I used to believe danger always arrived with a warning label: the slam of a door, a voice gone sharp, the unmistakable prickle of being watched. That night in the stairwell, I learned it often begins inside my own head, long before anything actually happens. Between the scrape of his shoes on concrete and the drum of my pulse, I drafted three different tragedies, each more elaborate than the last. I never wrote the version where he was just a tired man chasing after me, breathless, because I had dropped something without noticing.

His hand, open and hesitant, held my wallet like evidence against my fear. Relief came second; what hit first was shame. How thoroughly I had been trained to expect harm, and how poorly I had been taught to recognize gentleness. Later, safe at home, I kept circling one quiet realization: fear arrives fully armed and fluent, filling every silence; kindness slips in unannounced, returns what you’ve lost, and vanishes before you can even learn the name of the person who chose not to hurt you.