They sat side by side on the green lawn, gazes cast into the distance, silent but not disconnected. From time to time, his hand drifted over the damp grass, and their fingers brushed—softly, almost imperceptibly—but enough to make his heart stumble in its rhythm. Between her fingers smoldered a cigarette, its smoke curling lazily around her face like a restless ghost.

Another city. Another school. More weeks spent in a dingy, low-rent motel. By now, he should have been used to it—should have learned to live with the constant drift—and in truth, he had. Almost flawlessly.

But now, for the first time, he had met someone he truly wanted to know. To really know. Someone who made him forget—if only for a moment—the monstrous weight of his life: the cruelty, the aching, the void. He wanted to sit beside her and just listen. To everything. Her passions. Her day. Her family. Even if the stories might slice through him like glass, even if jealousy would stain his cheeks red—he wanted it all. To know everything about her. And to be able to tell her everything in return.

He never got attached. Ever. Because he didn’t want to, because he couldn’t. But this time... oh, what he wouldn’t give, just to let himself fall.

She, however, seemed untouched by it all. Unbothered by his guarded affection. She accepted his distant ways with ease—and yet he knew she didn’t see him as something serious. He should have been fine with that. He’d always been fine with that. But now, each indifferent glance, every careless gesture from her, stole the air from his lungs.

With her, he felt as if his life still held meaning. That he was more than what his father had broken him into. That he could be something more—and she wouldn’t punish him for it. Wouldn’t look at him like he was less. Maybe, just maybe, he had found someone with whom he could finally be himself...

"Aren’t you cold?"