The cold bit deeper than usual that night, seeping into Jonas's bones as he curled on the cracked leather seat of his car. His breath fogged the windows—a pale ghost of warmth he no longer had. The parking lot was nearly empty, littered with hollow shapes of forgotten vehicles and the skeletal flicker of broken streetlights. Beyond, the city buzzed on—loud, glittering, indifferent.
He hadn't eaten since the night before. Hunger no longer felt like sharp pangs but a gnawing emptiness, a hollow widening inside his chest. He could count every rib, every tendon stretched tight across bone. The ache didn't sting so much as the silence—that quiet verdict of a world that had nothing left for him.
His phone was dead. The cracked screen spiderwebbed months ago during a careless fall onto concrete outside the shelter—back when he still had the nerve to fight for a bed. Now it was a useless brick in his coat pocket, kept more out of habit than hope. His ID, wallet, a few tattered clothes—gone. Taken with the car when the tow truck came earlier that afternoon.
He'd begged them to wait. Pleaded. The man hadn't even met his eyes.
Now he sat behind the wheel of a car that wasn't his, parked in a lot he had no right to use. After they left, he'd broken in again just to have somewhere to sit. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't the sidewalk. The driver's old coat lay beside him—a frayed bundle of mercy. He hadn't put it on yet.
Because if he did, he'd have to admit he needed it.
Jonas clenched his jaw, blinking hard as the air inside thickened. A storm was coming—he could smell it in the wind, feel it pressing against his temples. Outside, rain began to fall. Not enough to soak, just enough to remind him how exposed he was.
He pressed his palm to the steering wheel. The leather was dry and cracking beneath his skin—like everything else he'd tried to hold onto. It hadn't always been like this. A year ago, he had a job. An apartment. A girlfriend. Plans.
Then came the layoff. Then debt. Then eviction.
People said homelessness was a slow descent. They were wrong. For him, it had been a single, brutal push. One missed paycheck, one mistake—and suddenly the floor was gone.
He remembered his supervisor's practiced apology, the final paycheck that wouldn't cover rent. "It's not personal," she said.
But it was. It always was.
Jonas shifted, the silence pressing tighter. He thought of the interviews he'd scrambled to attend, hours waiting in lobbies with others just as desperate, just as invisible. The forms filled out again and again—all asking for addresses he couldn't give, phone numbers he didn't have.
Each "no" chipped away at more than hope. It carved away his sense of being real. Of being seen.
Rain tapped steadily against the windshield. He finally pulled the coat around his shoulders. Too big. Sleeves hanging past his wrists, collar frayed, buttons mismatched. But it smelled faintly of detergent. Faintly of someone who cared.
He closed his eyes, letting the scent anchor him.
A memory surfaced—his mother holding him as a child, rocking him gently after a nightmare. "You're never alone," she'd whispered, brushing his hair back. "Even when it feels like it."
The memory hit like a blow. He hadn't thought of her in weeks. Maybe months. She was gone now—cancer, swift and merciless. He hadn't even been able to afford a bus ticket to her funeral.
A sob clawed up his throat. For once, he didn't push it down. He let it out—quiet, hoarse, muffled into the sleeve of the stranger's coat. It didn't echo. The car swallowed it whole, like it swallowed everything else.
The worst part wasn't hunger. It wasn't cold. It was forgetting. The way his name felt strange on his tongue, the way mirrors showed a gaunt, unshaven stranger. He missed himself.
He used to laugh. Used to dream. Now his only wish was to survive the night.
He sat for hours, time blurring at the edges. The city kept going. Cars passed, people hurried under umbrellas, faces lit by phones and coffee shop windows. They never looked inside. They never saw him.
But tomorrow, he whispered, maybe someone would.
Maybe a new door would open. Maybe someone would answer this time. He could fake a smile again. Lie his way just long enough to be given a chance. One more.
That was all he had left: a fragile sliver of belief that the world hadn't finished with him yet.
He pulled the coat tighter, as if it could hold the pieces of him together.
And in that fragile space between hope and despair, Jonas decided he would not disappear. Not tonight.