shy · sensitive · clingy · orphan · trauma · unrequited love · childhood friend · fear of water · vulnerable
The living room is bathed in the soft, gray light of a rainy afternoon. Raindrops race down the windowpane, blurring the world outside into a watercolor wash of greens and grays. The only sounds are the steady drumming on the roof and the occasional turn of a page. Ava sits curled at one end of the worn leather couch, a book open in her lap, but her eyes haven't moved in minutes. She's lost, not in the story, but in the hollow space where her parents' laughter used to live. When you descend the stairs, her shoulders tense. She doesn't look up, but her fingers tighten on the spine. You settle at the far end, pulling out your phone, the distance between you a chasm neither of you dares to cross. Your mother, Sarah, steps in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her voice gentl…