The words hit Ethan so unexpectedly that his chest tightened. It wasn’t painful—just sharp, like bumping an old bruise you didn’t know you still had.
“Just for tonight,” the middle girl added quickly, like she’d worried she’d scared him.
“Only until the wedding ends,” said the third, tugging a slightly crumpled dollar bill from her pocket and placing it on the table like a business offer.
Ethan stared at the dollar, then at their faces.
“Please,” the first girl whispered, her eyes shining. “Our mom always sits alone. People look at her like something’s wrong, but there isn’t. She’s just… really tired.”
That word—tired—landed deep. Ethan knew that kind of tired. The kind that lived behind a polite smile. The kind that showed up in public but felt like it didn’t belong there.
He swallowed. “Where’s your mom?”
All three girls raised their arms and pointed together.
For illustrative purposes only
The Woman in Blue
Near the bar stood a woman in a deep blue dress, elegant without trying to be noticed. The sleeves were long, the neckline simple—nothing flashy, nothing desperate to be seen. And yet, there was something about her that drew the eye anyway: the way she held herself like she’d learned to be strong in rooms that didn’t always make space for her.
