Angry versions. Calm versions. Versions that didn't bother to wait when a "nice couple" came to visit the facilities because we knew they were looking for someone smaller, easier, less complicated.
Every time a child left with a suitcase or a garbage bag, we performed our stupid little ritual.
“If you get adopted, I’ll keep your headphones.”
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“If you get adopted,” he would reply, “I’ll keep your sweatshirt.”
So we clung to each other.
We said it as a joke.
The truth was that we both knew that no one would come for the quiet girl with "failed in placement" stamped on her file or for the boy in the chair.
So we clung to each other.
We almost turned 18 at the same time.
At 18, they called us into an office, slid some papers across the desk and said, “Sign here. You are adults now.”
We left together with our belongings in plastic bags.
There was no party, no cake, no "we're proud of you".
Just a folder, a bus pass, and the weight of "good luck".
We left together with our belongings in plastic bags, as if we had arrived, only now there was no one on the other side of the door.
On the sidewalk, Noah lazily turned a wheel and said, "Well, at least no one can tell us where to go anymore."
"Unless it's to jail."
He snorted. “Then we’d better not get caught doing anything illegal.”
We enrolled in the community college.
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