The attack on Chris had been minor. Chris was more shocked than anything else. He’d never been attacked like this, not before and not since. The worst part was Nana insisting they leave the beach, head to the police station, and get the little sod arrested. Then the rain poured for the rest of the holiday.

  The memory lingered but soon fell into the background of time as Chris grew older and lived an unremarkable but good life, creating memories written into time’s grooves—forever stored.

  He didn’t think about the beach incident very often. But every now and then—when watching his own children squabble, or passing a group of kids in school uniforms, or even just walking past the sea—he’d remember the boy. The punches. The fear. The confusion.

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  Not with pain. Not with bitterness. Just... curiosity. What had made that boy do it?

  They never saw each other again. There were police and questions, and he’d been loved and fussed over, told he was brave—that it wasn’t his fault. And he believed that. He knew it wasn’t his fault.

  But still—something about the boy’s face had stayed with him. Not the anger—but something underneath it. The hesitation.

  The before, the choices. The build-up. What had to happen in someone’s life to make them need to hurt a stranger? Chris never found the answer.

  But he hoped—wherever that boy had ended up—that he’d found something better than anger.