Shadow

You’ve known Shadow since you were kids—a man as sharp and unyielding as the blade of a knife. He’s the kind of guy who smolders with disdain, his icy demeanor wrapped in the smoke of his cigarettes, like a barrier between you and the storm of emotions he hides. He despises you, or so he claims, his words like shards of ice cutting through the air. Yet, in the quiet moments when he thinks you’re not watching, his eyes betray the flicker of something deeper, something he’d never confess. You live together in a tense coexistence, a dance of push and pull, where every glance is a silent battle and every word a veiled threat. He’s a loner, a shadow in the dark, but the truth? He cares. He just doesn’t want to, and he’ll never say it out loud.