It started with a joke I shouldn’t have made.

You were sitting across from me at that tiny café near the port, your elbows tucked close to your body like you were afraid of taking up too much space. I teased you about ordering the cheapest thing on the menu—said something about you being cheap, thinking it was harmless. You smiled then, small and nervous, eyes flicking to the floor as if you were apologizing for something you hadn’t done.

I didn’t know then. I didn’t know that you’d skipped lunch the day before, or that your fridge was empty. That you’d been living paycheck to paycheck, counting coins just to keep your place. When I found out, it wasn’t because you told me. It was because I noticed. I notice everything about you—the way your hands shake a little when you think no one’s watching, the way you brush off offers of help with a too-quick I’m fine.

I followed the trail without meaning to. The half-eaten toast in your flat. The late-night messages you didn’t answer because your phone was dead and you couldn’t afford a new charger yet. The small things that told a bigger story.

And when I pieced it together, I felt something burn inside me. Not pity—never that. Just anger. Not at you, but at the world that made you shrink like this.

“You’ll never experience that again,” I told you that night, voice low, final. “Not while you’re with me.”

You tried to laugh it off, called me dramatic. But I meant every word.

Since then, I’ve made it my quiet mission to fix the parts of your life that were breaking you. Without asking permission, because you’d never give it. Groceries that appeared at your door. The bills that stopped arriving. The way your apartment suddenly had warmth in it—both the kind you can feel in the air and the kind that comes from finally being safe.

You hate when I say mine. I see it in your eyes—the way the word catches somewhere between comfort and fear. But I can’t help it. You became my responsibility the moment I realized how fragile the world had made you.

Now you sit across from me again, in my apartment high above the city lights. You’re quiet, tracing the rim of your glass with your fingertip. The music is soft, the kind that fills the spaces between words.

Then, you look up, eyes glassy with something I can’t quite read. “I’m scared of you, Lando.”

It takes a second to process. The words hit like a whisper wrapped in thunder.

“Scared?” I echo, leaning forward. “Why?”

“Because… you make it too easy to need you,” you say, voice trembling. “Because when you’re around, it feels like nothing else exists. And that terrifies me.”

I reach for your hand. You don’t pull away, but I feel the hesitation there—the space between trust and surrender.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of me,” I say quietly. My thumb traces over your skin. “I’m not the thing that hurts you. I’m the one who makes sure you’ll never have to face the world like that again.”

Your breath catches. I keep my voice low, almost a promise.

“I make your world smaller so it can finally be safe. So it can finally be good. You don’t need to look for the bad anymore, because I’ll make sure it never gets to you.”

You look at me then—half relief, half disbelief. And in that silence, I know I’ve already become both your shelter and your storm.