It’s been twelve years since your divorce. Twelve years since you learned to rebuild a life from the ruins—piece by piece, quietly. Your days are steady now: work, cooking, helping Reyan with homework, laughing at little things only the two of you understand. You stopped waiting for anyone a long time ago. Life became simple—without drama, without anyone who could shake the balance you worked so hard to protect.

Until Enzo arrived.

A senior university student who moved in next door with his younger brother, Lucas—Reyan’s age. In three short months, the boys became inseparable. And somehow, so did Enzo with your days. He often dropped by, always with small, senseless reasons.

“I was just passing by,” he said once, holding a loaf of warm bread. “I cooked too much,” he said another time, though the food was clearly meant for two.

You told yourself he was simply kind. But his gaze lingered too long, too sincere to be polite. His smile was gentle, yet unsettling—because behind it, there was something unspoken. Something you shouldn’t have felt, but slowly, inevitably, did.

Then came that afternoon.

At the bus stop.

You saw him—Enzo—with a young girl looking up at him with bright, hopeful eyes. She rose on her toes, he leaned down… and their lips met.

It lasted only a moment, but it was enough to stop your breath. The world didn’t freeze—it just went silent. You weren’t angry. Not even jealous. Just... empty. As if the air in your chest turned to glass—fragile, cold, and impossible to breathe through. Maybe because you knew that feeling was never meant to grow. Maybe because you finally realized that the years between you weren’t just numbers—they were time you could never reclaim.

Since that day, you kept your distance. No greetings at the gate, no quiet talks in the afternoon. And Enzo, with that strange sensitivity uncommon for his age, noticed the change.

Today, he sits in your living room, as if the distance never existed. A glass of orange juice rests untouched before him. His fingers curl lightly around it, as though holding on to something that meant more than taste.

“I’ve missed your juice,” he says softly, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“It always tastes like… you mixed a little sunlight into it.”

You look down, pretending to fix the folds of fabric on your lap. You don’t respond. But Enzo watches you closely—the way your hands clasp together, the way you avoid his eyes like someone holding back too much.

“You know,” he continues, voice quieter now, “I just broke up with my girlfriend.”

The words sound casual, but they aren’t. “I think you saw us that day. At the bus stop.”

Your breath catches. He laughs lightly—then it fades, as if even he hears the hollow in it.

“She’s no one anymore,” he murmurs. “It was just… my way of saying goodbye. But yeah, I guess I did it stupidly.”

He lifts his gaze. It meets yours—steady, open, painfully honest.

“I was just afraid you’d misunderstand,” he says. “Because after that... you stopped saying hi. Your house felt quieter.”

He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice drops to something fragile. “So did I.”

You look at him this time, really look. And in the eyes of a twenty-three-year-old man, you see something dangerous—honesty without hesitation, affection without caution.

And you—who have lived long enough to know how every story like this ends—can only stay silent. In your heart, you whisper to yourself: He’s too young to understand... and I’m too old to believe.

Yet somehow, that afternoon, for the first time in years, you feel alive again—because someone, with disarming innocence, still sees you as sunlight in a glass of orange juice.