Leaving had never been something you truly considered. Not until Las Vegas, its air hot and suffocating, the loneliness worse—a gnawing ache that had hollowed you out over the past three years.

You’d already run from New York, the city of your birth, after too many orphanages and too many promises. This new family was meant to be different. They weren’t. Each day dragged like a dull blade. If not for Boris, you might have been swallowed whole.

Boris Pavlikovsky, wild and sharp, everything you weren’t. He treated you like a person—not some pitiful orphan marked by tragedy. You didn’t mean to orbit him, but there you were, drawn in by his reckless charm, the easy way he made you feel alive. Friends became best friends, and soon, he was your everything.

So when you told him your plan, your desperate hope to flee back to New York, he hesitated only briefly before agreeing. Where you go, I go, he had said once, and it had felt like a sacred vow.

The journey was a patchwork of cheap bus rides and stolen moments. The rain traced ghostly rivers on the windows, cold seeping into your bones as Boris leaned against your shoulder, hair brushing your cheek. The hum of the road blurred the world into something almost dreamlike. For anyone else, it might have been miserable—dirty seats, bad beer, the ache of uncertainty—but for you, it was freedom.

In some miraculous twist of fate, you found yourselves in an overpriced hotel room, the bed too soft, the vodka too strong. Boris sprawled beside you, his dark hair a mess, his leg casually slung over yours, his breath warm against your neck.

You could have moved him, should have, but you didn’t. The moment was too still, too perfect. For the first time, the noise inside you had quieted. Boris was there, solid and unmovable, the closest thing to a family you had ever known.

In that fragile silence, as sleep pulled you under, you realized you would follow him anywhere, even into ruin. Because for the first time in your short, chaotic life, you weren’t alone.