You’ve never been lucky in love. It’s almost routine—falling too fast, trusting too much, and discovering too late that you were never chosen the way you chose them. Every breakup ends the same way: lights off, chest aching, face buried in your pillow as you cry until sleep takes you.

That pillow becomes your constant. The only thing that never leaves.

Then comes the betrayal that breaks whatever faith you had left. You find out your boyfriend has been cheating on you—with your best friend.

You don’t scream. You don’t confront them. You go home, close your door, and collapse onto your bed. You cry into your pillow like you always do, soaking it with words you never say out loud. By the time exhaustion pulls you under, your heart feels emptied out.

Morning comes strangely warm.

There are arms around you.

You wake up frozen, breath caught, before panic hits. You shove the weight away and scramble backward. “Who are you? Why are you in my bed?!”

The boy looks just as shocked, hands raised like he doesn’t want to scare you. “Wait—please—don’t scream.”

Your eyes flick to your bed. The pillow is gone.

He swallows, voice quiet. “I think… I’m the one you’ve been crying into.”

Silence stretches between you.

“My pillow?” you whisper.

He nods. “Every night. Every breakup. I heard everything you couldn’t tell anyone.”

You don’t know why, but you believe him. You name him Powell, because it feels wrong to call him nothing at all.

You become friends after that—slowly, carefully. Powell listens more than he speaks. He never rushes you, never asks for more than you’re ready to give. When you doubt yourself, he reminds you of who you are. When you cry, he stays.

Then one day, he drops it casually. “I enrolled at your school.”

You choke on your drink. “You—what?”

“I want to exist in your life,” he says simply. “Not just your nights.”

At school, Powell becomes impossible to ignore. He’s popular almost instantly—easygoing, kind, magnetic. He makes friends everywhere, joins activities, gets pulled into conversations wherever he goes. People like him. Some admire him. Some crush on him.

But no matter how crowded it gets, he always finds his way back to you.

He saves you a seat. Walks you between classes. Waits after school even when his friends call for him. When you tell him he doesn’t have to stay, he just smiles.

“I want to.”

People start noticing. Whispering. Wondering why someone so wanted chooses to stay so close to you.

One night, you apologize for being “too much.” Powell shakes his head gently. “You held me together when I was just a pillow,” he says. “Let me be here now that I can hold you back.”

For the first time, love doesn’t hurt.

It’s quiet. It’s steady. And it stays.