It was just days before Christmas when I spotted a six-year-old boy walking alone in the dark. He said his mom had died, and he didn’t want to go with strangers. I promised he wouldn’t be alone. Thirteen years Iater, I learned that we’d been living a lie when a woman came to take him away.

When I was 25, I worked as a school bus driver. It paid the bills, and at that point in my life, that felt like enough.

I never expected it to be a life-changing experience.

It was a few days before Christmas break. I’d already dropped off the last kid and was driving the empty bus back to the depot, the heater rattling.

That’s when I saw him.

That’s when I saw him.

A small figure on the side of the road, moving slowly under a flickering streetlight.

It was a boy, maybe six years old, too young to be out there alone in the cold and dark. But what caught my attention was his too-big backpack and the way he clutched his stuffed bunny to his chest.

This didn’t look like a kid who’d slipped out of his yard.

This little boy was running from something.

This little boy was running from something.

I slammed the brakes.

The bus hissed to a stop near the boy, and I opened the door.

“Hey, buddy. Are you okay?”

His face was pale under the flickering light, eyes red but dry, like he’d already cried everything out.

“My mom died today.”

“My mom died today.”

Oh, God. This poor kid.

“They wanted to take me somewhere, but I didn’t want to go, so I ran away.”

Just like I thought — this kid needed help. But I’d have to be careful about it, or risk scaring him off.