The street was quiet as Sarah walked toward the bus stop, the night's damp air curling at the edges of her jacket. She didn't rush. The air still held the faint pulse of music from the fundraiser's ballroom, its warmth trailing her like an afterimage.
Her fingers brushed the safety pin Mia had affixed to her lapel. Small, silver, ordinary. But it glinted faintly beneath the streetlight like something sacred.
She didn't know why it felt heavy.
Just that it did.
She stopped beneath the buzzing glow of a corner light. Let the moment hold her.
She pinched the fabric around the pin gently, as if to check it was still real.
It was.
⸻
Mia stayed in the shadow of a pharmacy sign two blocks down. She watched Sarah disappear into the shimmer of bus headlights, fingers still curled around her own coat seam.
Her pulse stuttered.
It had been so small, that gesture. The pin. A quiet seal. A talisman.
And yet, when Sarah had touched it—when she'd smiled—Mia had felt her own feet go light.
Like maybe some part of her had just anchored.
She turned back toward her side of the neighborhood, streetlight halos blooming and vanishing in her peripheral vision. Her fingers brushed the inside pocket where the remaining pins rested.
Three left.
Three possible anchors.
⸻
At home, Sarah removed her jacket with care. She hung it near the door but paused, hand still at the collar.
She touched the pin again.
Then unhooked it.
She turned it over.
On the inner clasp, nearly invisible, a single word was etched.
"Courage."
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then, slowly, she smiled.
She placed the pin on her nightstand beside the cup of pens and loose sketch pages. The silver gleamed faintly under the soft amber of her reading lamp.
She sat down, pulled her sketchbook into her lap.
⸻
Mia leaned against her window, watching the amber glow of Sarah's apartment light flicker on across the alley.
Her notebook lay open on her lap, but she hadn't written.
Not yet.
Not tonight.
Instead, she held a matchbox.
Inside: three more safety pins.
She touched each one.
She would save them. For later. For other days when silence was the only message she could trust.
They didn't need to be sharp.
Only placed with care.
⸻
Sarah placed the pin beside her bed, near her sketchbook.
Then she opened to a fresh page.
She drew nothing.
But she wrote:
"Even small things can shield."
She paused.
Then, beneath it:
"Maybe especially the small ones."
She stared at the words.
Then added one more line:
"And not all armor has to look like armor."
⸻
The sound of rain began to tap softly on the windowpane.
She stood, pulled the curtain aside slightly, and looked out.
The alley was slick and dark.
But she didn't feel the same fear she used to.
Just space.
And silence.
And something watching, but not threatening.
Just present.
⸻
Mia finally wrote.
One line only:
"Courage carries, even unseen."
She folded the page.
Slid it into the spine of her journal.
Then turned off the light.
She lay back, watching the ceiling. Listening to the same rain.
She didn't close the curtain.
Not tonight.
⸻
Neither girl dreamed clearly that night.
But both awoke feeling less alone.
Sarah dressed slowly, tugging her sleeves straight, then paused before slipping her jacket on.
She reached for the pin.
Fastened it to the inside seam.
Hidden.
Close.
Not for others.
Just for her.
⸻
Across the alley, Mia opened her window, just a crack.
The morning smelled like damp pavement and maybe, something cleaner underneath.
She didn't write again.
She just sipped tea, slow, deliberate.
Watched.
Waited.
Believed.