CHAPTER 2 — THE NAME HE WOULD NOT SAY
The shop owner left after counting the money, still muttering under his breath. The door shut again, softer this time, but the silence it left behind felt heavier.
The hungry boy sat frozen.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he whispered.
The warm-coated boy just shrugged. “You were hungry.”
“That was all my mother gave me for the week…”
The warm-coated boy didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he sat beside him on the cold ground.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then he asked, quietly, “Where is your mother?”
A long silence followed.
“…She’s gone,” the boy said finally. “I wait here because she said she’d come back this way.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
The warm-coated boy looked down at his hands. For the first time, his confidence seemed smaller.
“My father says people don’t always come back,” he said.
The hungry boy turned to him. “Do you believe him?”
The warm-coated boy hesitated.
Then, softly: “I don’t want to.”
A gust of wind passed between them, colder now.
The warm-coated boy suddenly stood.
“Come with me,” he said.
The hungry boy blinked. “Where?”
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But not here.”
For the first time, the hungry boy looked like he wanted to believe in something other than waiting.
May you like
Slowly… he stood up.
And followed.
