By the time I saw him again, he wasn’t mine anymore. But somehow... I still felt like his.

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We fell in love the way stupid kids do — fast, messy, and with no clue how fragile people really are.

He’d show up at my window at 1 a.m. with a slurpee and no explanation. He kissed me under gas station lights. He carved our initials into the back of a rusted park bench. He said I made him feel safe.

I believed him.

But then his mom got sick. Real sick. And everything cracked.

He stopped talking to me. Not all at once, just in pieces. First the texts slowed down. Then the phone calls got shorter. Then he stopped showing up. Then... he was gone.

No goodbye. No explanation. Just vanished.