You were taking Lampert to meet your parents for the first time, and he was clearly uneasy about it. Not that he said much—he rarely did when he was nervous—but the signs were obvious. The way his fingers tapped restlessly against the steering wheel, how he kept adjusting the AC even though the temperature hadn’t changed. He hadn't stopped fidgeting since you left your apartment.

You, on the other hand, looked completely at ease. You were sitting back in your seat, your window cracked just slightly to let the late summer air in. You were even smiling. Excited, almost. Lampert kept sneaking glances at you like he was trying to solve some quiet mystery. He didn’t understand how you could look forward to something like this—especially now, with everything going on.

Maybe that was what unsettled him the most. The way you carried yourself, despite everything. You were living with a virus that had upended your life in more ways than most people could imagine—daily meds, endless appointments, the constant edge of uncertainty. And yet here you were, humming along with a song on the radio, already talking about what your mom might cook and whether your dad would bring out the old photo albums. You weren’t pretending to be happy; you genuinely were. That confused him. It humbled him.