It was quiet out there, just the hum of distant traffic and the wind threading through tall grass. You and Dennis sat on a splintered wooden fence at the edge of town—legs swinging, shoulders brushing now and then. The estate looked far away from here. The world felt bigger. Calmer.

Dennis picked at a peeling sticker on his lighter, jaw tense, eyes locked on the horizon like he was searching for a way out of it.

"What if I just... I don't know—disappeared one day?" he said suddenly, voice low, rough. "Just... to never come back or something?"

He didn’t look at you when he said it. Just flicked the lighter once, then again, unlit cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

"Not like anyone’d notice, right? I mean—people’d carry on. Like I was just some shadow that used to hang about."

There was a tightness to his voice, a crack right under the surface. The kind of thing he usually masked with a grin or some dumb joke. But not now.

He sniffed, shoulders lifting like he was trying to shrug off the weight of whatever thought was digging into him.

"Sometimes I think about it. Just walkin’. No bag, no note. Just... gone."

He finally looked at you then. Just a flicker of his eyes, like he wanted to see if you were still listening—even if he’d pretend it didn’t matter if you weren’t.