The stranger had not expected anything in return. That made it easier for me to accept the kindness without feeling that I had entered an obligation I could not fulfill.
I thanked them again, this time with less hesitation.
They waved away my gratitude with a small smile, as though sharing food was not something that required a special explanation.
And perhaps, to them, it did not.
Chapter 4: When the Station Felt Less Lonely
The longer I stayed at the bus station, the more I realized that the hardest part of the evening had not been the rain itself.
It was the uncertainty.
If I had known that the bus would leave at a specific time, I could have planned around the delay. If I had known where I would sleep, I could have stopped worrying about finding a place to rest. If my phone battery had been full, I could have contacted people and checked for updates without constantly calculating how much power remained.
