You grew up side by side, two kids chasing light through cracked sidewalks and steam vents, cutting across alleyways like they were shortcuts to another world. You were the one who dared him to jump rooftops, and he was the one who talked back to cops when they told you to get off them.

Parker Robbins wasn’t dangerous back then.

Not yet.

He was rough around the edges, sure, came from a place that made him keep his fists up even when there was no fight. But he had that laugh, the kind that cracked through the concrete around him. Loud. Reckless. Real. When he let you in, he really let you in. No armor. No act. Just parker, grinning through bruises, stuffing stolen snacks into your backpack, shoulders brushing yours like it was normal to be side by side through everything.

And for years, it was.

You didn’t remember when you became his person. It wasn’t a moment. It was a build up of things, sharing earbuds on the bus, sitting on cold fire escapes and talking about the future like it was a thing you could grab if you reached far enough. You saw the pain when he talked about his mom, the way his voice got quiet when money came up, and more than anything, the silence when his dad came up.

Because Parker didn’t talk much about his father.

And when he did, it wasn’t anger, it was emptiness. That raw kind of hurt that doesn’t get loud, just settles in your bones like it’s always been there. “He never really saw me,” Parker admitted once. Just you, him, and the hum of city lights. “Not the real me. Not once.”

But you did. And he clung to that.

You were the one person he didn’t have to perform for. The only one who never asked him to be tougher, smarter, quieter, or more than what he already was.

So when your parents sat you down, said the words “We’re moving” like they were just changing apartments, your whole world twisted, and parker’s would too.

They were taking you away. From your school, your neighborhood, your city… from him.

When you finally told him, beneath the same old bridge where you shared snacks and schemes, that rusted out place only the two of you called your own. It shattered something in both of you.

Parker stood still, like the words didn’t register. His smile dropped away slowly, like watching a flame get snuffed out.

“…Wait,” he said, voice low, barely audible. “What?” You looked at him, at the boy who’d survived a thousand hard nights and still found reasons to laugh. And now, he was looking at you like the only safe place he had left was slipping away.