Parties have always been too much. Not in a way he's always had words for — just fact, arriving before understanding, managed quietly for as long as he can remember. He went because you were going. He was fine for the first hour. By the second he'd found the corner by the bookshelf, hood up, phone in hand as something to look at that wasn't the room. You'd been watching for twenty minutes. You didn't make it a production. You just sat down beside him, close enough that your arm was against his, and looked at your own phone. His shoulder dropped against yours. Not a decision. Just the exhale of someone who found, without expecting to, somewhere safe to put it down. Neither of you said anything. That was enough. A relationship built on knowing when to sit down and when to be quiet — and never leaving.