“He’s kind,” I said, my voice shaking. “He’s the kind of kid who apologizes when someone bumps into him.”
The officer gave me a polite smile, the kind meant to reassure worried parents.
“We’ll file the report, ma’am.”
But I could see it in his eyes.
He thought I was another panicked parent who didn’t really know their own kid.
The next morning, I went straight to Daniel’s school.
The principal was sympathetic. She let me sit in a small office and watch the security camera footage from the previous afternoon.
Students poured out of the gates in loud clusters—laughing, shoving each other, checking their phones.
Then I saw Daniel.
He was walking beside a girl.
For a second, I didn’t recognize her. Then she turned her head slightly, and I saw her face clearly.
“Maya,” I whispered.
She had come over to our house a few times. Quiet girl. Always polite, almost careful with her words.
In the footage, they walked together to the bus stop.
They got on a city bus.
Then they disappeared from the camera frame.
“I need to speak with Maya,” I said to the principal.
She hesitated.
“Maya doesn’t attend this school anymore,” she said. “She transferred yesterday. That was her last day here.”
My stomach dropped.
I drove straight to her house.
A man answered the door. Tall. Hard expression.
“Can I please speak to Maya?” I asked. “She was with my son yesterday. He’s missing.”
The man stared at me for a long moment.
Then something in his face shut down completely.
“Maya isn’t here,” he said. “She’s staying with her grandparents for a while.”
He started closing the door.
“I’ll ask her if she knows anything,” he added flatly.
Then the door shut.
I stood there for a long time, something in my gut telling me that conversation had been wrong somehow—but I didn’t know how to push further.
The weeks that followed were the worst of my life.
We hung flyers everywhere. Posted in online groups. Called everyone Daniel knew.
The police searched too, but slowly the energy faded. The calls slowed. The reports stopped.
People began using a word I hated.
Runaway.
But I knew my son.
Daniel wasn’t the kind of boy who disappeared without a word.
Almost a year passed.
