“I just need socks.”
Luis looked at me.
Then back at him.
“You’ve been here before.”
The boy’s jaw tightened.
There it was.
Recognition.
I looked at the grainy still in my mind.
The hooded figure with armfuls of supplies.
The one from the packet.
Same height.
Same narrow shoulders.
Same way of standing half-ready to bolt.
The cabinet boy.
He saw it on my face and looked down.
“I know,” he said.
Luis crossed his arms.
“You cleaned the whole thing out last week.”
“I didn’t clean the whole thing out.”
“You took enough.”
The boy swallowed.
His throat moved hard.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
There are two ways people confess.
One is defensive.
The other is exhausted.
He sounded exhausted.
I could have followed the script that had been handed to us three hours earlier.
Tell him supplies were no longer open access.
Tell him he had to leave.
Tell him if he needed emergency care, we would assess him.
Tell him no.
Leave a Comment