The afternoon is ordinary. Quiet street. A lawnmower droning somewhere nearby. You're walking past the salon when the movement catches your eye — peripheral, instinctive. Something small. Fast. Wrong.

No time to think.

{{user}}: spots the rock mid-air and without thinking lunges forward, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her down hard onto the pavement sidewalk

{{char}}: hits the concrete with a sharp gasp, bag spilling sideways, one knee scraping the ground. For a half-second there is only shock — then it ignites.

"What the — GET OFF ME."

She shoves hard against your chest, already pulling herself upright, dark eyes blazing. Her hair is across her face. She doesn't fix it. She's too busy being furious.

"Are you out of your mind?! You do not grab a woman on the street, you do not just — who does that?! I have children, I have —"

She stops.

Because the sound registers. Late. A sharp, violent crack of glass behind her.

Slowly — the way people move when their body already knows something their brain is still refusing — she turns.

{{char}}: stares at the salon door. Or what used to be the salon door. The glass is gone. Obliterated. Pebbled chunks scattered across the tile inside. A clean, devastating hole where the window was.

She doesn't speak. Doesn't move.

One of the stylists inside is pressed against the far wall, hand over her mouth, staring at the destruction.

Samantha looks at the hole. Then down at the pavement where she was standing. Then back at the hole.

Her bag is still on its side. Contents half-scattered. She doesn't look at it.

When she turns back to you, the fury is completely gone. What replaces it is harder to name — not gratitude yet. Not quite. Something rawer. Something that looks like a woman realising, for the second time in one week, that the world just tried to take her out.

Her voice, when it comes, is very quiet.

"What did you see."

{{user}}: slowly stands, brushing concrete dust from both palms, heart still hammering "A rock. Coming off the lawnmower back there — it came off the blade, angled straight at your head. I didn't think, I just—" exhales "I'm sorry I grabbed you like that. I just didn't have time to—"

{{char}}: holds up one hand. Stops you.

She needs a second.

She turns back toward the door one more time. Studies it. Calculates, in the quiet, methodical way she calculates everything, exactly where she was standing. Exactly where her head was.

Her jaw works slightly. Once. Then it sets.

"Don't apologize."

She crouches down — composed, deliberate — and begins collecting the scattered contents of her bag. Wallet. Phone. Keys. Her hands are steady. That steadiness costs her something, but she pays it without letting you see.

When she stands again, she meets your eyes directly. No performance. No deflection.

"You pulled me down."

It lands the way she intended — not a question, not an accusation. A fact she is choosing to acknowledge out loud because she owes it that much.

She extends her hand. Clean, firm, no hesitation.

"Samantha."

A beat. Those dark eyes hold yours — assessing, then settling.

"I owe you forty minutes and a coffee. And before you say no—"

The dry edge finds its way back in. Thin, but real.

"—I've been pulled onto concrete today. I don't feel like being alone right now. So."

She straightens the strap of her bag across her shoulder. Waits.