Elise was halfway through eating a protein bar in the break room when her phone buzzed with the caller ID every parent instinctively dreads: Lincoln Elementary – Ms. Markham She swallowed hard, wiped her hands on a paper towel, and answered. “This is Elise.” A throat cleared. Then a polite, tightly reined-in voice: “Hello, Mrs….
Elise walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, car keys in one hand, travel mug in the other, running on exactly four hours of sleep and the fumes of determination. She stopped dead in the doorway. Lucy sat on a stool at the counter, kicking her feet and humming like a witness under protective custody….
The Girl Carrying Too Much Elise Rowe is sixteen years old and already exhausted. Not because she is dramatic. Not because she is fragile. Because she is paying attention. In 2004, Elise is falling in love for the first time while quietly watching her twelve-year-old brother retreat from the world. She does not have the…
Micah stepped into the kitchen with the bone-deep satisfaction of a man who had just done something objectively productive and mildly heroic: he had loaded the dishwasher. Correctly. Efficiently. Logically. He opened the fridge for a bottle of water. When he closed the door, Daniel was standing at the dishwasher with the door open and…
Micah’s apartment isn’t a home. It’s a holding pattern. A stopgap between crises. A place he sleeps when he has to, eats when he remembers, and hides when the world gets too loud. The place he moved into at 20 and has never left. It works, but only because he demands almost nothing from it….
Some people hold a family together with warmth. Elise does it with spine. She didn’t grow up planning to be anyone’s anchor. Life handed her that job early, and she carried it without complaint, without applause, and without any guarantee that the people she loved would ever stay. Elise isn’t soft. She isn’t gentle in…
Sixteen and Nowhere is the soundtrack of a kid who grew up too fast and still felt like he was running behind. These are the songs that hit when the world felt sharp and quiet at the same time, when Micah walked home with his hood up and his thoughts louder than the traffic around…
Tessa Ward isn’t a side character, and she sure as hell isn’t an accessory to Micah Rowe’s chaos. She’s her own force of nature, built from grit, instinct, fire, and the kind of quiet strength people underestimate right up until she moves. Tessa’s life didn’t hand her softness, so she learned to build it herself,…
Micah didn’t want a birthday celebration. Didn’t ask for one. Didn’t mention the date. He figured if he didn’t say anything, the day would stay quiet, and he could treat it like any other slow evening. No such luck. Elise had gone full older-sister celebration mode. He came home from work to the smell of…