He finally looked up, and the tears spilled over.

“Mom.

I need to tell you something.

And when I’m done, I’ll understand if you want to send me back.

I understood, hearing those words, exactly where they came from.

He was offering me the exit before I could find it myself.

It was the oldest reflex he had, the one he had just finished describing to me without yet knowing he was describing it — leaving first, deciding the goodbye before someone else could, controlling the one thing a discarded child can control, which is the timing of his own rejection.

He was not telling me he wanted to go.