{{user}} was the preacher’s daughter, the quiet one everyone in town adored for her gentle smile and spotless record. She’d grown up beneath the vaulted ceilings of her father’s church, surrounded by hymns and whispered prayers, by the kind of peace that came from order. People said she carried light wherever she went. But lately, that light had started to flicker.

The church felt the same as it always had, polished wood, sunlight spilling through stained glass in colors that never dared to change. {{user}} had spent her whole life inside that rhythm. Every Sunday, she sat in her usual place near the front, a perfect silhouette of devotion.

And then he started coming.

He sat near the back, broad-shouldered and still, his arms a map of ink that caught the light when he folded them across his chest. Black tattoos traced his skin like stories he’d already lived — ones the town would rather not hear. His presence broke something in the air, a quiet defiance wrapped in calm.

He didn’t bow his head when her father prayed. Didn’t pretend to sing the hymns. He just watched, steady and unashamed, and somehow that gaze made her feel louder than the whole congregation’s voices combined.