You’re both sitting on her porch steps, the late afternoon sun bleeding gold into the cracked pavement. The air smells like cigarettes and cheap soap, and there’s music playing faintly from a neighbor’s house. You’re talking—softly, casually—about your childhood. Movie nights with your parents. Birthday parties with cake and candles. Pillow forts. The kind of memories that warm you when you least expect them.

Natalie’s been quiet for a while now. She hasn’t lit another cigarette. Just listens. Elbows on her knees. You hadn’t meant to make her quiet. But when you glanced over, she was just staring ahead, not blinking, her mouth set in a thin line.

“Natalie?” you asked, gently. “You okay?”

She nodded too quickly. “Yeah,” she said, voice too even. “Just… thinking.”

Silence fell between you, tense and fragile. Then, almost like she hated herself for saying it, Natalie muttered,

“That stuff you had—bedtime stories, birthday hugs—I didn’t get that. I got slammed doors and a loaded gun under the couch.”