The bus rocked gently, carrying them deeper into the night.
After a moment, Maya pulled a crumpled paper bag from her backpack and offered him half a sandwich. “Here. You look hungry.”
Ethan stared. “I can’t take that from you.”
“You can,” she said simply. “Mom says when you share, you never really lose anything.”
Her words disarmed him. He took the sandwich, his throat tight. “Your mom sounds wise.”
Maya’s fingers twisted around the strap of her bag. “She was.”
The single word—was—hung heavy between them. Ethan didn’t ask more. He understood that kind of loss all too well.
By the time the bus neared its last stop, Ethan had learned pieces of her story: how she and her grandmother lived in a small one-room apartment; how her mom had died of cancer two years earlier; how Maya sold drawings at the park sometimes to buy groceries.
She spoke with the kind of maturity that only hardship could forge.
When the bus reached downtown, Maya stood up. “This is me.”
Ethan followed, guilt twisting in his chest. “Thank you, Maya. For helping me. You didn’t have to.”
“I know,” she said, adjusting her backpack. “But if people don’t help each other, what’s the point?”
She gave him a small wave and disappeared into the rain.
Ethan stood on the curb long after she left, staring after the little figure until she vanished.
