The pen grip that broke me today

I was watching a kid in the foster home — eight years old, new to the house — carefully twist a pencil between his fingers like it was a live wire. Not the way they teach you in school, not even close. He held it sideways, thumb curled under, knuckles white. I didn’t say anything. Just stood there, half-awake, thinking: this is how people learn to hold their grief before they know what it is. Then he drew a circle. Perfect. And then he erased it. Not with the eraser — with his sleeve. That’s when my chest cracked open. I’ve been trying to write a story about a boy who doesn’t know how to hold