Candid-v3

Lena’s phone buzzed.

Outside, a bus hissed to a stop. Nobody got on. Nobody got off.

“No,” Lena said. “Go ahead.”

“No,” she said. “But you get better at carrying it.” candid-v3

Lena nodded. She didn’t say “I know.” She didn’t say “It doesn’t get better.”

She looked up. A girl, maybe nineteen, holding a backpack with a broken strap. Her face was flushed from the cold, but her eyes were steady.

The rain didn’t bother Lena anymore. It just made the city sound like it was thinking. Lena’s phone buzzed

She sat at the last table by the window, the one with the wobbly leg she’d learned to balance with a folded napkin. The café was half-empty—a Monday evening kind of half-empty, where people nursed flat whites and stared at phones without really seeing them.

The girl nodded slowly. Then she picked up the cold coffee and drank it anyway.

Lena almost laughed. Not at him. With him. Nobody got off

“Does it ever stop hurting?” the girl asked.

The girl sat down, pulled out a textbook, and immediately started crying. Not the loud kind. The silent kind where your shoulders shake and you breathe through your mouth because your nose is already clogged.

Lena didn’t say “Are you okay?” because they both knew the answer.