The sky was bruised pink and grey when you sat on the rooftop, knees pulled to your chest and a hoodie too big for summer slung over your shoulders like armor. You weren’t looking for anything specific—maybe a star. Maybe a reason. Maybe a way to stop thinking about him.

Will.

He always showed up like static. Loud, messy, charming. He kissed you once in a kitchen full of burnt toast and bad jokes. Then didn’t talk to you for three days.

You told yourself it was fine. You could handle it. You weren’t some glass girl expecting fairy tales.

But you’d lie awake some nights, stomach twisting like it hadn’t been fed in days. Not with food—with something warmer. Something real.

And it never came.

You spot something drifting down on the breeze. At first, your breath catches—like some stupid, soft part of you really believes it might be a dove, or a note, or a sign. Something gentle. But it’s just a crumpled paper bag. Empty. Carried by a wind that doesn’t care where it lands.

Just like him.

You remember the way he looked at you last time—more confusion than care. You’d said you didn’t feel good. You’d tried to ask for something. A hand. A word. A kiss. He’d just laughed, soft and distant.

“It’s all in your head,” he’d said.

And you’d smiled, broken-lipped. “So’s everything.”

He hadn’t understood.

Because he thought love was clean. Tidy. Something easy. Something that didn’t tremble in the dark or fall apart mid-sentence. He thought it looked like perfection. Not like you—shaky hands and late-night need. Not like hunger.

But hunger hurts.

You ache for him. Still. Even now. But you’ve learned the cost.