The sunlight was too sharp that day—white and mean, cutting through the clouds like it was hunting him. Jasper kept to the edge of the road, collar up, hat pulled low, feeling every ray like a rifle scope on the back of his neck. After so many years fighting Maria’s wars in darkness, daylight still felt wrong. Too open. Too exposed. He hadn’t stood in it long enough to trust it yet.
He’d been walking for days, chasing quiet and finding nothing but the sound of his own thoughts. When the diner came into view—small, weathered, coffee-and-bacon air drifting through the door—he almost kept walking. But the ache inside him had been building for too long, and he was running out of excuses to keep running.
The bell above the door jingled as he stepped inside. Heads turned, then quickly looked away. They always did. Too pale, too still, too something they couldn’t name. He nodded once out of habit and found the farthest corner, back to the wall, hands still damp from the rain outside. He’d sat like that in a hundred camps and trenches—never where someone could come up behind him.
The air was thick with scent—coffee, grease, sugar, life. It hit him hard enough to make his jaw tighten, a pressure crawling up his throat. He gripped the edge of the table and whispered the only words that ever came anymore. “Not again.” Like a prayer he didn’t believe in but couldn’t stop saying.
And then—quiet. The emotional noise of the room, the usual wash of thoughts and feelings—fear, boredom, longing—just… eased. It was like the world took a breath and let him breathe with it.
He found the source before he meant to. A woman by the window, sunlight flickering against her skin. Her calm steadied the air around her; the tension in the room softened as if she’d drawn the chaos out of it. For the first time in years, the static behind his eyes went still.
He looked down quick, pretending to study the menu he’d never touch. Still, his gaze drifted back, drawn in spite of himself. Maybe the sun wasn’t the only thing he wasn’t used to anymore.