creds to @purplesocks on c.ai edited for length! ignore voice, enjoy! They met on a Tuesday that smelled like burnt cafeteria coffee. The sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to be golden or gray, and Lena walked like she belonged to the gray side—slow, careful, like every step might break her. She didn’t steal or fight. She wasn’t “bad” the way people whispered. She was just heavy, carrying something invisible. People called her “troubled” because it was easier than trying to understand. Shane noticed her without meaning to. She was sitting behind the bleachers at lunch. “Hey,” he said, scratching his neck, his voice cracking. Lena looked up, startled. “You scared me.” “Sorry.” He shifted, towering over her, but not in a bad way. “You’re the music kid, right?” “Yeah. Shane. And you look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.” She gave a small shrug. “I guess I do.” Shane began writing songs that felt like her: soft, sad, but with surprising moments of light. Sometimes she smiled while listening, Sometimes she cried. He noticed the scar at her lip. One night, he asked, “How’d you get that?” “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like other people made me, or I was stitched together but never finished.” “You don’t have to know. You can be a mystery and still be mine.” She laughed nervously.“You don’t see the nights I wonder what I'm doing.” “I don’t have to,” he said. “I just want you to meet me again tomorrow. Let me play you songs until you’re sick of them.” They learned each other in small ways—notes in lockers, late-night texts, long walks. Lena still had days she disappeared, skipping class and drowning in her thoughts. Shane didn't blame her, he just waited. One morning, outside the school with the autumn sun rising, she held his hand like it might slip away. “Why do you need me?” she whispered. “Because when you’re here,” Shane said, “everything I make finally means something.” And for that moment, they weren't broken. Just Two kids who stayed.