2. Jordyn
JORDYN
The pale grey light of dawn filters through the thin curtains, painting stripes across a wall I don’t recognize.
I lie perfectly still, eyes open in the dark, my mind already a battlefield of logistics.
The day unfolds in a series of calculated steps.
Alarm at six. Oatmeal at six-thirty, cooked to the exact consistency, no lumps.
Dressed by seven. Soft pants, no tag, the red fire truck shirt.
In the car by seven-forty-five. I map the route to the school in my head, pinpointing potential traffic snarls, planning an alternate path.
I choreograph every interaction, script every conversation.
A floorboard creaks in the hall. Brody is awake. I push myself up, the stiffness in my back a familiar ache. I find him standing in his room, his hands twisting the hem of his pajama shirt.
“Today is our first school day,” I start, my voice low and even. “We will eat breakfast. Then we will get dressed. I will drive you there and walk you to your classroom.”
His eyes are fixed on the corner of the ceiling.
“I will be back at three o’clock to get you. Your teacher’s name is Mrs. Gable. She has a picture of you.”
He gives a small, sharp nod. “Three o’clock.”
It’s a whisper, but it’s an agreement. Air I don't realize I am holding floods from my lungs, a silent, shaky release. The first domino falls exactly as it should. It’s a fragile win, and I handle it like spun glass.
Later, I sit on a hard plastic chair across from a polished mahogany desk.
The office smells of lemon cleaner and old paper.
Principal Albright smiles, a bright, practiced expression that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
Next to her, a young man named Mr. Davies, the support teacher, nods along, his face a picture of earnest concentration.
“Brody’s file is comprehensive,” Ms. Albright says, tapping a neat folder.
“The file doesn’t tell you that the hum of fluorescent lights feels like scraping nails inside his skull,” I reply, my hands folded tightly in my lap.
“Or that the cafeteria will be too loud, too bright, too much. He needs his headphones ten minutes before lunch.” I outline the triggers, the routines, the subtle signals he sends when the words disappear and his fists clench at his sides.
“Of course,” Ms. Albright reassures me. “We have a robust support system. Our staff is fully trained.”
“We have a wonderful sensory room, just down the hall from his class,” Mr. Davies adds.
They say all the right things. The words are smooth, professional, a pre-packaged promise. I’ve heard them before. A cold knot forms in my stomach, but I push it down. I nod. I force a smile that feels brittle on my lips.
“Thank you. That’s… a relief to hear.”
Hope is not a feeling. It’s a choice, a grim necessity when there are no other options on the table.
The bell shrieks, a piercing sound that makes my teeth ache. I feel Brody flinch beside me. Waves of children flood the hallway, a chaotic river of bright backpacks and loud voices. I place a grounding hand on his shoulder.
“We’re just walking to the end. See the green stripe on the floor? We follow the green stripe.”
My voice is a deep hum, a counter-frequency to the rising tide of noise.
We move against the current. A girl with two long, blonde braids stops dead in her tracks to stare, her mouth a small 'o' of surprise.
Her friend yanks her arm, pulling her along, but the look lingers.
My jaw tightens. I keep my eyes fixed on the green line.
A boy nudges his friend, jerking a thumb in our direction. The friend snickers into his hand. It's quick, almost invisible, but I see it. I see every flicker of it. It’s a language I learned long ago, the silent vocabulary of exclusion. My spine turns to steel.
A teacher with a lanyard bouncing against her chest gives us a brilliant, toothy smile. It’s the kind of smile you put on for a photograph, held for a second too long. It doesn’t warm the cool assessment in her eyes. The smile is for me. The assessment is for him.
“Almost there, bud,” I murmur, my gaze locked ahead. “Look, the numbers on the doors. Twenty-four, twenty-six… ours is number thirty.”
Brody traces the tile pattern with his eyes, his feet landing perfectly in the center of each grey square.
He doesn’t see the cluster of kids who part around us like we’re a rock in a stream, their chatter dropping to a hush until we pass.
He doesn’t feel the weight of their curiosity.
But I do. I feel it like a physical pressure, a change in the atmosphere. I carry it for the both of us.
The door to room thirty is open. A woman with soft grey curls and kind eyes stands just inside, her smile gentle.
“You must be Brody.” Mrs. Gable’s voice is a soothing hum. Brody’s gaze drops to the colorful dinosaur stickers on her shoes.
I kneel down, keeping my hand firm on his back. “Listen, bud. I have to go to work now, but guess where I’m working?”
He remains silent, his focus locked on the vinyl creatures.
“Right down the hall. In the cafeteria. I’ll be putting the forks out and everything. I’m just a few short feet away, the whole time.”
His head lifts a fraction. His eyes meet mine for a bare second, the briefest flicker of connection. The rigid outline of his shoulders softens. It’s enough.
“You can come in whenever you’re ready, Brody. I have a great book about fire trucks saved just for you,” Mrs. Gable offers, her hand extended but not touching.
He takes a hesitant step forward, then another, crossing the threshold without looking back.
My hand falls from his back, a sudden cold spot on my palm.
I watch as the teacher leads him to a small cubby.
Turning on my heel, I walk toward the double doors of the cafeteria.
The hallway feels cavernous now, my footsteps the only sound.
Please, I think, a silent, desperate prayer aimed at the chipped linoleum floor.
Let this be the place. Let them be good to him.
