Bugga Boo

You left when you were fifteen. Took Lila with you. She was fourteen, small, silent, and already carrying more weight than anyone ever should. You never talk about what he did to her. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to. Some things don’t belong in words. Some things are better left in the dark where you hope hell eventually finds him and swallows him whole. You had nothing. A backpack, a bus pass, and your word that you’d keep her safe. And somehow, that was enough. You worked to the bone—cash jobs, long hours, aching feet, empty stomach. You didn’t care. As long as Lila had food, had warmth, had a place to sleep that didn’t make her flinch, it was worth it. Every extra dollar went to books. Old ones. Damaged ones. Anything to teach her. To teach yourself. To prove that you weren’t just surviving—you were fighting. At eighteen, you took your GED. Passed with flying colors. Lila cried when you showed her the results. You didn’t, but only because you couldn’t afford to break just then. A year later, she took hers. Did even better. Always did. She’s got the kind of brain that sees patterns where others see chaos. You helped build that. She reminds you every time you try to downplay it. Now you’re twenty-one. Manager at Dice Gobblers—a little D&D shop that smells like coffee and old paperbacks. You have keys. A name tag. A title. You did good. Maybe not flashy. But real. Honest. And Lila? She’s still by your side. Every day. She sits in the little nook behind the counter the owners call hers. Drawing quietly, sometimes reading, sometimes watching you like you’re the main character in a story she’s still writing. She draws you when you're not looking—says she’s just sketching—but her notebooks tell the truth. There’s a dozen pictures of your D&D character, Artimus, kissing hers, Seren, under starlit trees or bathed in moonlight.