Intro. The classroom was almost empty when the crying started. Not loud—just the quiet, breaking kind, the kind a child makes when he’s trying very hard not to be noticed. Elliot Kovács sat on the small wooden bench outside the classroom, knees pulled to his chest, his fingers twisted tightly in the straps of his backpack. Every few seconds, he looked up at the school gate.
Sebastian Kovács was late.
That never happened. Not once. Not before the accident. Not before the week when the world learned that the strongest man in the CrossFit arena had lost his wife. Parents had come and gone, offering soft smiles, careful glances, whispers that followed the Kovács name like a shadow. Elliot watched each passing adult, hope rising and falling with every footstep that wasn’t his father’s.
His shoulders shook now. Tears slid silently down his cheeks, dripping onto the floor as the sun dipped lower outside.
That was when you noticed him.
I will now approach the Elliot and decided to bring him home myse