in the future. And that I’m invited to dinner tomorrow. Mac and cheese.

The second text was unexpectedly from my dad. He asked me when I’d be coming home so we could talk about how we could work things out. He said that my mom and he were really sorry and that they would work every day to make things better. Their lack of showing any outward guilt had led me to think they were physically incapable of feeling it.

I stood still, letting the rain fall on my face and the wind whisk it away.

I thought about what to say for a while. I think I stood there for five minutes, just paralyzed by the concept of replying. What witty comeback or heartfelt message I should send infested my mind. But I realized that, just as much as Jacob’s parents, I didn’t owe mine anything either. Not yet. They have to earn a relationship, not inherit it via blood.

So right now, they don’t get a response. Not a word. Not a single thing.