Elior had never planned to talk about his past.
It wasn't something he carried openly. It lived in the quiet spaces—behind his ribs, beneath his breath, in the way his shoulders tensed whenever someone asked about family or home. He had learned early that some truths were easier to survive if they stayed unspoken.
But that afternoon, beneath the oak tree where the leaves whispered like they were listening, Mira sat beside him with patient stillness.
Not expectation.
Not pressure.
Just presence.
And something about that made the words ache to be let out.
They sat in silence for a while. The kind that felt intentional, like a shared pause rather than an absence. Elior traced patterns in the dirt with the toe of his shoe, watching lines form and disappear.
"You said we'd learn together," he said finally.
Mira turned slightly toward him. "I meant it."
He swallowed. His mouth felt dry. "Then I should probably tell you why I don't believe people stay."
She didn't interrupt. Didn't lean forward dramatically or soften her face into pity. She just waited.
"When I was eight," he began, "my father left."
The words felt heavier than he expected.
"He didn't shout. Didn't fight. He just packed a bag and said he needed something more than what we were." Elior laughed once, bitterly. "I remember thinking it must be my fault. I wasn't quiet enough. Or smart enough. Or good enough to make him stay."
Mira's hand rested lightly on the grass between them, close but not touching.
"My mother tried," he continued. "She worked late. She was always tired. I learned not to ask for things. Not to need too much. Eventually, she stopped noticing when I came home."
He paused, throat tightening. "I learned that love leaves when you take up too much space."
The words trembled as they left him, but once spoken, they didn't disappear. They settled, solid and undeniable.
Mira inhaled slowly. "That's not a lesson a child should have to learn."
"But I did," he said. "So I adjusted."
He looked at her then. Really looked.
"I became smaller. Quieter. Easier to forget."
Her eyes glistened, but she didn't cry. She didn't say she was sorry for him. Instead, she said something that startled him.
"That wasn't you becoming less," she said. "That was you surviving."
Something in his chest shifted.
---
They walked after that, slowly, following the path that curved around the back of the school where trees stood close together. Leaves crunched beneath their feet. The air smelled like earth and sun.
"I didn't tell you that so you'd feel bad," Elior said. "I just—if you're going to be near me, you should know what you're stepping into."
Mira stopped walking.
"So you think you're warning me?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Aren't I?"
She turned to face him fully now. "Elior, do you know what I see when I look at you?"
He shook his head.
"I see someone who learned to carry pain without letting it turn into cruelty. Someone who listens. Someone who notices when others are hurting because he knows what that looks like." She took a breath. "I see someone who deserved to be loved loudly and wasn't. That doesn't make you unlovable. It makes you human."
The words struck him like a hand pressed gently to a bruise.
Tender.
Painful.
Healing.
"I don't know how to believe that," he admitted.
"You don't have to yet," she said. "Just don't decide it's impossible."
---
The next few weeks passed differently.
Not magically. Not perfectly.
But differently.
They began sitting together again—not just beneath the oak tree, but in class, in the library, on the low wall near the gym where the afternoon sun warmed the stone. Elior found himself speaking more, laughing occasionally before he could stop himself.
Sometimes, fear still rose up suddenly.
Sometimes he still pulled back.
But Mira didn't vanish when he did.
She waited.
One evening, they studied together at the small public library near Elior's apartment. The place smelled like old paper and dust, and the lights buzzed softly overhead.
Mira leaned across the table, pointing at a line in his notebook. "You're actually really good at this."
He scoffed. "You're just being nice."
She shook her head. "No. You just don't see yourself clearly."
He watched her for a moment. The way her brow furrowed in concentration. The way she smiled when she figured something out.
"You make it seem easy," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Believing people are worth loving."
She looked up at him. "It's not easy. I just decided it was better than believing the opposite."
---
The night everything almost fell apart came without warning.
They were walking home together when Elior saw a familiar figure across the street—a man with his father's posture, his father's stride.
His chest seized.
He stopped walking abruptly.
"Elior?" Mira asked.
The man laughed at something someone beside him said. The sound was distant, but it echoed painfully.
"I need to go," Elior said suddenly.
"Hey—what happened?"
"I can't," he said, voice breaking. "I can't do this tonight."
Before she could respond, he turned and walked away, heart pounding, breath shallow.
He didn't sleep that night.
The past had a way of resurfacing just when he thought he had buried it deep enough.
---
The next morning, Mira found him sitting on the steps outside school, eyes rimmed red, shoulders slumped.
She didn't ask what happened.
She sat beside him.
"I almost pushed you away again," he said hoarsely.
"I know."
"Why are you still here?" he asked. "Why haven't you decided I'm too much work?"
She turned to him, her expression steady and sure.
"Because loving someone isn't about how easy they are," she said. "It's about whether they're worth choosing."
The word choosing lodged itself in his chest.
No one had ever framed love like that before.
Choice.
Not obligation. Not accident.
Choice.
---
When the bell rang, Elior stood, uncertainty flickering in his eyes.
"Mira," he said, "I don't know how this ends."
She smiled softly. "Neither do I."
He nodded. "But I want to try. Even if I'm scared."
She reached for his hand.
This time, he didn't pull away.
Her fingers wrapped around his, warm and grounding, and something inside him—something old and tired—finally loosened its grip.
For the first time, Elior allowed himself to believe that maybe love wasn't something you had to earn by being perfect.
Maybe it was something you learned to accept by staying.
---