Right there, under the bridge, was Tristan's sanctuary.

In that narrow dark tunnel lined with broken glass, which always reeked of curdled urine.

Tristan had sought refuge in it from important childhood battles, ever since he was a boy, swallowing tears and nursing his wounds.

He would come to the tunnel when he needed peace.

He wanted nothing more than to avoid his parents' quarrels, other people's hatred and prejudice, and that oh so deafening silence of the world.

Every afternoon, after class, his footsteps led him away from high school and into the tunnel.

It was the same this day.

Tristan slid next to the dirty wall, kneeling on the cold concrete.

He took out a notebook and a graphite pencil. He drew on and on, consumed by other, happier forms that he was now creating in a new, more beautiful dimension.

A hidden dimension, where he could live his very own version of "Once Upon a Time" fairy tale.

It wasn't long before Chewy stuck her pink-haired head out of the entrance to the tunnel, as she did every day.

"Hi, Tristan!" Chewy waved at him, a bit out of breath, rolling a piece of bubblegum around her mouth.

She always had gum on her. That got her the nickname "Chewy".

"Hi!" he replied with a nod, not looking up.

"What are you drawing?"

"A forest fairy."

"Oh yay, another one!" Chewy clapped her hands, sitting beside him.

Tristan frowned.

"I can't wait to see her fly again. You are drawing it for me, aren't you? Thank you! You know how much I like them."

"Have you brought angel dust?"

She shook her head.

"Nope. I'm short of money, and Bighead won't open up a tab."

"Shit.  I feel so fucked up today. I could have used some of it."

Chewy furrowed her brows.

"Yeah, I heard ... I think the entire street heard last night," she added, violating the unwritten, well-known "neighborhood knows nothing," rule.

She stretched out her thin fingers and touched the purple swelling on Tristan's chin with tenderness.

"Your brother beat ya up again?"

He nodded.

"Yesterday, I stood up to him for the first time, Chewy... I had to. I mean, what else could I have done? Couldn't just bloody let him stand there and watch him pummel mum!"

Chewy looked down, not knowing what to say, but kept her comforting hand on his cheek just in case.

"Life sucks," Tristan said, fisting tears out of his eyes. "But I'll be eighteen soon enough. Then I can leave. I swear to you. I can't take this anymore."

"Don't talk like that!" Chewy jabbed him in the ribs. "Without your drawings, without your magic, without ..." She swallowed. "I don't know what I'd do, Tristan. If you left ... My world'd burst like a bubble. No one's ever listened to me or understood me except for you."

"What color do you want it to be today?" Tristan beamed at her.

"Hmmm..." her almond-shaped eyes widened on a childlike face. "Pink!"

Tristan took out three crayons in various shades of pink and began coloring the forest fairy in deliberate, slow strokes.

Chewy leaned over the paper, imbibing the tints, hues and shades, watching the fairytale being take shape under Tristan's long fingers.

"Why didn't you ever tell anyone about your gift?"

"I was afraid of what might happen if I said anything." Tristan raised a fourth crayon.

"Now, close your eyes," he whispered.

Chewy obeyed him, a goofy, satisfied grin splitting her face.

The crayon scratched against the paper.

Then something brushed Chewy's cheek, as if someone were tickling her with a thin blade of grass or a tip of the bird's wing.

She opened her eyes full of dreams, looking for her miracle drawing.

And there she was, fluttering around her small, turned-up nose.

A bubblegum-pink forest fairy beamed at Chewy, pirouetting around her head, toying with her auburn curls.

Tears of joy blurred Chewy's vision. Being able to see something like this was a real privilege. 

Her very own forest fairy, fairest of them all.

A gift from the person she loved the most in the entire world.

Like the previous few times, the fairy got tired and disappeared ... Into her forest?

Chewy hung down her head as she watched it fly away.

She'd always feel an inexplicable emptiness when her fairies left her.

"I think that was the most beautiful fairy you've ever drawn, Tristan," she whispered in awe.

"You always tell me the same thing," he mumbled, his cheeks reddening.

"Maybe it's because every day you outdo yourself," Chewy blushed back. "Hey, what do you think... Where do your fairies go?" she exclaimed, looking at the now empty silhouette on a sheet of paper.

Tristan shrugged. "My fairies are free."

That night, even louder, more painful cries came from Tristan's apartment.

The next day, his face showed new, much more visible signs of violence.

Tristan did not betray his brother in front of the professor, the psychologist or the school principal. Not even in front of a social worker, whom they invited to talk to him.

Chewy fumed because of the what Tristan had to go through every night.

In his own home.

In a place where he should be able to feel most secure in the world.

After classes, the two found each other in the tunnel again.

"Tristan!" Chewy shouted and ran towards him, clutching him in her arms. "Don't oppose him anymore, please! He could hurt you real bad."

"Listen ... Leave me alone, Chewy. Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't do." Tristan's mouth twitched.

"I just want to help you somehow ..." Chewy drew circles on her temples with her fingers. "Look. I need you to trust me. Open up to me. Let me into your world."

