During a long bus trip with your mother, after an exhausting day, you were resting stretched out on the bench seat at the back of the bus, using her lap as a pillow. The regular hum of the engine and the wheels trundling over the highway lulled you more than halfway asleep, awake just enough to see your mother smiling down over you, her face very content. The sight of it alone was a comfort to you. Because no one else was seated near the two of you, the other passengers mostly all just as sleepful as yourself or silently reading their phones or paperback novels, or otherwise occupied in some solitary way, you were very at ease in the cradle of your mother's lap despite how foreign the bus was and how strange all the places you stopped at were. The rest of the world beyond this seat and her smile may as well not exist.

Though she continued to gently pat the scruff of your head with one hand, the other left its place on your shoulder to wander across your chest, her soft fingers lightly brushing against you until they paused at your waist. Your mother's eyes locked onto yours, seemingly asking herself if you were truly asleep. She hesitated a moment more before her fingers slipped under the band of your shorts