The train ride home was long. Grey. Still.
I sat by the window and kept my eyes on the passing landscape
tall grass, the occasional road, flashes of people I didn't know, moving through lives I'd never touch. My body was here, in this seat, on this train. But my mind was still with him.
The phone sat quietly in my pocket. The one Mathan gave me.
I hadn't touched it much. Not yet. It still felt too sacred, like opening it too soon would break the spell of yesterday.
When I got off the train, the streets were wet. Not raining not anymore but the kind of wet that lingers long after, seeping through the soles of your shoes. I didn't call for a ride. I didn't take a cab.
I just walked.
By the time I reached home, my bag was soaked, and my hoodie clung to my back like regret. The sky was getting darker again. Dusk already. Monday was breathing down my neck.
The door opened before I knocked.
She was waiting.
My mother.
Still in her nurse's uniform. Hair tied back in the same tight bun she always wore when she had something serious to say.
She didn't speak right away. Just stepped aside to let me in. I did, quietly, brushing past her into the house. I could smell antiseptic. Warm food on the stove. And tension
old and sharp, clinging to the walls like smoke.
I hadn't even taken off my shoes when she said it:
"So it's true."
I froze.
She was holding her phone now. Holding it like a weapon. The screen was already turned to me.
A photo.
The photo.
Me and Mathan.
His hand in my hair. Our lips caught in the echo of a kiss. His caption: "Mine."
It wasn't a story. It was a post.
Permanent. Public.
For the whole world to see.
My heart beat once
hard
then steadied. I didn't reach for the phone. I didn't need to.
She stared at me like she was waiting for a confession.
I stayed silent.
"Mathew," she said. "Tell me that isn't you."
I looked at her. Not angrily. Not defiantly. Just… tired. "You already know it is."
She lowered the phone slowly. Her jaw tightened.
"And you're just okay with this?" she asked, voice rising. "With the whole world seeing you like this? With that boy putting you out there like
like a spectacle?"
I didn't answer.
"What were you thinking?" she demanded. "Don't you understand what this can do to your reputation? Your future? You're barely holding your scholarship together and now
this?"
Still, I didn't reply. "I sent you to that school to rise above these things, Mathew. Not to get caught in them."
And maybe it was the exhaustion. Or maybe I'd finally stopped caring about keeping things neat and quiet. But I looked her in the eyes then, steady, calm, and said—
"He didn't hide me."
Her mouth opened, but no words came.
So I said it again. Softer. Realer. "He didn't hide me."
And something about saying it out loud cracked something open inside me.
It reminded me and mathan
As kids
/——————!!!!!!
Chapter 6 will be a flash back