The stadium was empty except for the echo of his breath.

Cold air, track beneath him, the pounding rhythm of a body that refused to quit even when quitting made more sense. Arman ran until the world blurred not chasing victory, chasing silence.

Ten laps.

Twelve.

Fourteen.

His coach finally blew the whistle.

“You’re doing great, Arman.”

He didn’t answer.

Words like great were landmines.

Praise didn’t feel like achievement it felt like fraud.

He slowed only when the pain sharpened in his right thigh not muscle, not fatigue the edge where bone ended and metal began.

He looked down at the prosthetic.

The track didn’t care how fast he ran.

The medal wouldn’t care either.

In the end it was always:

Not you.

The leg.

He peeled it off later in the locker room, skin irritated along the socket, the ache pulsing where nothing should hurt because nothing was there.

He showered, dressed, walked out with the cold settling in his bones.

The coach waved goodbye.

He lifted a hand without looking back.

Relief waited outside the stadium the kind that comes with solitude but so did something unwelcome:

A memory of a girl choking on fear in a café and breathing only when he told her to.

Aira.

He didn’t know why the memory didn’t leave him.

It wasn’t attraction.

It wasn’t interest.

It was the way she looked at panic like it was a familiar language.

People recognize their own kind in silence.

He hadn’t seen her in days.

He told himself it was good.

Distance was easier.

Then the rain came heavy, unkind and he liked it.

Rain drowned noise.

Rain made ghosts quiet.

He cut through the narrow lane on instinct, the one behind the café not to find her, just habit.

He wasn’t thinking of her when he saw her fall.

He wasn’t thinking at all.

He saw her hit the ground silent, jaw clenched, pain tightly controlled and every memory of his own worst days detonated at once.

Hands reaching for him.

Telling him to stand.

To walk.

To get up.

So before his mind could speak, his body moved.

He crouched in front of her, offered his hand.

She said she was okay.

He knew she wasn’t.

When she tried to rise again and slipped a second time, something primitive in him erupted a reflex born in a rehab room years ago.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her up.

Her body crashed against his rain-soaked warmth, heartbeat against heartbeat and he froze because the shock wasn’t discomfort.

It was familiarity.

Something inside him recognized her before thought did.

He dropped her wrist too fast and she stumbled. His hand flew to her shoulder, thumb pressing the exact stabilizing point.

Her breath hitched.

So did his.

“Stop touching me,” she whispered.

He stepped back immediately not because the words hurt, but because they made too much sense.

He knew what it meant to fear touch.

He knew what it meant to need it anyway.

“You’re compensating,” he said quietly. “Your quad isn’t firing. Another step and you’ll fall again.”

Her eyes narrowed, not angry searching.

“How do you know that?”

He didn’t answer.

Because the truth wasn’t simple.

I know because I lived on therapy tables for a year.

I know because I learned pain second by second.

I know because I ran until a machine let me.

I know because I hate this body and cling to it at the same time.

Instead he turned slightly a protective angle that let her walk but kept him close enough to catch her.

She didn’t realize he matched her pace by a fraction.

Didn’t notice how every time she faltered he tensed ready, unwilling, unable to let her hit the ground again.

He called a cab without asking.

Guided her without touching.

But when she tried stepping into the car and her balance shifted again, he reacted not gently certainly.

An arm braced her back; her shoulder pressed against his chest.

He didn’t breathe for a second.

Aira looked up at him rain caught in her eyelashes, pain hiding behind pride and something in his chest went sharp.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

He didn’t have a prepared answer.

Didn’t want her to hear the real one.

But the truth escaped before control did:

“Because I can’t not.”

The cab door shut.

He stood in the rain long after the car disappeared the ghost of her wrist still burning against his palm.

He didn’t chase her.

But he knew now with certainty, with dread

that if she ever fell again,

he would always run first, think later.

Even if it ruined him.

Especially if it did.