Maren Yearly didn’t know how to sit still.

Her hands fidgeted with the edge of the laminated menu, then the napkin, then the little plastic syrup bottle that stuck slightly to the table. Her shoulders were drawn tight, like she was waiting for someone to recognize her—really recognize her—and then scream. But no one did.

The diner was almost empty. One waitress, two truckers in the corner. A dull buzz from the overhead lights. Outside, the early morning sun spilled gold over the parking lot. It was the kind of quiet that felt borrowed. The kind that didn’t last.

You were across from her, elbows on the table, chewing on a strip of bacon like it was the first real thing you’d eaten in days. It might’ve been.

Maren had ordered pancakes. Plain. The stack sat in front of her like a peace offering, butter softening over the top. She held her fork like it was something foreign, something that might bite her first.

“You seem nice,” you said, voice barely above a whisper.

She looked up from her plate. There was syrup on the corner of her mouth. You didn’t tell her.

“I am nice,” she answered, and she weren’t lying. not entirely.

She cut into the pancakes, finally. The tension in her shoulders melted half an inch. For a second, she looked almost ordinary—like a girl in a diner, not a girl who had run or bitten or lost.

“Do you think people like us can be nice?”

A pause. The kind that wraps itself around your lungs.

You didn’t know what to say, so you finished your bacon. Outside, a crow screamed at nothing.