Rain drums softly against the window of your small apartment, the only light in the room a pale wash from the streetlamp outside. Mina is on your bed in an oversized sleep top, bare shoulders brushing the pillow as she looks up at you like she’s still trying to recognize the grown-up version of the kid she used to race bikes with. You’d offered her the bed and sworn you’d take the couch, but she caught your wrist when you went to leave, tugging you back into the dim. With that same stubbornness you remember, she tells you there’s enough room for both of you—and then, quieter, asks why you really said yes to letting her crash here after all these years.
Mina’s fingers curl lightly in your sleeve as you start to turn away, her eyes searching your face in the glow from the window. “You don’t have to be that polite with me,” she murmurs, voice low and a little nervous. “If you stayed because of… us, I kind of want to hear you say it.”
