Chapter Text
In the vast city of New York, a small apartment next to the university was home to a young cook who worked at a restaurant on the corner, enjoying her day off. Sitting on the narrow couch, she was scrolling distractedly on her phone when the door suddenly opened, revealing a boy with ebony hair.
"I found a job!" exclaimed Craig Tucker, a twenty-year-old New Yorker, as he walked through the front door.
Craig is a thoughtful and calm young man, often misunderstood by those around him because of his composed attitude in the face of widespread anxiety. For two years, he had been sharing a small apartment with his best friend, Bebe Stevens. Tired of his job at a famous fast-food chain, where he suffered constant pressure from his supervisor, Craig had decided to look for work that would allow him to grow more fully.
"Does that mean you're finally going to find a place of your own?" Bebe teased him.
Bebe, for her part, is a lively and witty young woman who had always known how to support Craig.
"Don't talk nonsense. You love sleeping with me, admit it," he retorted, teasing her back.
Bebe rolled her eyes, amused, while Craig sat down next to her on the couch. She couldn't help but laugh, brightening Craig's already radiant face even more.
Unable to contain his joy, he hugged her, burying his face in the crook of her neck, a wide smile lighting up his usually impassive features.
"Is it that little café in front of the campus?" she asked, curious.
He nodded, pushing back the curls falling over his forehead with his hand.
"I start tomorrow at noon."
Bebe smiled warmly, tightening her embrace around her friend.
"I told you, hard times always pass."
Craig sighed as he sat up, thinking for the hundredth time that the end of one problem is only the beginning of another. He knew that feeling well, but Bebe, who understood him better than anyone, placed a reassuring hand on his arm. She had been a pillar for him, offering him a home and an unbreakable friendship that had truly changed his life.
Gazing at the ceiling, he took a deep breath, then met Bebe's warm and reassuring gaze. A knowing smile appeared on their lips.
"You're right. At least you're here."
Craig didn't consider himself superstitious, but he could believe in something magical dictating our actions and the world around us. His parents liked to call this force God, but he couldn't imagine a God causing so much cruelty.
Prayers and words mean nothing to him. They have no value. He has heard too many people lie, too many people manipulate through their charisma and their manner. Everything he thinks he sees, everything he hears, is deceptive. He decided to be authentic and to no longer hide his emotions. To no longer repress anything.
And even though he remains convinced that human nature is fundamentally malicious, he can't help but feel gratitude for Bebe's presence by his side. Since elementary school, she had always been his partner in mischief; they had spent countless afternoons in detention, side by side.
At first, they didn't talk to each other, even though they knew each other, having grown up in a small town, attended a small school with only about forty students per year. Yet, they were surprised to find themselves in detention at the same time, for completely different reasons.
They continued their schooling, beginning a kind of understanding only during those cursed and boring hours. It even seemed that the supervisor, Mrs. Stephenson, a woman with a frizzy bun always perched on top of her head, had started to like them.
When the two of them were together, she would initiate fun games, escapades in the middle school hallway (although it was forbidden — in that school, detention hours were held in a building on the top floor, and no one ever went there. Once, the guard almost caught them, but the supervisor covered for them). She even became a confidante.
They knew a lot about each other, but their relationship had never gone beyond those chance encounters, those childish games, within that floor dedicated to storage, old archives, and, apparently, detention.
Until they entered high school. Until a rumor disrupted the boy's quiet life, and only the girl managed to see his panic attack behind his aggressiveness.
That day, for the first time, she told him she was his friend, told him to go out and skip class, even if it meant going to detention, to calm him down and talk.
It took almost six years for this friendship to develop, but now they can't live without each other.
She had witnessed many significant milestones in Craig's life. The first person he confided in — perhaps unintentionally — about his homosexuality. The first to guess that the rumors might not be unfounded. The first, also, to witness the violent argument that followed with his father.
Despite everything, he was happy.