She stopped writing letters. Started noticing how he never held her hand in daylight, how his friends smirked when she passed. The fog lifted the morning she found an old photo of her grandmother—same red ribbon, same words scrawled on the back. To my little innocent. Keep our secret.

Leo was nineteen, with salt-cracked hands and a laugh that leaned too close. He said her innocence was a "little taboo"—something precious, something that made adults uneasy. He’d whisper it when they met at the pier at midnight, trading shells and the first brush of knuckles. Don’t tell , he’d smile. They wouldn’t understand how pure this is.

Mira believed him. Until one night, his thumb traced her collarbone, and his voice dropped lower: You’re my little innocent taboo. No one else’s. And for the first time, the words felt less like a lullaby and more like a lock clicking shut.