Miles spent most of his days wan­der­ing the vast, sprawl­ing vine­yards near his home, feel­ing the weight of the world press­ing down on him. The famil­iar rows of grapevines, with their dense green foliage, were a tem­po­rary escape from the con­stant pres­sure of school, fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions, and the ever-present shad­ow of his rela­tion­ship with his old­er broth­er, Wyn­ton. Wynton’s anger over the bro­ken bow had cast a long shad­ow over their rela­tion­ship, and the more Miles tried to make amends, the fur­ther he seemed to drift from his broth­er. To com­pli­cate mat­ters, Miles har­bored a secret ability—he could see the souls of dogs, a gift that made him feel even more iso­lat­ed. Hid­ing this gift from oth­ers, he often felt dis­con­nect­ed from the world, like he was liv­ing on the out­skirts of his own life. His inabil­i­ty to share his thoughts and expe­ri­ences with any­one, par­tic­u­lar­ly his fam­i­ly, weighed heav­i­ly on him, mak­ing him retreat fur­ther into the soli­tude of the vine­yards.

Despite the peace­ful set­ting of the vine­yards, Miles could not escape his sense of lone­li­ness and emo­tion­al tur­moil. He longed for a con­nec­tion, a way to feel under­stood by some­one who could see beyond the sur­face. His class­mates, friends, and even his fam­i­ly saw him as the per­fect student—the ide­al son, the one who fol­lowed all the rules. But inside, Miles felt like a cos­mic mis­take, a per­son out of sync with his own body and soul. His emo­tion­al strug­gles only grew more pro­nounced as he with­drew from the activ­i­ties that had once been his refuge, such as track, math club, and vol­un­teer­ing. After a par­tic­u­lar­ly dra­mat­ic exit from a track meet, Miles had not returned to school, and each pass­ing day added to his sense of iso­la­tion. His dis­con­nec­tion from every­thing and every­one around him made him ques­tion his own iden­ti­ty, and he found him­self spi­ral­ing into a deep­er state of despair.

Amidst this inter­nal tur­moil, the one con­stant in Miles’s life was his dog, San­dro. Sandro’s loy­al­ty was unwa­ver­ing, and their shared moments of silence allowed Miles to express his emo­tions with­out say­ing a word. In the qui­et com­pan­ion­ship of his dog, Miles found some sem­blance of peace. The two shared a bond that tran­scend­ed words, with San­dro under­stand­ing Miles’s pain in ways that no one else could. But even this con­nec­tion with his dog couldn’t fill the void of lone­li­ness that lin­gered in Miles’s heart. While his bond with San­dro was com­fort­ing, Miles knew deep down that he craved a human connection—someone to under­stand him ful­ly, to see the depths of his strug­gles, and to accept him as he was.

One after­noon, as Miles wan­dered the vine­yards once again, his path crossed with a girl in a vin­tage orange truck. She was parked under the shade of the grapevines, and her pres­ence imme­di­ate­ly caught his atten­tion. She was dif­fer­ent from any­one he had ever met—adorned with tat­toos and sur­round­ed by books, she seemed both mys­te­ri­ous and intrigu­ing. Miles approached her, and their con­ver­sa­tion flowed eas­i­ly, marked by an unspo­ken under­stand­ing between them. Her voice was deep, and there was an unmis­tak­able sad­ness in her eyes that mir­rored his own emo­tion­al state. As they spoke, the girl fum­bled with her keys, clear­ly trou­bled, and Miles instinc­tive­ly tried to com­fort her, though he wasn’t sure how. She shared a quote from Joseph Camp­bell, one that res­onat­ed deeply with Miles, leav­ing him with a sense of awe and curios­i­ty. It felt like their brief inter­ac­tion held some­thing deep­er, some­thing mean­ing­ful that nei­ther of them could ful­ly grasp at the moment.

As the girl drove off, leav­ing behind a lin­ger­ing sense of con­nec­tion, Miles was left with a feel­ing he hadn’t expe­ri­enced in a long time—hope. The encounter had sparked some­thing inside him, a flick­er of emo­tion that he hadn’t real­ized he was capa­ble of feel­ing. For the first time in ages, he felt a sense of long­ing, not just for a con­nec­tion, but for a deep­er under­stand­ing of him­self. He quick­ly scrib­bled down the quote she had shared, as well as the sen­ti­ment from her tat­too, eager to hold onto some­thing from their inter­ac­tion. As her truck slowed and pre­pared to leave, Miles found him­self run­ning toward it, a surge of emo­tion push­ing him for­ward. It was as if he could feel the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a new chap­ter in his life unfold­ing, one where he might final­ly find the con­nec­tion and under­stand­ing he had been search­ing for all along.