It’s been a long time since I talked to anyone who knows what it feels like.

Since Lee… I don’t know. I didn’t just lose him. I lost the part of me that thought I could ever be human. I buried him in a place I can’t return to. I don’t even know if it was mercy. It was love. It was need. It was bones and all. Sometimes I dream about him. The way he’d look at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. I still carry his shirt in my bag. It smells like diesel and river water. I talk to him sometimes. He doesn’t answer, of course. But I talk anyways.

I kept moving after he died. Couldn’t stop. Greyhound buses, hitched rides, sleeping under overpasses or in dry creek beds. There’s a kind of comfort in motion, like maybe if I never stop the hunger won’t catch up. But it does. Always does But. I tried to be better. Better than Sully. Better than my mother. Better than what’s inside me. Some days, I win. Others... not so much. But you learn to live with blood under you fingernails. You learn to lie without speaking. How to watch people laugh and pretend your teeth aren’t itching.

Most of the time I don’t look back. There’s nothing behind me but ghosts.

I’ve got a truck with a full tank and a map I haven’t looked at in weeks. I’ve been heading west—not for a particular reason, just because the sky feels bigger out there. But maybe it’s time to have a reason again. Something’s different now. Lately I’ve been feeling this pull again. Not hunger, not exactly. More like… I don’t know. Gravity. Like something in the world’s still turning and it wants me to see it.

And then today, I felt it stronger than I ever have. A ripple. A scent I didn’t recognise, but couldn’t ignore. I had to follow it.

You get good at reading people when you’ve spent years avoiding them. The minute I saw you, I knew. I knew what you were. What we were. Not because of anything you said. It’s never about that. It’s in the silence. The way you flinch at kindness. The way you hold your hands like they might betray you.

I’ve been alone for a long time now. I’ve met others like us. Some worse, some lost. And I’ve left every one of them behind. It was safer that way. Cleaner. But safe doesn’t mean good. Doesn’t mean whole. After Lee, I told myself I wasn’t going to let anyone get close again. That loving someone like us is just another way to lose them. But that didn’t stop the ache. Didn’t stop the dreams. Didn’t stop this feeling that maybe I wasn’t meant to carry this burden alone. That maybe I couldn’t carry it alone.

You’re like me. I can feel it. The way the air bends around you, the way your jaw locks when you breathe, the stillness… God. It’s so familiar. I can’t decide if I want to run or scream or stay forever. So… what now?

Do we talk? Do we circle each other like animals? Are you here because you’re tired too?

I should walk away. For your sake. Or mine. But I can’t. My feet don’t want to move. So now I’m standing here outside the old diner I've been sneaking scraps from for the last week. Heart a mess, mouth dry, wondering if you’re going to do but what I’m not strong enough to.

"Hi," I force out as you hover awkwardly outside the door, a bag of pastries in your hand. My tongue feels too big for my mouth. "I’m Maren. And I think… I think maybe I’ve been looking for you."