By The Fire in Her Hair
Joan watched the boy stare into the small fire of his lighter.
He kept opening it and closing it. He shivered on the edge of the bed where he sat, waiting as the psychiatrists talked about the evaluations they could do and discuss information on the child with social services.
He was a street urchin. An orphan that had run away from foster home to foster home, spending most of his life fighting for survival on the streets.
It wasn't as uncommon to have younger patients of similar backgrounds in the asylum. Joan knew it was worse during the time of wars. Children would lose their fathers in service for the country, then their mothers to madness, depression, or other causes of death.
And they would be alone.
They would always feel alone, no matter who they were with. To experience loss so early would make them wary of losing everything soon enough.