When the bus finally roared through the puddles, the girl stood up. She looked drier, somehow, though her clothes were still soaked. She looked at Elias and reached out, squeezing his hand—a brief, firm connection. "Obrigada," she whispered.
A young woman, barely twenty, hurried into the shelter of the arch. She was drenched. Her yellow backpack was stained dark with water, and her hands trembled as she tried to swipe at a phone screen that refused to respond to her wet touch. She looked around, panicked, her breath coming in short, jagged bursts. encosta_te_a_mim
As he spoke, her breathing slowed. The frantic tension in her shoulders began to dissolve. For a few minutes, the archway wasn't a cold transit point; it was a sanctuary. When the bus finally roared through the puddles,
"I used to tell my Clara the same thing," Elias murmured, looking out at the rain. "When the music was too difficult or the days were too long. Encosta-te a mim. We are just two pillars, you see? Alone, we might tip. Together, we make an arch." "Obrigada," she whispered