“ I only ever see her at Christmas,” Danny told me one day. We sat on the bus, on our way to some field trip.“ That’ s when we go to Florida. She lives there.”“ What about your dad?” I asked.“ I don’ t have one.” He picked at a hole in the dark green seat ahead of us.“ Never had one. It’ s okay.”
The bus driver hit a bump in the road. It jostled us. The other kids on the bus screamed and laughed.“ Do you ever miss your mom?” I asked.“ Not really.” He pulled at the hole, making it bigger.“ She smokes crack. That’ s what she uses the money for.”
I lowered myself, put my knees up against the seat in front of us. Danny did the same.“ I hate her,” he said.“ Sometimes I wish she would die.”
Later that year, the boys found another kid to bully. They left Danny alone for a while. Even so, he always looked sad. Too much rested on him. Too many burdens that none of us knew how to hold.
The next year, sixth grade, Danny was gone for a week.“ He went to Florida,” Renee told me. I was confused because it wasn’ t Christmas.
When he came back, he didn’ t talk much. He kept to himself even more. The teachers let him take lots of breaks.
“ My mom’ s dead,” he told me during class. We sat on the floor drawing on poster board. I looked up. He had no expression.“ What happened?” I asked.“ She stepped out into the street. Right in front of a bus. My Uncle thinks she did it on purpose.”
“ Are you sad?” I hated that I asked that question. I wished right away that I could take it back.“ I don’ t know,” he answered.“ I’ m mad.”
Danny started smoking cigarettes in ninth grade. He got drunk for the first time that same year. Then he smoked pot. Dropped acid. I begged him to get help. Told him that I didn’ t want anything bad to happen to him.“ Nothing’ s going to happen to me,” he said, leaning against his locker.“ It’ s bad,” I said.
“ I don’ t care what you think.” He pushed away from the locker and stood up straight.“ It doesn’ t matter.” The smell of cigarettes and pot lingered long after he walked away.
By eleventh grade, Danny stopped showing up at school completely. I heard rumors about him. The drugs he did. That he’ d started“ doing things” with strangers to earn money for his addictions. They laughed about it. About him.
Once again, Danny had become a joke. Someone who wasn’ t as good as the other kids. Someone who was bad. Even though I didn’ t really understand why he was bad. Even though I didn’ t want to believe that he was beyond fixing. And I couldn’ t laugh at that.
Seventeen years passed. College. Marriage. Jobs. Careers. Kids. Life swooped up under me. I forgot about Danny. I forgot until a woman I know died. A woman who was leaving the“ life” of the prostituted. She had children. Children that didn’ t live with her. Just like Danny.
“ Hey, I’ ve been thinking about Danny a lot,” I emailed Renee. She still knows everything about everybody.“ What happened with him? Do you know?”
I wanted her to write back that he was fine. That he had a family and a good life and was off drugs. To tell me that he’ d survived.
A few moments later, her email arrived in my inbox.“ I do know what happened. And, unfortunately, it’ s not good,” she wrote back.“ Danny overdosed a few years ago. They didn’ t even have a funeral for him.”
You see, when I think of victims of sex trafficking, I can’ t get Danny’ s face out of my head. Not the thin, bleached blonde teenager who smelled of weed and neglect. I keep seeing the brown haired blue eyed boy with those long eyelashes. I see him in the coat room, crying. His back against the wall, crouched down by the book bags. Alone.