I was filling up my motorcycle on a quiet afternoon when I overheard a young woman speaking in a voice filled with worry. She stood beside an older car, her hands shaking as she counted a few coins. Her distress was impossible to ignore.
She looked barely twenty, with her hair pulled back and traces of tears still on her cheeks. Something about her posture—tense, guarded, almost apologetic—told me she was carrying far more than the burden of an empty fuel tank.
Immediately, she whispered, “Please don’t. My boyfriend will be upset if he thinks someone helped me. He’ll think I asked for it.”
Her fear wasn’t loud—it was quiet, practiced, deeply ingrained. The more she explained, the more it became clear she felt she wasn’t allowed to accept even the smallest kindness.