A few hours later, and the cafeteria is a symphony of discordant sounds.
Trays clatter against the metal return window.
A fork scrapes a plate, a high, thin whine.
Voices bounce off the linoleum floor, a chaotic mix of shouted jokes and high-pitched squeals.
The air is ripe with the smell of floor polish and processed chicken.
I wipe down a table, my arm moving in a practiced, automatic rhythm. My eyes scan the room.
A sea of small faces, mouths open, hands gesturing.
They move in packs, a blur of bright sweaters and scuffed sneakers.
My gaze flits from the entrance to the exit, across the long rows of tables, a frantic search pattern burned into my brain.
Where is he? I spot a familiar red shirt near the back.
He sits alone, headphones on, meticulously peeling the crust from his sandwich.
My shoulders drop an inch. I can breathe again, for a few seconds.
I stack a pyramid of milk cartons, my focus already drifting back to that small, solitary figure.
Then the world shatters.
The noise is not a bell. It is a high, pulsating shriek that rips through the air and vibrates in my teeth.
It is a solid wall of sound that slams into me, into everyone.
Trays fall, a crash of plastic and metal.
A dozen small screams join the alarm’s unending cry.
A chair topples over. The adults start moving, their mouths forming words I cannot hear, their gestures sharp and urgent.
For one half-second, my body locks. Every muscle freezes. It isn’t the surprise of the alarm. It is the cold, instant clarity. I know that sound. I know what it does. I know the way it tears through his carefully constructed defenses, a drill boring straight into his brain.
The world unfreezes. I am a projectile. I shove past a line of fifth graders, their faces pale and wide-eyed. A lunch monitor in a neon yellow vest puts a hand out.
“Ma’am, please, this way.”
I duck under her arm. My voice is raw, a tear in the fabric of the alarm.
“Brody! Brody Greer!”
The sound is swallowed whole. Children pour past me, a frantic rush for the double doors. I fight against the tide, my eyes scanning, flitting from face to face. It’s a pointless gesture. He wouldn’t be in the crowd. He would be away from it. Sheltered. Cornered.
My mind splinters. A kaleidoscope of nightmare images.
Brody under a table, hands clamped firmly over his ears, his body rigid.
Brody curled into a ball in a dark supply closet, the door shut tight.
Brody bolting, running from the noise, straight into the street.
Each possibility is a shard of glass in my gut.
I push a lunch cart aside, the metal shrieking against the linoleum.
“My son!” I grab the arm of a teacher herding children toward the exit. Her face is a blank mask of professional calm. “Have you seen a little boy in a red shirt? With headphones?”
“Everyone is moving toward the west exit,” she recites, her gaze sweeping over my head, counting her flock.
She doesn’t see me. She doesn’t see him.
I am just another panicked parent, another problem to be managed.
I let her go and plunge deeper into the emptying building.
My lungs burn. The alarm drills into my skull, a relentless, physical assault.
I check under the tables, my heart hammering against my ribs with a frantic, painful rhythm.
Nothing. Just spilled milk and crumpled napkins.
The room is almost empty now, a ghost of the chaos from moments before.
He is not here. The realization hits with the force of a physical blow, stealing the air from my chest. He ran.
The sound hit, and he ran. But where? I burst through the doors into the hallway, a new, wider field of terror opening before me.
The green stripe from this morning mocks me from the floor. He could be anywhere.
I push through a set of heavy doors and stumble out into the blinding sunlight.
The alarm is louder here, an earsplitting pulse that reverberates off the brick walls of the school.
Children are everywhere, scattered across the bright green lawn in huddled, trembling groups.
Teachers with clipboards and frantic eyes move between them, their voices raised, shouting names that are swallowed by the din.
I scan the rows of small, confused faces, my gaze frantic, skipping from one child to the next.
Blonde braids. A blue jacket. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack. Not him.
Principal Albright spots me, her calm facade showing the first hints of a crack.
“Ms. Greer! We need everyone to stay back from the building.”
“He’s not out here.” My voice is a ragged thing. I search every cluster of children, my eyes darting over the entire field. The red shirt should stand out. It’s a beacon. But there is nothing.
“He must be. His teacher has accounted for her other students. He’s likely just mixed in with another class.” She places a hand on my arm, a gesture meant to be steadying. It feels like a cage.
I shake my head, pulling away. The cold truth settles deep in my bones, an icy certainty that crystallizes in the pit of my stomach.
They swept the rooms. They followed protocol.
But they don’t know him. They don’t know that the roar of the alarm and the stampede of bodies is a perfect storm. It’s a trap he cannot escape.
“He didn’t come out.”
“Now, let’s not panic. I’m sure he’s just frightened?—”
“No.” My voice cuts through her placating tone, sharp and brittle. “He wouldn’t. The noise, all these people… he finds small spaces. He hides.”
I look back at the school. The building looks like a monster, glass eyes staring blankly, its throat roaring with the unending siren.
They are all looking for a lost boy who would be running with the crowd.
They are not looking for a child who would retreat into the heart of the danger itself, seeking a quiet corner inside the inferno of sound.
The world outside dissolves. The crying children, the shouting teachers, the distant, rising wail of approaching sirens—it all fades to a dull, insignificant buzz. The only solid thing in my universe is that brick building and the small, terrified boy locked inside it. He’s trapped. He’s alone.
And I brought him here.