Im With You -

She took his hand, her grip steady. "Whatever happens, wherever this goes... "

He felt a hand slide into his—smaller now, more fragile, but just as steady. Clara, in a yellow raincoat that had seen better days, smiled up at him. "Still a bit damp," she remarked. Im With You

Elias sat on the edge of a rusted park bench, his collar turned up against the chill. He wasn’t waiting for a bus or a person—he was waiting for the feeling of being untethered to finally pull him under. At twenty-four, he felt like a ghost in his own life, moving through a sequence of shifts at a quiet bookstore and long walks through a city that seemed to have forgotten him. "It’s a bit damp for a sit-down, isn’t it?" She took his hand, her grip steady

"The noise is fine. It’s the pneumonia that’s the problem," she replied, stepping closer. She tilted her umbrella, shielding him. The sudden cessation of rain hitting his shoulders felt like a physical weight being lifted. "I’m Clara." Clara, in a yellow raincoat that had seen

"I like the noise," Elias said, his voice raspy from hours of silence.

But Elias carried a darkness he couldn't quite name—a persistent hum of anxiety and the crushing belief that he was fundamentally broken. One night, while they sat on the floor of her tiny apartment surrounded by half-finished paintings, the hum became a roar.

The years that followed weren't perfect. There were days when Elias couldn't leave the house, and days when Clara’s own bright spirit flickered under the weight of her own struggles. But the phrase became their anchor. When the hospital bills came, when the bookstore closed, when the world felt like it was spinning too fast—they would find each other’s eyes and say it.