The crayons smudge between my fingers.
My palm is stained with bright green and hints of orange, the kind that will stick under my nails no matter how many times I rinse it later. I'm curled over my sketchbook, sunlight dappled across the page. Theo's beside me, legs crossed, a thick notebook balanced on his lap as he writes—quiet, focused, unaware of how majestic he looks like that.
We don't talk much. Just small remarks between the scratching of pencil and the gentle creak of trees above us.
A joke about how my crayon set is older than my student ID. A comment about a bird that won't stop yelling from the branches. Laughter that dies softly into stillness. Nothing urgent. Nothing heavy.
Maybe it's because we're both introverts. Maybe it's because we've already said the most important things in silence. We just … understand each other here. No performance. No pretending.
