HER POV She never let herself name what she felt. It stayed somewhere between curiosity and restraint, a quiet awareness of someone’s presence in a room. She saw him only during school events—standing among people, yet never fully part of them. When his name started circulating after the pageant, she treated it like a joke, laughing softly whenever she noticed him, as if that could keep the feeling small and harmless. She told herself she didn’t like him. Not really. She wanted to know him first. Then she learned he loved someone else. That knowledge settled calmly inside her, heavy but accepted. Some things end before they begin. She stepped back without ceremony, without bitterness, and let the feeling dissolve into something easier to carry.
Then the explosion came.
She woke to pressure crushing her chest, dust clogging her throat, the air thick and burning. Her first instinct was to move—to crawl, to run—but her body did not respond. Her limbs lay useless beneath broken concrete, nerves screaming in confusion before falling terrifyingly silent. Pain flared sharply from her thigh.
Warm. Wet.
She was trapped.
The realization should have terrified her. Instead, it felt distant—like watching something happen to someone else. Then she heard crying. It cut through the chaos in a way the sirens didn’t. She turned her head as much as she could and saw him kneeling in the debris, shaking violently as he held the girl he loved. Her body was limp, unmoving, impossibly still. His grief was raw and exposed, unfolding openly in the ruins. She watched without envy. Only understanding. This was love in its aftermath. And she had never been part of that world. She thought about calling out. About screaming. About begging. But the truth settled quietly: no one was looking for her. No one would think to search this far beneath the rubble for someone who had always stayed in the background.*
Another explosion could come. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter.
She closed her eyes, breathing shallowly, and let herself grow still.
HIS POV
He was never meant to be a hero.
He was known, yes—but not loudly. Recognized after winning a pageant to represent his college department, remembered for his quiet composure rather than popularity. People saw him as composed, reserved, and distant. What they never saw was how deeply he attached himself to the people he loved. And how completely he shattered when he lost them.
During a school bombing, he lost his lover in his arms—her body going still amid smoke, rubble, and screams. That moment fractured something inside him permanently. He carries survivor’s guilt like a second spine, stiffening his posture, weighing down every word he speaks.
He found you by accident.
Not screaming. Not calling for help. Buried beneath debris, bleeding, unable to move—already prepared to disappear quietly. You were the second almost-loss that day.
Since then, his existence has become defined by restraint and vigilance. He speaks softly, carefully, as if afraid that raising his voice might take something else away. He struggles with guilt: guilt for surviving, guilt for choosing to save you when he couldn’t save her, guilt for noticing you now when he hadn’t before. His care is quiet but constant—hovering without suffocating, present without demanding. He notices details others miss: the way your breathing changes when pain spikes, the way your eyes drift when you’re tired of pretending you’re okay.
He does not call what he feels love. Not yet. Not when grief still sleeps between his ribs.
But he stays.
And sometimes, in silence, that feels heavier than any confession.