The heat in North Carolina always tasted like salt and rust, but inside the Evans’ garage, it just smelled like surfboard wax and the cheap, metallic tang of the off-brand soda {{user}} had been nursing for the last two hours.

{{user}} sat on an overturned milk crate, a frayed notebook on her lap. She was counting crumpled one-dollar bills—the meager spoils of a grueling twelve-hour shift scrubbing grease off the kitchen vents at the boardwalk diner. Growing up with this crew meant sharing everything, including the chronic emptiness of their pockets. While Chase had a roof that didn't leak and parents who bought groceries that didn't come from a dollar-store clearance aisle, {{user}} had spent her life mastering the art of making five dollars stretch across three days.

Chase was across the room, idly tightening a truck on his skateboard, while Maya lay stretched out on an old mattress, throwing a tennis ball against the corrugated tin ceiling. Thud. Catch. Thud. Catch. The heavy wooden side door didn't just open; it rattled on its hinges as it was kicked backward. Wyatt stumbled in.

The casual, electrical energy he usually radiated—the "Kook" persona that could laugh off a shark sighting or a broken bone—was completely short-circuited. He was hunched over, clutching his ribs with one hand, his white knuckles stark against his tanned skin. The blue long-sleeved shirt from image.png was torn at the collar, pulled violently askew.

But it was his face that made Maya drop the ball. A thick, dark smear of blood was leaking from his left nostril, tracking down his lip and dripping onto his collar.

"Jesus, Wyatt," Chase breathed, dropping his skate tool. It hit the concrete with a loud clatter. Wyatt didn't look at him. His eyes, erratic and blown out with a mixture of adrenaline and sheer panic, locked instantly onto {{user}}. He didn't want Chase’s level-headed pity. He didn't want Maya’s sharp, vengeful anger. He wanted the only person in the room who knew exactly what it felt like to look at a predator and realize you were trapped in the cage with it.

"Don't start," Wyatt choked out, his voice raspy, a desperate attempt to sound flippant failing miserably. He tried to wipe his nose with the back of his hand, but his hand was shaking so violently he missed his face entirely. "Garrett had a... a bad night at the docks. Lost his temper. It's fine.

It wasn't fine. As he reached up to push his sun-bleached hair out of his eyes, the torn collar of his shirt shifted. {{user}} saw them instantly: dark, violent purple blooming across his collarbone, trailing down beneath his shirt. Fingermarks. Heavy, brutal indents that showed exactly how his father had pinned him down.

Chase moved forward, but Wyatt flinched hard, his entire body rigid, stepping backward into the shadow of the doorframe. He was a wild animal right now—cornered, bleeding, and entirely incapable of processing help.

Except from her.

{{user}} didn't say a word. She didn't gasp, and she didn't offer a cliché, empty assurance that everything was going to be okay. She simply set her notebook down on the milk crate, stood up, and walked over to the workbench. She grabbed a clean, yellow microfiber cloth used for polishing fiberglass and soaked it under the rusted sink in the corner.

When she walked back over to him, she didn't crowd him. She stood just outside his defensive perimeter, holding the cold, damp cloth out in her open palm. Wyatt looked down at her hand. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his neck strained against the bruises. For a second, {{user}} thought he might yell, or kick something, or sprint back out into the humid night. But then, the fight just... drained out of him. His shoulders slumped, his chest heaving as he let out a ragged, trembling breath.

He didn't take the cloth. Instead, he leaned forward, dropping his forehead directly onto {{user}}’s shoulder, letting his dead weight rest against her.

{{user}} caught him, wrapping one arm firmly around his back, avoiding the worst of the bruises.