The city felt less strange now, like I'd started to memorize its edges. Each street corner, each smell, each shout a map under my skin. Thabo was always there, a shadow at my side. Sometimes I'd forget he was next to me until I reached for something and found his hand already there.We walked for hours, nowhere to go, just moving. We laughed at dumb things. We swapped stories nobody else had ever heard. He told me about growing up in Soweto, hustling for odd jobs to support his siblings. I told him about the dust, the empty spaces, teachers who barely looked up, my mother's long silence."Don't worry," he'd say, brushing hair from my eyes. "You're not alone anymore."I wanted to believe it. I wanted it to be true. But fear curled up in my chest quiet, mean, hard to shake. Life breaks you right when you start to relax.Money ran thin. Rent ate through what I made. Thabo noticed, started bringing food, insisting I eat. Sometimes I did. Sometimes pride made me lie and say I wasn't hungry. I needed to stand on my own, even as I let him in.Our dates were simple: corner coffee, cheap street food, a walk past the malls we couldn't afford. I watched him laugh, tried to memorize the way his mouth twisted, the sound of it. He made me forget what it felt like to be invisible.Then, sitting on a low wall by the station, I felt something off. My body was strange. Off-balance. I told myself it was just hunger or nerves, but the feeling stuck. Wouldn't let go."Are you okay?" Thabo asked."Yeah," I lied, forcing a smile.He didn't push. That's what I liked about him—he saw too much, but never forced it out of me.The next days, the weird feeling grew teeth. I started noticing every little thing—how tired I was, how my body felt wrong. Every morning I'd check, caught between hope and dread, refusing to let myself think too far ahead.Still, Thabo's hand found mine in crowds. He sent messages late at night sometimes just a word, sometimes nothing but a heart. I held onto those small things. But the tension built, a pulse under everything. Bills, job hunting, the city grinding on. And now, this new fear, gnawing at me from the inside.One night my phone buzzed. Thabo's voice was different low, careful. "Hey… can we talk?"Something inside me turned to ice. I said yes anyway.I stared at the city lights distant, blinking, out of reach. "Don't mess this up," I whispered. "Be ready."For the first time, I knew survival wasn't enough. This city wanted more. This city demanded everything. And I was about to find out what I had left.
