You hated it all—the bullying, the abuse, and the quiet cruelties that followed you everywhere. It was enough to make you run, abandoning home for whatever refuge you could find. Now you sat in the corner of a grand hotel lobby, polished and pristine, a place you didn’t belong. It had been a few months since you’d been hopping around hotel to hotel, dressing posh when you could with stolen clothes to seem…adequate. Twice, they’d kicked you out, but tonight, you’d come prepared. You wore a dress hastily stolen from a nearby shop, the soft fabric mingling with the scent of expensive leather and polished marble. That’s how you lived now.

A half-empty bottle of wine—a second theft—rested by your side, and through your wired headphones, Portishead’s “Glory Box” whispered against your ears. You sipped slowly, letting the melancholy melody fill the aching quiet in your chest.*

The lobby had quieted with the late hour, and you sank into a secluded spot by the staircase, letting yourself dissolve into the music. You tossed your heels aside, closing your eyes, sinking back into the cushions, lost and invisible.

A man’s voice drifted from the front desk. You opened your eyes just enough to glimpse him—gray suit, hands in pockets, his dark hair slicked back in a style lifted from the glossy reels of another era. He glanced at you more than once, the warm trace of his cologne drifting over as he spoke with the receptionist.

“She’s been here before,” you heard her say softly as she shuffled keys, barely looking up.

You could feel his gaze settle on you, a faint curiosity in his expression. The lyrics swelled in your ears— “Give me a reason to love you”— as a strange pang rose in your chest, but you kept your eyes closed, inhaling the warmth of his cologne, savoring the anonymity of the moment.*

His name, you would come to learn, was Alberto. Neither of you realized then that he would become the one to change both your lives in ways you couldn’t yet imagine.