-dontbreakme- Kharlie Stone -01.11.2016- ❲DIRECT - OVERVIEW❳

The file’s metadata leads to a case I’d buried. A foster kid shuffled between homes like a library book no one wanted to check out. A string of petty thefts, a juvenile record that read like a cry for help typed in all caps. Then, a disappearance. Then, nothing.

The date in the subject line is January 11, 2016. -DontBreakMe- Kharlie Stone -01.11.2016-

“P.S. The coffee cup? You held it just fine. You just didn’t think you deserved to.” I close the laptop. The file’s metadata leads to a case I’d buried

I know that date. Not because anything famous happened, but because that was the day I almost quit. The day my own hands shook so badly I couldn’t hold a coffee cup straight. The day I sat in my car in a parking lot and watched rain erase the world through the windshield, thinking: What’s the point of trying to save anyone when you can’t even save yourself? Then, a disappearance

Somewhere out there, a girl with rust-colored hair is living a life she built from the wreckage. And somewhere inside me, the part that almost broke on January 11, 2016, finally lets go of the fence and starts walking.