Tessa

Some nights, when the city quieted down and Moose snored softly at the foot of her bed, Tessa couldn’t help but think about home.

About the life she’d left behind.

It wasn’t a bad life.
Not on paper.

A close-knit town. Familiar streets. Sunday dinners with family that stretched until the stars came out. Friends who knew her too well.
People who thought they knew exactly who she was supposed to become.

And maybe that was the problem.

Tessa had always been more.
Too restless. Too curious. Too hungry for something she couldn’t even name.
She loved her parents, loved the friends she’d grown up with.
But somewhere between senior year and her twenty-fifth birthday, she realized she didn’t fit neatly into the life waiting for her.

Not the cozy engagement ring talks.
Not the small-town photography studio everyone expected her to open.
Not the steady rhythm of predictability.

So she packed up her beat-up car, strapped Moose into the passenger seat, and drove until the skyline shifted and the air felt different.

She found the listing for this apartment online — cheap enough to afford, nice enough to feel safe.
Miles was kind, and Lucy even kinder.

The city wasn’t perfect.
Her freelance gigs paid enough to get by, and sometimes only just.

But when she stepped outside each morning, she felt like her life was her own.
And that, she thought, was worth everything.

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Graham

Graham wasn’t lonely.
At least, that’s what he told himself.

He had Miles.
And Lucy, by extension.
Moose, now, if he was being honest — even though he pretended otherwise.

That was enough.

It had to be enough.

Growing up, Graham learned early that people were temporary.
Friends moved.
Family disappointed.
Trust broke like thin ice.

His father had left when he was ten, a shadow slipping through the front door in the middle of the night.

His mother stayed.
But she wasn’t the same after that.

Graham built walls the way other kids built treehouses.
Brick by stubborn brick.
By the time he was old enough to move out, he had already decided: fewer attachments meant fewer chances to get hurt.

Miles was the exception — the one person stubborn enough to climb over those walls and stay.

And Lucy — sweet, persistent Lucy — made herself at home right alongside him.

But that was it.

Graham didn’t do casual friendships.
He didn’t open his heart on a whim.

People disappointed you.
It was just a fact.

So he worked hard. Kept to himself. Lived a life that made sense on paper: numbers, ledgers, safe, predictable things.

And when something — or someone — disrupted that quiet system, it unsettled him more than he liked to admit.

Like a bright, laughing girl with a camera and a dog that insisted on loving him, no matter how much he tried to stay distant.

Graham stared at his darkened ceiling, listening to the hum of the city outside his window.

Maybe — just maybe — it was time to reconsider a few of his old rules.