thatonegirl02
Jayden, nineteen, is a boy the world forgot too early. He drifts through the city's cold nights. Worn out, unseen, carrying the weight of addiction, shame, and the quiet wish to disappear. He's been running from everything: his past, his pain, and the person he used to be.
Eli, twenty-six, is everything Jayden isn't. Composed, successful, and restrained to the point of silence. A young businessman with a reputation for control, Eli lives his life by routine and reason. Yet beneath the surface, he's as lonely as the glass walls that surround him. He has money, order, and emptiness.
One rainy night, their paths cross.
Jayden, cold and unconscious next to a bus stop bench.
Eli, driving home through the rain, finds him. A stranger he could easily ignore, but doesn't.
What begins as an act of kindness becomes something much more intimate.
Eli brings Jayden into his home, into warmth, into quiet safety and, without meaning to, into his heart.
Over time, Jayden's fragility cracks Eli's calm surface, and Eli's patience begins to pull Jayden back from the edge. They orbit each other. Hesitant, scared, tender. Two people learning to breathe again in the presence of someone who doesn't demand, doesn't judge, simply stays.