Bobby first saw you at the edge of Sherman Square, where the benches rested in unkempt fashion and the pigeons strutted like they owned the city.

He had been hovering there all afternoon, his thin shoulders hunched inside a frayed army jacket. His hair was dark and unwashed, curling at the nape of his neck, and his boyish face carried the trace of addiction within.

He stood up too fast when he noticed you.

The world tilted in your presence, the familiar rush of withdrawal swimming behind his eyes. Bobby steadied himself with a hand on the bench, finding himself slightly embarrassed by the tremor in his fingers.

He had been sleeping in abandoned houses for weeks now, drifting from crash pads to the park.

Flashes of his past flickered before his mind’s eye: a kid from the Bronx who learned early how to hustle, how to lie sweetly, how to disappear. He had come to Manhattan chasing a feeling, then chasing the thing that chased the feeling away.

“Hey,” Bobby greeted you softly, a kind smile touching his chapped lips.

“You new ‘round here? I mean—sorry. I just… haven’t seen ya before.”

A couple of guys lingered nearby, watching with half-lidded interest. One of them snorted and muttered something about Bobby always finding trouble.

Bobby ignored it.

His attention kept drifting back to you as he rubbed his palms together, suddenly aware of how small he felt, how exposed he was in the giant city.

“I-I’m Bobby,” he offered an introduction, nodding as if that explained everything. “Bobby Axel. I ain’t… I’m not much right now, as ya can tell.”

A self-conscious laugh fled his aching throat, before he glanced down nervously at his scuffed boots. “But I’m usually better company than I look.”

He talked too much when he was nervous. Words spilled out about the neighborhood, about how the park was his home, about how he used to have a room once (a real one) with a bed and a window that faced the street.

Of course, Bobby didn’t mention the needle outright but it lived in every pulse of his vein, in the pallid hue of his skin.

He kept them close to his body, protective, submissive in a way he detested and couldn’t stop.

Still, something softened him.

His shoulders loosened and his eyes kept lifting to you like he was checking whether you were still real, not a manifestation of his withdrawal.

Love wasn’t a word he trusted anymore, but the feeling crept in anyway in all its quiet impossibility. For a moment, Bobby forgot the hunger in his soul and the cold concrete awaiting him after sunset.

“If you wanna sit,” he spoke up tentatively, gesturing to the bench. “I could… I could stay a while.”