“Don’t cry, mister. You can borrow my mom.”—said the little boy to the CEO sitting alone at the park. “Don’t cry, mister.
You can borrow my mom,” said the little boy to the CEO, sitting alone at the park on Christmas Eve. The snow fell softly that evening in slow, drifting flakes that settled over the quiet park like dust on a forgotten memory. One week before Christmas, and the city was lit with cheer, window displays blinking red and green, carols piping from distant storefronts.
But here, beside the frozen lake where children once skated years ago, everything was still. Callum Reed sat alone on a cold iron bench, his coat buttoned to the top, a gray scarf wound neatly around his neck. The leather gloves on his hands did not stop the cold from seeping in.
Beside him on the bench, a paper coffee cup sat untouched. The steam had long since faded. His eyes were bloodshot, though he had not cried.
He did not cry anymore. Not since he was nine and sitting in a group home on Christmas Eve, waiting for someone, anyone, to choose him. No one did.
“Too small,” the social worker had said, not unkindly. “Too quiet.”
So he stopped waiting. And years later, when he had built everything himself—his tech empire, his penthouse apartment, the admiration of an entire industry—he still returned without meaning to that boy on the bench, waiting.
This year, it felt worse, like the success had grown too big, too loud, and he had grown smaller in its shadow. A laugh echoed distantly across the park. Callum looked up.
Two figures walked slowly along the snow-covered path. A woman in a thick gray wool coat, her blonde hair pulled into a low, simple ponytail, and beside her, a small boy in a puffy jacket, wearing a knit hat with fuzzy bear ears. He clutched a paper bag, its sides crinkled with grease spots and warmth.
They stopped near a bench across from Callum’s. The woman bent down, pulling out wrapped cookies and handing them gently to a man hunched beneath a threadbare blanket. She smiled, said something quiet.
Then the two moved on. Callum looked down at the box again, still unopened, still meaningless. “Mommy, he looked sad.”
The boy’s voice was soft, curious.
Callum glanced up and saw the boy looking at him, his gloved hand tugging at his mother’s coat. She followed his gaze and immediately looked unsure. She whispered something to him and tried to gently guide him away, but the boy broke free.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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