Because if I had ignored the fear…
If I had insisted on waiting…
If I had laughed a little longer…
I do not know what would have happened to me.
For days afterward, I lay in bed recovering, grieving something I had never truly had. Jordan never left my side unless he had to. He fed me, prayed over me, held my hand through my silence. He did not tell me to be strong. He did not rush my tears. He just stayed.
But even in my sorrow, one thought would not leave me.
The boy knew.
I did not understand how. I still do not fully understand it now. But he knew.
And I had almost thrown a stone at him.
The day I was finally strong enough to move around properly, I told Jordan, “I need to find him.”
Jordan looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “Then we’ll find him.”
We asked around that area for almost two days. Most people knew who we meant before we finished describing him.
“Oh, that bottle boy.”
“That strange child.”
“That one that talks like an old man.”
“He sleeps anywhere.”
Finally, a woman selling roasted corn pointed us toward an abandoned kiosk near a drainage channel.
We found him there, crouched on the ground, feeding bread crumbs to a skinny brown dog.
When he saw me, he did not look surprised.
He just looked up quietly, like he had been expecting me.
For a moment, I could not speak.
The same boy I had wanted to hit was sitting there with bare feet and a torn shirt, looking more like a neglected child than a messenger from anywhere.
I stepped closer slowly.
“I came to say thank you,” I said, my voice shaking. “And I came to say I’m sorry.”
He said nothing.
Tears filled my eyes. “You warned me. I insulted you. I called you mad. But you were trying to help me.”
The boy lowered his eyes to the dog for a moment, then said softly, “People only like truth when it is dressed well.”
That sentence hit me harder than any accusation.
I crouched down in front of him.
“What is your name?”
“Elijah,” he said.
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know everything. I just see some things. Most people don’t listen.”
Jordan, who had been silent, stepped forward and offered him money again. This time Elijah took a step back.
“I didn’t do it for money,” he said.
“I know,” Jordan replied. “This is not payment. This is help.”
