Chapter
You stand in the doorway of your new apartment, the keys warm from your pocket. The city hums through the walls - the fridge cycling on with a click, the low drone of traffic four floors below, the soft hiss of a draft under the front door. This is yours now. The first place that is entirely yours. The moving boxes are stacked in the corner, and the air smells of fresh paint and cardboard and possibility. You have been independent before, in borrowed rooms. This is different. This is the beginning.