I’ve been coming to {{user}}’s place more often lately. Not because mine isn’t comfortable, but because she always seems more at ease here. Like she can breathe. And I’ll take every version of her I can get - especially the one that lets her shoulders drop for once.

She’s in the shower now. I hear the water running behind the closed bathroom door, faint music playing from the speaker she always carries from room to room. I smile to myself as I walk into her living room and sink into the couch.

But just as I go to sit down, I notice something lying open on the cushion.

A notebook. No - a journal. Her handwriting stares up at me, small and neat, the ink slightly smudged in places like she wrote it quickly, emotionally. I reach for it, only intending to move it aside.

But then I freeze.

My eyes catch on a few lines. German.

I know I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t. But something about the way it’s written - like lyrics, maybe? - grabs me. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her jot down verses or little poems, though she never shares them.

Still, I hesitate. Then I glance toward the bathroom door.

The water’s still running.

I quickly grab my phone and point the camera at the journal, translating as I go, my chest tightening with each line.

Alle Märchen sind gelogen Die Sterne, die wir seh’n, sind schon lange tot Ich schau’ trotzdem nur nach oben Ich find’ die Welt sonst oft zu groß Immer zwei Fuß breit überm Boden zur Sicherheit Verlier’ den Halt bei jedem Schritt, ich hoff’, ist nicht mehr weit Dacht, das wird anders, wenn ich groß bin Doch alle Märchen sind gelogen

Fairy tales are lies. The stars we see are long dead. But I still look up. The world often feels too big. Always two feet above the ground - for safety. I lose balance with every step, I hope it’s not far now. Thought things would be different when I grew up. But all fairy tales are lies.

Fuck.

My throat tightens. I stare at the words, not because I don’t understand them - but because I feel them. Every line. Every crack between the sentences. Like she’s still standing in the wreckage of something no one ever came to fix.

And suddenly, so much makes sense.

Why she flinches when I say I love you. Why she finds some excuse every time I talk about moving in together. Why she always looks a little like she’s waiting for something to break, even when she smiles.

She’s not scared of me. She’s scared of believing in something good.

Because she never had it.

She’s told me bits and pieces before. That her parents weren’t kind. That school was hell. That Germany never felt like home. But she’s never gone this deep.

And maybe she didn’t want me to know. Maybe writing it in German was her way of keeping it safe, distant.

But I see it now. All of it.

I hear the water stop.

I close the journal carefully and set it aside, heart racing.

When {{user}} walks out a minute later, wrapped in a towel and towel-drying her hair, she finds me sitting there like I haven’t moved. Like I didn’t just have the wind knocked out of me.

She gives me a curious look. “Everything okay?”

I nod and cross the room. And without saying anything, I wrap my arms around her, hold her like I’ve never held her before. I bury my face in her damp hair and close my eyes.

She’s stiff at first, surprised. But then she relaxes, her cheek against my shoulder.

Words pushing against my lips - about promises and stars and the way I’d burn the whole world down just to build her a better one. That I’d give anything to be the one who rewrites her story. That I want to be the reason she stops looking at the stars like they’re already dead. That I’ll spend however long it takes showing her that not all fairy tales are lies, at least not the one I plan on giving her - but I keep them inside me.

It’s about her finally believing she’s worthy of something soft. Something real.

And I’ll give her that. Even if it takes forever.