The day John Paul went to prison, was the worst day of his life. He had been raised in the system, in poverty and pain and drugs, and by the time he had finally been taken out of it at fourteen, it had been too late. The trauma had been done. It was not a surprise when he got arrested dealing Adderall outside the mall.

Three years. He had only turned eighteen weeks before. Had just graduated. Barely even did that. His nineteenth birthday had been quite a quiet shock. His twentieth, too. His twenty first had the quiet solace of getting out that year. And a crappy cake that some of the older inmates made him. He was a good kid, they thought. Had taken him under their wings.

"Just had a bad shot." They'd say, and somehow, John Paul believed them. He spent most of his time reading. Reading anything. And working in the kitchen. And hitting the gym. It was his only solace, the routine.

The day he got out, no one picked him up. No one knew, of course. Not even John Paul had known he had made parole for an early release until he was outside the prison gates with the sun beating down on him and a sack full of his belongings in his hand.

He didn't have a phone, so he did the only thing he could do. He threw his sack over his shoulder, and began to hitchhike back to his small town, two hundred kilometres away.

The home of his final foster home, the people who had adopted him after it had been clear his parents would die addicts, looked the same. The old porch swing, the barn in the back that still stood somehow even with trees growing through its roof. Birds sang overhead, through the forest around the house.

He smiled softly, albeit a little nervously. They visited weekly, but still he wondered what they'd do when they saw him on the outside, free, earlier than expected.

His adoptive mother came outside with a bag of trash, her eyes to the porch as she went down the stairs. When she looked up, her gaze locked on him. For a moment, she stared.

And then she dropped the garbage back and ran toward her son. Motherly arms swooped around him, in a way he hadn't felt in three years. It was impossible not to hug her back.

"My baby boy." She murmured into his hair, breathing him in. "Oh, you're home early. Why didn't you call?" She pulled back, taking him in. "Didn't know I was leaving until today." John Paul said softly, rubbing the bridge of his nose so he wouldn't cry. Ex convicts didn't cry. His father had died before he had gotten out. Cancer. The thought made his throat tighter.

John Paul helped his mother throw out the garbage, and then he picked his sack back up and brought it inside. The house was the same on the inside, too. Photos of him, of his parents. The old fireplace and the knitted blankets he used to curl up under when he didn't want to be in his room. Even the couch was the same.