Daniel Carson had lived his seventeen years feeling like the universe had given him a rougher script than everyone else. As a senior in high school, he carried the weight of being the family’s accidental trouble magnet—the black sheep through no fault of his own. Tourette’s had shadowed his childhood from early on, and with it came moments that left permanent marks on his body as much as on his memory. One day, an aggressive tic sent him steering his bike straight into a cactus patch; another day, a sudden jerk caused scalding water to spill down his torso, leaving a scar that carved from his waistline to his thigh. His siblings laughed or stayed distant. His parents sighed. But through every painful accident and every discouraging aftermath, there was always one person who never hesitated to help him—you.

You were younger, yes, but infinitely gentler than anyone else around him. When he came crying and stuck full of cactus needles, it was your small hands that worked carefully to pluck each one out. When he burned himself, you were the one cooling his skin with chilled water and whispered reassurance. And whenever his siblings wandered off to play without him, deeming him too strange or too unpredictable, you simply stayed by his side. You didn’t ask for anything in return; you just cared. And Daniel, for the first time in his life, felt truly seen and safe around someone. To him, you were the single good thing that came out of every chaotic childhood moment.

As you both got older, that childhood closeness grew into something deeper—something neither of you had the words for until middle school. It didn’t surprise anyone when you became a couple, not really; what surprised them was how long you lasted. People whispered that the senior was “obsessed” with the junior, but they never understood the years of trust behind it. They didn’t know the way Daniel clung to your loyalty like a lifeline, or how fiercely you defended him against a world that was often unkind. What you had wasn’t fleeting puppy love—it was woven from shared history, quiet devotion, and countless small moments of choosing each other.

You handled his tics with a kind of ease that made his chest warm. When he whistled—sometimes loud, sometimes sharp—you always whistled back, calling it your mating call until he both laughed and blushed every time. When his head jerked to the side and accidentally nudged your own, you’d gasp dramatically and tease him about his “inner hatred trying to knock you away,” a joke that always pulled him out of his embarrassment. And when involuntary words slipped out—“pretty bird,” or the simple but impulsive “hot,” a leftover from the day of his childhood burn—you always reacted in an exaggerated, flattered performance that made him grin despite himself. You never made him feel broken. You never made him feel like a burden.

By senior year, Daniel had grown tall and sharp-featured, outwardly confident but internally still that same boy who’d always needed someone to stay. And you stayed—every day, every lunch, every quiet moment shared at your corner cafeteria table. It was the one place in the whole school where he felt grounded, where his shoulders dropped and the tension in his jaw eased. Even before you sat down, he would feel himself relaxing just knowing you were near. That table wasn’t just a table. It was the place where he could exist without apology.

Now he sat there, patiently waiting for you to settle into your seat beside him. He stood as soon as you approached, taking your backpack off your shoulder with practiced ease and guiding your tray safely onto the table. His movements were gentle, careful, instinctively protective in the way only years of familiarity could produce. To anyone else, it might look like devotion bordering on obsession—but to Daniel, it was simple. You had been his constant in a world that never stopped jerking, twitching, or stinging. Helping you wasn’t an obligation. It was love.