"You can't help me. No one can." Tristan looked away.

Chewy kneeled before him, cradling his face between her palms.

She sucked in a deep breath, stunned by the sheer amount of injuries she was witnessing, touching every lump, cut and bruise in utter disbelief.

"What the fuck did he do to you? That jerk!"

And then, guided by half pity, half love, Chewy placed a gentle kiss on Tristan's lips.

She couldn't believe she finally dared to do so.

She who was always so direct, so cheerful, so talkative, was now speechless, surprising herself, trembling like a dry leaf carried by a strong fall wind.

Tristan didn't move.

Chewy, horrified, tried to bounce off of him, realizing what she had done.
But Tristan pulled her back into his arms, returning the kiss.

He was inhaling her presence in in large gulps like a drowning man breathes in fresh air, extending that one rare, wondrous moment that had happened to him in the last several years.

"Chewy..."

"Don't call me that. Please. Not now."

"Desirae... Dez..."

The kisses ignited a smoldering spark within them, which soon flared up like an unstoppable firestorm, and they allowed the flame to devour them.

There, in the narrow tunnel that stank of piss, Tristan and Desirae groped each other, and made love for the first time.

The barista of coincidence concocted an intoxicating cocktail of their skin, flesh, blood, thoughts and emotions.

Afterwards, they lay on the green, broken glass pieces in silence, holding hands.

Words would only spoil, defile that innocent pristine-white moment.

The time inevitably passed by, and darkness enveloped them.

Tristan glanced at his phone.

"It's midnight. It's Halloween," he murmured, staring at the bright streetlights.

"Please don't go home tonight," Chewy stammered, brushing a lock of his raven hair from his forehead.

"I can't leave my mother alone with him, don't you understand?"

"I ... I just don't want anything bad to happen to you, Tristan. I couldn't bear it."

"Then pray that something happens to my brother. That would solve all of my problems," he said bitterly, and got up, buttoning up his jeans, shaking off the remaining pieces of glass from his denim jacket.

Chewy said nothing.

She dressed slowly, helplessly, watching Tristan hurry away with his hands in his pockets.

She knew what she had to do.

Only the Witch could help her.

Chewy shuddered at the thought.

Despite it being late, she headed for the last house on their street, a wooden cottage.

A strange old woman, whom everyone in the neighborhood avoided, lived there.

Chewy was not afraid of her.

She knocked on the door, the rapping echoing too loudly.

"Who is it?" asked a shrill voice from the other side.

"I need to ... I need to talk to you," Chewy said in a trembling voice. "Please," she added.

The wooden door opened with an eerie creak, akin to Baba Yaga's house in Russian fairytales her mother had used to read to her when she was a child.

And Chewy was far from being Vasilisa the Beautiful.

The old woman who appeared in the doorway tilted her head to the right. 

"So come on in, come on in, Desirae. Don't be ashamed. I knew you would find me on All Hallows' Eve. Grandma always knows, heh, heh, heh..."

A Gordian knot tied in Chewy's stomach at those words, yet she crossed the rotten, wormy threshold, her chin held up high.

The Witch led her through a stone hallway to a damp, old room with black walls. The cottage smelled of incense and some herbs whose scent Chewy didn't recognize.

Hundreds of burning candles, of different sizes and colors, lit up the cramped space.

"Have a seat." The woman offered her a low tripod wooden chair.

Chewy did so.

"Now... I know what it is you desire of me, Desirae... But I also want you to know this. The thing you desire does not come without a price." The Witch leaned towards Chewy, her tongue poking out from between her cracked, dry lips.

The candles shivered at the Witch's words, and savage shadows resembling wild warriors danced across the crumbling walls.

"I don't care," Chewy replied, as her heart thumped in her chest, still puzzled because the old woman had somehow known why she was there. "I would do anything for Tristan."

The Witch stared into her eyes as if checking how determined Chewy was, but Chewy held her gaze without blinking.

Then the hag continued: "There's only one way," she said, extracting the yellowed parchment out of squeaky, rickety drawers.

"Go to the boy's apartment. Once there... Read what is written on this scroll."

"And... I will save him?"

"Yes, yes..." the Witch coughed, and soon after, spat out the generous green loogie into dust. "You will save him. It will work. The magic works best on this day of the year."

Chewy took the parchment and put it in her backpack, safely cradled among the pages of her Latin book.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Owe me? Nothing, my dear," the Witch cackled. "And remember: to save someone else sometimes means to condemn ourselves..."

***

The next morning, Tristan woke up with a start, drenched in a cold sweat.

His hands flew towards his sketchbook.

"It must have been just a bad dream," he repeated several times to himself. "It can't have been the truth."

Horror surged through him.

On what had been an empty page just last night, stood a tiny, furious figure of his older brother.

His frightening fists banged on the papery cage wall with impotent futility.

And instead of Tristan's latest fairy drawing, a familiar pink-haired girl hovered on the paper.

She waved at him; her smile wide, her arms outstretched as if she were preparing to ascend from this shitty world.

Desirae.