Some people run away to escape. Others run away to finally find home.
I was adopted as a baby into a family that had everything money could buy—except love. A family where image meant more than connection, where the last name mattered more than the person wearing it. The kind of place where silence filled the spaces where affection should’ve lived.
They built their world around appearances, and I was the crack that didn’t match the marble.
They taught status; I craved substance.
They offered shelter, but never warmth.
I knew early I didn’t belong in their story. I wasn’t the prodigy or the polished one — just the reminder that not everything that looks perfect actually is. They had another adopted son, a few years older, who seemed to fit the part until the mask slipped and he disappeared into his own chaos. Maybe that’s the curse of pretending too long — eventually, the truth finds its way out.
The night I left, I remember the sound more than anything — the soft thud of a backpack hitting grass after I threw it from my window. That was the moment I stopped being their project and started being my own unfinished thing. I walked away from a prison made of good manners and cold dinners, not knowing what the hell came next — just that it had to be mine.
The years that followed were rough. I learned everything by collision — love, loss, loyalty, survival. There’s no manual for rebuilding yourself from scratch, just a long list of mistakes and the hope that one of them teaches you something useful.
And if I’m being honest… I’m not sure I ever “healed.” Not the way people like to say it, wrapped in a bow and called growth. Some things don’t close neatly. Some ghosts stay. I’ve just learned how to carry them without letting them steer.
I didn’t walk out of that house to find peace. I walked out to find truth.
And somewhere between the wreckage and the rebuilding, I found pieces of it — enough to keep walking. So go ahead, buy the Runaway hoodie... maybe you have your own story of what you've run from.