VOLUME III: 56 – Park Lights

The pudding bag swung against my leg as I cut through the park near my building. Krei had shoved it into my hands on the way out, muttering something about “don’t eat them all in one sitting,” like I wasn’t already planning to do exactly that.

The park was nearly empty in the evening, the lamplight stretching shadows of the swing set like thin, crooked arms across the concrete. My hoodie smelled faintly like broth from dinner, and my brain was in that post-meal fog where you don’t really think, just walk.

That’s when I heard it.

A soft, shaky sound.

Poppy.

She was hunched on a bench under the streetlight, staring at her phone with the kind of expression usually reserved for people watching their lives implode in real time. Hoodie tugged tight around her. Bag slumped open at her feet, books spilling like they’d staged a mutiny.

And then I noticed it, her sleeve pushed back just enough to reveal a faint bruise along her wrist. The kind that doesn’t come from clumsily bumping into a door. Her shirt looked like it had survived a skirmish.

She didn’t see me at first. She was too busy trying not to cry, wiping at her face like she could erase the evidence before anyone caught her.

Abort! Adults aren’t supposed to deal with crying teenagers unless they’re legally obligated teachers or sitcom moms!

But my legs had already moved before my brain voted.

“Hey,” I said, casual, like I wasn’t intruding on a small private apocalypse.

Her head jerked up. Eyes red, cheeks damp, trying to arrange her face into something neutral. Teenagers always think they can camouflage emotions with bad acting.

“…Pudding lady?” she croaked, recognizing me.

I had many titles in life. Failed wife, professional chaos gremlin, streamer who makes rent by sheer accident but apparently, I was now also Pudding Lady.

“Yup,” I said, sitting beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Local menace, consumer of questionable dairy products. That’s me.”

Her bag tilted, a notebook sliding out. Pages were bent, doodles smudged. She grabbed for it too fast, like it mattered more than anything.

“You okay?” I asked, soft this time.

“I’m fine.”

Lies. Big, loud lies.

Her hoodie sleeve slipped again, bruise visible. My stomach knotted.

I stayed quiet. Let her sit in her mess without trying to wallpaper it over.

“…Rough day?” I tried again.

Her mouth twisted. She stared at her phone like it had betrayed her. “…Something like that.”

The silence stretched. Normally, I’d panic and fill it with nonsense. But tonight, I just… didn’t.

I opened my pudding instead, peeled back the foil with exaggerated care. “You know, statistically, eating dessert outside under string lights makes life suck at least 4% less.”

That got a laugh—tiny, broken, but real. She sniffed, wiped at her eyes again.

“You’re weird,” she muttered.

“Occupational hazard,” I said, offering her the spoon after one bite. “Want some?”

Her mouth quirked into the ghost of a smile. She took one pudding cup, peeled the lid back with trembling fingers. The park was quiet except for the sound of cheap plastic crinkling.

For a moment, it was quiet again. Just the soft sound of her eating, the hum of a streetlamp, the faint bark of a dog in the distance. Then, barely audible, she whispered:

“…People suck.”

It cracked something in me. Not the words, but the way she said it, like a truth she’d been forced to swallow all day, finally slipping out with the taste of pudding on her tongue.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “They do.”

She didn’t look at me. But her shoulders loosened, just a fraction.

We sat there, two people with different-sized cracks in our armor, sharing pudding in the dim park light.

And for once, I didn’t try to fix it.

Poppy slurped the last of hers like it was ramen broth, then hopped to her feet. “Okay. Let’s go!”

“Go?” I blinked up at her. “No. Absolutely not. You are going home.”

She ignored me, tugging at my sleeve with pudding-sticky fingers. “Come onnnn.”

I planted myself on the bench. “Nope. Not moving. This is me, being the adult. Watch carefully. It’s very rare.”

“You can’t just leave me here,” she said, voice small but sharp, like she’d practiced guilt-tripping in the mirror. “It’s dark. Creeps live in the dark. You wouldn’t leave a kid in danger, right?”

“You're a teen and I'm not a babysitter,” I muttered, though my resolve wavered when she tilted her head, eyes wide, that bruise just visible beneath the bad park lighting.

“Please,” she said.

And suddenly, I wasn’t the adult on a park bench. I was just someone too tired to say no.

I sighed, standing up with all the enthusiasm of a wet towel. “Fine. But only to walk you home. That’s it. No detours."

“Yay!” she cheered, already marching ahead like she’d won some great victory.

I shook my head, trailing after her. “Unbelievable. Tricked by a child. Again.”

But I followed anyway. Because maybe I wasn’t interested in going home either.