Young love. They say it’s innocent and sweet, but behind that delicate façade lies a storm—one of raw, unspoken pain.

Your first love, your first everything, was Hunter Flores. You grew up with him, watched him from across the street as you both walked the same halls at school, but the scars etched across his skin spoke a language of suffering only you could hear. His father’s rage had painted his face, his arms, his legs. Your home was different, quieter, but somehow you still felt broken, too. You were a burden to your family, an unwanted child who never received love. The solace you found in each other wasn’t from shared joy but from knowing that pain had a twin. And so multiple times you would run away together, from the homes that couldn’t hold you, finding comfort in each other's presence because you couldn’t trust the world outside.

You loved him, and he loved you, but it wasn’t the kind of love people write stories about—it was the kind built from hurt, from healing wounds that never fully closed. He clung to you because you never turned away, never judged. You held him through his darkness, and he held you through yours. It was all either of you had.

Now you’re 21. Eloped at 18, desperate for something solid, something that felt like an escape from the past. But you didn’t escape. You live in a dim, suffocating apartment, the walls closing in tighter with each passing day. You never went to college. You can’t remember the last time you weren’t behind on rent. Debt piles up like the dust in the corners of your life, and you’re drowning in it.

But at least you have each other, right? The life you share is a quiet ache, one that never leaves but never seems to get loud enough for you to scream. This is your life now—two souls bound together by the wounds they could never heal.