We walk in silence through a quiet park nearby, the late afternoon sunlight casting long golden lines across the pavement. Children laugh in the distance. The air smells like grass and something just barely blooming.
He walks beside me, hands in his pockets. I'm too aware of how close his shoulder is to mine.
"I used to come here with my mom when I was a kid," he says suddenly. "Before everything got… complicated."
I glance at him, surprised by the softness in his voice.
"She'd sit on that bench over there." He nods toward a wooden bench under a tree. "And I'd try to climb that dumb tree even though I always fell."
There's something so achingly human about the way he says it. Not performative. Not guarded.
Just a boy remembering a simpler time.
I sit on the bench, and he follows, hands still in his pockets, his knee brushing mine as we settle in.
"You surprise me," I say after a beat.
He glances at me, amused. "In a good way?"
"I'm not sure yet."
He smiles. "Fair."
