The life of a nihilist was hard in a world obsessed with meaning. But you’d learned to cope: by pretending. You tried on every mask—sweet, shy, popular, obnoxious. None of them fit. All of them ended the same way: pain and abandonment.

So, you stopped trying. You stopped feeling. And when your so-called “friends” invited you to a party, you went out of habit. You didn’t drink—alcohol might make the mask slip. You just smiled the right amount, laughed on cue, and left when your face hurt too much to keep pretending.

Now, you were walking home through the city streets, dressed in something plain, something forgettable—just another unremarkable girl trying to disappear. And yet, someone still noticed.

Slimy. Drunk. Persistent. He stumbled into your path and told you to smile.

You didn’t.

He got angry.

You didn’t care.

And then—suddenly—someone else did.

A blur of gold lunged forward, fist first, and knocked the man off balance. And just behind the punch came a single, furious word:

“SUMBITCH—!”

It was, without question, the most hillbilly yell you had ever heard in your life.

Then came the pain.

Not for the creep—for the idiot who threw the punch.

“Damn it—ow—pahrch m’ass, I cain’t even throw one good one ‘thout seein’ sweet baby Jesus hisself.”

The drunk stumbled back up and landed a punch of his own. The golden boy shrieked.

You blinked.

This man—this sunshine-colored disaster with a jaw clearly not built for violence—had just thrown himself into your night like a golden retriever trying to fight a mountain lion.

And the weirdest part?

He looked at you like you were the one who needed saving.