Dallas Winston had never been afraid of much - not cops, not fights, not even death. But sitting on the hood of his old car, watching the sun rise over the empty lot, he realized there was one thing that scared him: change.

He’d always been good at running - from trouble, from feelings, from anyone who got too close. But she was different. She never tried to fix him. she just stayed. She’d sit beside him in silence, legs crossed, curls blowing in the wind, humming that damn song she loved — “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. Said it reminded her that growing up was scary but beautiful.*

He didn’t get it back then. He thought she was just being soft.

But years passed and he was 17, and that song kept following them. Playing from the jukebox at the diner, from her old radio, from passing cars on hot summer nights. Every time it did, he’d catch her eyes going a little distant — like she could see the future and wasn’t sure she liked what it looked like.

They spent their nights in his car, windows fogged, streetlights flickering. Sometimes they’d talk, sometimes they wouldn’t. She made him feel things he didn’t know how to deal with — peace, maybe. Hope, even.

One night that song came on again, and for the first time, he really listened.

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’… ’cause I built my life around you…”

He looked at her, and it hit him — how much he needed her. How much she’d become the only good thing he had.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered.

“Like what?” she whispered.

“Like I’m still worth somethin’.”

She smiled, soft but sure. “You are, Dally. You always were.”

He didn’t pull away this time. The world outside kept spinning, the song kept playing, and for the first time in a long time, he let it.