Nobody paid attention to the forgotten elderly woman, until a young Black teen gently clasped her hand. She turned out to be a billionaire…

It was nearly midnight when he passed the back alley of Johnson’s Market, a small corner store where he sometimes helped restock shelves in exchange for day-old bread and a few dollars here and there. The owner, Mr. Johnson, was kind in the way older men often were to kids they saw struggle without asking for help. Gruff, but never cruel.

André parked his bike behind the dumpster, knocked once on the side door and waited. A light flickered on inside. A few seconds later the door creaked open and there stood Mr. Johnson, wearing a heavy robe and holding a steaming mug of something strong.

He took one look at André, shivering and hollow-eyed, and sighed through his nose. Didn’t make rent, huh? André shook his head. Mr. Johnson looked up at the sky like he was waiting for some higher authority to intervene, then stepped aside.

Well, the storeroom’s dry and there’s a cot in the corner. Don’t touch the wine crates and don’t freeze to death on me. André nodded, murmured thank you, and stepped inside.

The storeroom smelled of cardboard and citrus, and the only heat came from an old radiator that groaned like it had a grudge. André didn’t mind. He pulled the cot’s blanket around his shoulders and let himself collapse onto the thin mattress, limbs heavy, chest sore, but heart strangely quiet.

For the first time in weeks he wasn’t afraid to close his eyes. Something about the ride, about Evelyn’s hand on his shoulder and her laughter in the dark, had made the world feel a little less jagged. He drifted to sleep thinking not of the locked door behind him, but of the silver pendant, the soft hum of wheels turning on gravel, and a voice that had said, You remind me of someone I love.

Outside the wind howled against the store’s walls, but inside André slept soundly, unaware that miles away a woman sat at her kitchen window, now fully awake. In her lap was the same coat she had worn that night, and in her hand was a torn receipt with a phone number scrawled in uneven blue ink. Evelyn Rose, no longer lost in fog, stared at the paper and whispered his name like a prayer, the first warm thing she’d spoken into the quiet house in years.

The morning arrived with a hush, pale and hesitant, as if the sky itself was unsure whether to wake. A soft grey light crept across the back room of Johnson’s Market, filtering through the small dust-frosted window and settling over the quiet form of André, still curled beneath the thin blanket. The cold clung to the walls, slipped through the cracks in the old frame, and wrapped itself around his bones.

But he didn’t stir. Not yet. His body ached in the particular way that follows a long night on a hard cot…