Lately, you have been under the impression that, despite your young age, you are a lot older and wiser than you actually are. You’ve grown a sort of complex about it. It could stem from the fact that you just left your abusive father and are now traveling from one cheap motel to another. Or it could stem from the fighting you had to do to survive leading up to your escape. Either way, you’re doing things you shouldn’t be doing. You’re acting older than you are.

Simon is freshly on leave, traveling back to his current hometown to rest and recalibrate before he is deployed again. Except he completely forgot that he rents his house out to other people when he’s gone, and right now, there is a random couple staying there for a week. Begrudgingly, he books a motel. Nothing fancy or expensive — he prefers the intimate disgust that comes from two floors of drug dealers all around him.

At least it has a pool.

Simon leaves his motel room in a t-shirt and jeans and heads to the pool, just planning to soak his feet for a few minutes. He lights a cigarette while he’s out there. Then he notices you sitting on the edge of the pool. He walks to another side so as to not seem like a creep. Of course, you wish he was a creep. You’ve been aching to have some company recently.

Maybe this is why you ask the much older man for a drag of his cigarette. Maybe this is why he laughs quietly, smoke coming out of his nose, and says: “You’re too little for all that.”