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She looks at me for a second too long, like she’s deciding whether to lie, but then she smiles. “Can we park somewhere and just… stay there and talk? I don’t want to work on anything tonight.”

I nod and pull into a narrow, unlit spot near my house far from the campus.

I get out first and open her door, and she looks at me, amused and confused.

“Come sit in the back with me,” I say. “It’s easier to talk that way. And if you get sleepy, you can always nap.”

“On your lap?” she asks, laughing.

“Anywhere you want.”

We settle into the backseat, her hand drifts toward my pocket and I raise an eyebrow. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

She ignores me long enough to steal my cigarettes and lighter, then rests her head on my lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I laugh, because if I don’t, I might do something worse than laugh.

She closes her eyes, cigarette between her lips. And I watch her softly, waiting for her mind to think I’m worthy enough to let the thoughts free and make her talk to me.

“What did they do to you?” I ask as I take one too, lean down, and light mine slowly. She opens her eyes just in time to understand what I’m offering.

Blue distant eyes that are focused on me. She inhales, stealing my flame, our faces too close for a moment then she exhales smoke and laughs softly.

“I’m lying on my professor’s lap,” she says, “in the back of his car, smoking, and trying not to think about the fact that I’m very attracted to him.”

“Miss Vitelli, you’re attracted to me?”

“That’s all you heard?”

“What’s making you overthink?” I ask instead.

“A lot of things.”

“Talk to me.”

I brush a strand of hair away from her face without thinking. She goes still, she doesn't pull away, nor lean in. I can feel her chest rise and fall quicker, and my head goes blank.

“You know how kids start forming a real and stable sense of who they are around six?” she says quietly. “How everything after that just…piles on?”

“What happened to you, Mireya?” I ask, terrified of what answer is coming.

“What didn’t happen?” She whispers.

The cigarette burns low. Her eyes are sat on me, and I can’t seem to look away. I’m painfully aware of where she is, of how carefully I’m keeping my hands still just because I don’t trust myself when my brain doesn’t comprehend what my heart and instinct need.

My thumb brushes her jaw, like I’m memorizing it instead of claiming it. She leans into my hand before she seems to realize she’s doing it. “I wish,” she says suddenly, sitting up, close enough that her knees press between mine, “that it wasn’t this difficult.”

Her hand slides up my chest, stopping below my collarbone. “I wish you weren’t you,” she whispers. “And I wish I wasn’t me.” Then she leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth, softly. Devastating. The feeling, the mark it left, is enough to haunt me.

It lasts barely a second, but I keep feeling it.

She pulls back first, forehead resting briefly against mine. For one terrible second, I think she might close the distance again. But she doesn’t.

“That’s all,” she says, voice shaking. “That’s all I can let myself do.”

She sits back, head on my lap again, and she folds her hands together like she’s bracing herself for impact. “You asked me what happened,” she says. “So… now I’m going to tell you.”

A second passes before she speaks again, “A man stole everything from me when I was twelve.” Her eyes drift to the window, fingers picking at the edge of her sleeve and I watch her get lost in the memories. “I had my favorite pajamas on, and he came into my room while my mom was crying in the next room because he just finished hurting her.” Her voice breaks and she continues, “My dad was drunk on the couch.”

She’s telling this story like it’s not bad enough to explain what made her that way, like if it’s simple enough, it won’t become real. But it is, and I hate that I can’t rewrite that chapter of her life. She was surrounded by adults, she was just a child, and nobody came.