A mention of Thomas

There’s a certain kind of man that can’t actually be broken.

Not because they’re strong.

But because they’re… simple.

Solid.

Thomas is that kind of man.

The good ones aren’t usually useful. Not until the world starts bleeding.

Then they get interesting.

He arrived already cracked.

Fell out of the sky, quite literally.

Mouth full of questions, ribs shattered, heart still whole.

It would’ve been easy to let him die.

There were reasons not to.

I fed him. I spoke softly.

I answered exactly as much as he could survive.

I gave him warmth—not because I care, but because warmth is addictive, and nothing makes a man more malleable than a place he’s afraid to lose.

He was grateful.

Of course he was.

“What’s happened?” he asked me once, like I could tell him the shape of his own story.

There’s a cruelty in knowing someone doesn’t belong—and giving them hope anyway.

But there’s also an elegance in it.

I never lied to Thomas.

I just let the truth arrive in pieces, like bread crumbs dropped behind him.

He thought he was following his way home.

He was walking directly into mine.

And yet…

Even now, I think of him.

The way he ate, politely.

The way he sat upright despite the pain.

The way he looked toward the north not with courage, but with discipline.

There’s power in that.

Power in restraint.

In holding still while the story tries to carry you away.

If the world were fair, I’d have left him alone.

But we both know better.

It’s the look in his eyes before I forced him under that stays with me. Even in the final seconds before the reflexive gasp filled his lungs with icy water, ther was a mix of shock and ….

Hurt.

He was wounded in his understanding.

I promised him a promise.

He deserved better than he received.