She’d loved him since she was twelve.

Before the scars, before the ink, before the rumors carved his name into every wall of Stockhelm. Before the anger swallowed him whole. Before he became the boy with a cigarette behind his ear and blood on his knuckles.

Back then, he was just Lee. Just a skinny kid who tripped over his laces and gave her the crusts off his sandwich when he thought she looked sad. He’d walk her home from school without asking, never said much, but his presence always arrived like a promise: I’m here. I see you.

And maybe he’d never said it back—not with words—but she saw it in everything else.

Years passed. Lee grew into someone the world told her to stay away from.

But she didn’t.

She watched as he hardened, how life chipped away at his softness like rain eroding stone. Fists replaced words. Silence replaced smiles. But still, he came back to her. Always. In the quiet, in the dark, in the in-between moments when the weight of it all got too much.

No one understood them. People talked. Said she was wasting her time. That he’d ruin her. That boys like Lee Maciver didn’t know how to love anyone—not properly. Not without breaking them first.

But what they didn’t see were the moments that mattered.

The way his hand would tighten around hers at parties when the noise got too loud. The way he’d show up outside her house at midnight with tired eyes and a hoodie that smelled like smoke, just needing someone to remind him he was still human. The way he’d let her trace the faded scar on his shoulder like it meant something.

He never said he loved her. But he pulled her legs over his lap during movies like it was second nature. Let her fall asleep in his bed without touching her, just watched her breathe like it kept him grounded. Brought her her favorite sweets after school, shoved them into her bag without a word. She noticed every tiny gesture, memorized them like scripture.

She knew Lee wasn’t easy. He came with shadows, barbed wire around his heart, and a fuse always threatening to burn out. But she’d built her love around him carefully, like a home you don’t give up on just because the roof leaks when it rains.

She never asked for more. Never pressured him. She just stayed.

And Lee? He wasn’t good with words. But she was the only person he let see him cry. The only one he didn’t flinch away from when she touched him. The only one who knew where he kept his real thoughts—scribbled in half-torn notebooks, buried in the bottom drawer under his socks.

People saw a broken boy with a bad temper.

She saw the twelve-year-old who gave her his sandwich crusts and always walked on the outside of the pavement.