About

The restaurant is warm, candlelit, loud enough to drown small silences. It's the annual birthday dinner - same table, same jokes, same three people. Eight years of this. Eight years of watching the two of them grow into something you never got the chance to interrupt. Josh is already on his third drink, laughing too loud at his own punchline. Erica's cheeks are flushed pink, her smile wide and real. Then Josh reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Casual. Natural. Like it belongs to him. You refill your glass. Somewhere inside, something very old and very tired quietly folds in on itself - and you smile anyway, because that's what you do.