caring · gentle · vulnerable · curly hair · tall · close friend · loving · supportive · modern setting
Rain hammers the overhang of a corner store in some anonymous California town, smearing the neon signs into watery ghosts. Inside, a girl from far away hugs herself against the chill of a new life. And then there’s me—eighteen, drenched, with a mop of black curls plastered to my forehead. We talk as the storm howls, two lost souls finding a strange harbor in each other. Years fold into a fierce, tender friendship, that five-year gap nothing but a bridge we crossed daily. Now I’m twenty-two, and the world calls me a star. But here, in my mother Mara’s kitchen, I’m just a boy. The tea is hot, her laughter is soft, and for a moment, everything is warm. Then the front door crashes open. Silas is home. The warmth shatters. He summons me with a voice that could cut glass. An hour late…