The Name That Wasn't Mine

Some things never leave you. Not because they’re beautiful or important, but because they hurt in ways you can’t explain. For me, it was a jar of red licorice.

I didn’t eat it then, and I still can’t stand the smell of it now. It doesn’t remind me of candy or childhood. It reminds me of silence. Of heat. Of a long ride to Texas with no goodbye, no warning, no dignity. Just four confused kids in the backseat, each of us holding our breath, wondering if we were being sent away for good. Turns out—we were.

Charles didn’t say much. He never really did. But his silence on that drive was different. It was final. Heavy. The kind of silence that makes your stomach turn. And there, on the seat beside us, sat that stupid jar of licorice. His version of a parting gift. A bribe. A sugar-coated way of saying, “I’m done with you.”

We ended up in Texas. Dropped off with relatives who didn’t expect us—or maybe they did, and just didn’t know how to react. Elaina opened her door, Luis stood behind her, and just like that, we were someone else’s problem. No explanation. No comfort. Just a nod and a room that didn’t belong to us.

I slept on the floor that night clutching a Barney doll I didn’t even like. Not because I wanted it, but because I needed something soft. Something that didn’t ask me to make sense of a world that had already moved on without me.

And somewhere in the kitchen, the jar of red licorice sat untouched.

That candy became a symbol for everything I couldn’t put into words back then: The feeling of being discarded. Of being inconvenient. Of being too much for the people who were supposed to love you.

I know now that trauma isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a quiet car ride. Sometimes it’s a child praying to return to an abuser because at least the pain was predictable. And sometimes, it’s just a jar of candy that no one ever opens—because deep down, everyone knows it isn’t sweet.

If you’ve ever been given away—literally or emotionally—I hope you know you’re not alone. Some of us grow up trying to make sense of the silence. Some of us grow up hating the smell of red licorice.

And some of us decide to tell the story.