They were allowed to stand beside each other. Just never close enough for anyone to notice. In another life, perhaps they would have shared a home, grown old together, and forgotten what it felt like to be afraid of loving someone. But this was the only life they had. So they learned to speak without looking. To smile at strangers while pretending not to recognize each other. To carry entire conversations in the silence between two passing footsteps. And when the world was watching, they turned their backs. No one ever noticed their hands. Hidden behind them, their fingers found each other every time, holding on for the few stolen seconds they were allowed. Years passed. Their faces changed. Their names became memories. But even when they were turned to stone, their hands remained intertwined. And the world, which had forbidden them everything, never discovered the one thing it could not take away.