Josh wakes up the way he does most nights. Not suddenly, but like sleep never fully claimed him to begin with.
He sits up on the couch and blinks at the room, hair sticking out in three different directions. Neon from the street bleeds faintly through the blinds. I am still at the desk, laptop closed now, staring at nothing like it might explain itself if I wait long enough.
"You done pretending to work," he asks, voice rough, "or are we still in the ritual phase of adulthood?"
I do not turn around. "I was working."
"Liar," he says mildly. "You have the posture of someone losing an argument with themselves."
I snort despite myself.
Josh swings his legs off the couch and pads into the kitchen. The floor creaks under his weight. He opens the fridge, stares into it like it might have changed its mind since dinner, then closes it again.
"We need groceries," he says.
"We always need groceries."
"That's capitalism," he replies, filling a glass with water. He drinks, then leans against the counter, studying me in that way he has learned to do without announcing it.
The silence stretches. It is familiar. Lived in.
Then he says it, casual enough to pretend it means nothing.
"We should write something together."
I finally turn in my chair. "We do write together."
"No," he says, shaking his head. "We write next to each other. That's not the same thing."
I rotate fully toward him. "Josh."
"Just hear me out."
I sigh. "I know what you're going to say."
"Unlikely," he says. "I improvise."
He crosses his arms, energy creeping into his posture like a spark caught hold. "You read all day. You think in margins. You see structure before anyone else does. And I," he gestures at himself, "have plot coming out of my ears. It makes sense."
"It doesn't," I say immediately.
He frowns. "That was fast."
"I need control," I say, sharper than I intend. I try again, quieter. "Writing is private. It has to be."
Josh watches me for a moment. There is a pause, just long enough to feel intentional.
"You say that like it's a diagnosis."
"It is," I say. "For me."
He pushes off the counter and paces the small kitchen, barefoot and restless. "You treat collaboration like exposure. Like I'm asking to read your diary."
"You are," I say before I can stop myself.
He freezes.
Outside, a siren passes and fades. The city fills the gap.
Josh turns back slowly. "That's not fair."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"You did," he says. Not angry. Just precise. "You think if someone else touches the work, it stops being safe."
I look away.
He exhales, a short laugh that does not quite reach humor. "You know what I think?"
I do not answer.
"I think you're afraid the story will stop obeying you."
"That's not true."
"You want to be the only one who decides where it hurts," he continues. "Because if someone else helps shape it, you lose control over where the knife lands."
I stand up. "That's enough."
Josh does not raise his voice. "I'm not trying to take anything from you, Ash. I'm trying to build something with you."
"I don't need help."
"That's never been true," he says quietly.
The words land heavier than he means them to.
I rub my face with both hands. "Look. I'm glad you're writing. I really am. But my work comes from a place that isn't shareable."
"Dangerous," he says softly.
"Yes."
Josh studies me, something gentler in his expression now. "People don't protect things that hard unless they already know they could survive being seen."
I let out a short laugh. "You give me too much credit."
"I give the work credit," he says.
Another silence settles. He lifts his hands in surrender.
"Fine. Not now. But don't say never."
I do not answer.
He turns back toward the couch, then pauses. "Just so you know," he adds, "I don't see threat where you see it. I see room."
He lies down again, blanket pulled to his chest, already slipping back under.
The apartment quiets.
I return to the desk, the thought echoing louder than I want it to.
Vulnerability has always cost me something.
Josh thinks it might give something back.
I am not ready to test that theory.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
I leave the apartment because staying feels like arguing with my own reflection.
The hallway smells like old paint and fried food from somewhere below. The stairwell light flickers, unreliable rather than dramatic. When I push the front door open, the night hits me with noise before air.
Sirens cut through the dark. Not urgent enough to signal danger. Not distant enough to ignore. Across the street, a group laughs too loudly, the sound of alcohol and postponed consequences. A couple argues on the corner, bodies angled toward each other like neither knows how to leave yet. A bus roars past and someone curses at it like it made a personal decision.
No one looks at me.
That still surprises me.
In Willowbrook, grief made me visible. People softened their voices. Watched my face. Treated me like something fragile that might collapse without warning.
Here, the city does not slow down long enough to notice.
I walk without a destination.
My shoes slap unevenly against the pavement. I pass a glowing bodega, a late-night pharmacy, a closed bookstore with a peeling flyer in the window. Music thumps from an open apartment above me. Glass shatters somewhere out of sight. Life keeps spilling over itself.
I feel small.
Not insignificant. Just accurately scaled.
For the first time all day, my chest loosens a fraction.
I stop at a crosswalk and wait, even though the street is empty. Habit. A reminder that rules exist even when no one enforces them. When the light changes, I cross alone, my shadow stretched thin beneath the streetlamp.
Pain does not interrupt the city.
It does not close shops or silence buses or cancel laughter. It just changes how you move through it.
I walk slower than the crowd. I keep my hands in my pockets. I stay to the edges, choosing streets with more light than shadow. Not out of fear. Out of exhaustion.
Another siren wails. A woman passes me, talking on the phone about something trivial and urgent at the same time. A man brushes my shoulder, muttering an apology that barely exists.
And still, I am here.
Breathing. Moving. Functional enough for the city. Broken in ways it does not care about.
Standing beneath a flickering streetlight no one else seems to notice, I understand something.
The city does not care if I am broken.
Which means it will let me live anyway.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
I end up by the window because it is the quietest place in the apartment.
The glass is smudged with fingerprints that are not mine. Outside, Brooklyn glows in uneven patches. Windows burn like private confessions. A train rattles somewhere in the distance, metal on metal, impatient and steady.
I open the window a few inches. Cold air slips in, sharp and clean. It smells like rain that has not fallen yet and something electrical, like the city is constantly on the verge of failure.
Behind me, Josh's typing slows. Not stops. Just deepens into the rhythm of someone inside a story. I do not turn around.
I lean against the frame and let the noise wash over me. Sirens. Footsteps. Laughter that rises and disappears. Someone arguing about money below. Somewhere else, someone opening a door for someone they love.
None of it reaches me directly.
That feels intentional.
I think about why I came here, and the answer arrives without ceremony.
I did not come to be happy.
That belief feels childish now. Happiness implies reward. A finish line. The idea that endurance eventually earns something permanent.
I came here because staying would have hollowed me out.
I came to work. To read other people's stories. To shape them. To be useful in rooms where words mattered more than history. To wake up tired but needed. To spend my days choosing precision over hope.
In Willowbrook, love had been the center of everything.
It ruined me quietly.
Here, usefulness feels safer.
Necessary things are allowed to exist without explanation.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass. It grounds me. Reminds me I am still solid. Still here. Still capable of taking up space, even if that space is temporary.
I straighten, close the window, and look once more at the city that does not care what I have lost.
If I couldn't be loved, I could at least be necessary.