Three months earlier, Nora had stood outside a night class with her phone buzzing in her fist and the sky threatening rain. She was halfway through a pharmacy tech certificate, halfway out of the life everyone thought she’d live forever.
Her boyfriend—on-again, off-again, more absence than presence—had missed another pickup. The rideshare app showed surge pricing that might as well have been a brick wall. She walked.
Halfway home, a car idled near the curb. A familiar voice called her name. “Let me drive you,” said Evan—her mother’s coworker’s son, older by a handful of years and a lifetime of stability.
Nora hesitated, then slipped into the passenger seat, grateful for warmth that didn’t ask questions. The car smelled like laundry detergent and cinnamon gum.
They talked about nothing and everything—schedules, exams, the way work eats evenings. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t push. He just drove like a person who knew how to keep a straight line.
When the rain hit, it hit hard. Evan pulled under a gas station awning and laughed. “Guess the sky decided for us.” They waited out the downpour, trading stories about childhood summers and the kind of secrets that feel safe in fluorescent light.
That was the first night they exchanged numbers. No lines crossed. Just a lifeline tied quietly between two people who happened to need one at the same time.
Two weeks later, Nora stopped answering her boyfriend’s texts for good.
