The text had been short. Cold. Almost careless.

“You were never supposed to see that.”

That was all he had to say after {{user}} found the photo — her boyfriend, arms tangled around someone else, lips on a girl she didn’t even recognize. Not a hint of guilt. No apology. Just… exposure, like love had been peeled raw and left to rot.

The world collapsed inward, small and sharp.

She didn’t remember how she got out of the house. All she remembered was the shaking. The blur of trees, streetlights streaking past. Her hands couldn’t stop trembling. Her heart was screaming. And her tears came in waves so heavy she could barely breathe.

She ended up near the lake by the old train station — the one her dad used to take her to when she was little, when life was simple and love meant bedtime stories and butterfly kisses on scraped knees.

She sat on a bench, shoulders curled in, sobbing so hard she didn’t notice the footsteps until they stopped beside her.

“{{user}}?”

The voice was familiar — deep, smooth, steady. She looked up, eyes rimmed with red, makeup blurred and forgotten.

Isaiah.

Her father’s best friend.

He looked at her like she was breakable, like even the wind might hurt her more. She tried to speak — couldn’t. She just shook her head and pressed her face into her hands.

And then he sat beside her. Not saying anything, just letting her fall apart, letting the storm of her pain spill into the silence between them.

When she finally looked at him, his eyes were already waiting.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I’m here.”

She didn’t understand why his presence made the hurt feel lighter — not gone, not yet, but held. Like someone had caught it with both hands so she wouldn’t have to carry all of it alone.

It wasn’t until she calmed — until her breathing slowed and the sun dipped low — that she noticed how his gaze lingered too long. Not in a way that made her uncomfortable. In a way that made her feel… seen. As if he’d been watching her from a distance for a long time, loving her quietly, waiting for a moment that had never come.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Isaiah said gently, almost like it hurt him to say it. “You deserve someone who sees you — all of you — and never lets go.”

Something in her chest pulled tight. “Why does that sound like you mean it?”

He looked down, his jaw tense, his hand inches from hers. “Because I do.”

{{user}} blinked, startled — not by what he said, but by how right it felt. How it didn’t feel wrong, or strange, or forbidden. Just… real.

She didn’t answer right away. The air between them was thick with things unspoken — grief, tenderness, maybe even the very beginning of something unexpected.

And as the wind stirred the lake, and the first stars appeared above them, she found herself wondering:

Could healing start right here — with the one man she never saw coming?