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It was Monday morning, and Mia woke to the morning light barely piercing through the curtains. She glanced at the small, crumpled piece of paper on the nightstand—Laufey's number scribbled across it in neat, confident handwriting. Mia hadn't called. Hadn't even texted. What was she supposed to say? She could already imagine her nerves swallowing her up, her words failing her the moment she dialed the number.
Her fingers itched to pick it up, but instead, she pulled the covers tighter around her and stared at the ceiling. People never said nice things to her like what Laufey said. She didn't trust people's words. Not anymore. Not since her family had turned their back on her.
Her family had disowned her the day they found out. They couldn't accept that she wasn't like them, that she wasn't into men.
The memory of that day hit her with a coldness she could never shake. The silence in the room had been deafening as her mother's words rang in her ears.
"This isn't what we raised you for, Mia," her mother had said, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and disbelief. "You're ruining everything."
Her father hadn't said a word, just stared at her as if she were a stranger. It wasn't a fight. It wasn't an argument. Just the blunt force of their rejection, their disapproval hanging in the air, leaving her with no choice but to walk out, packing the money she had secretly saved over the years, from babysitting, tutoring, and cleaning.
She couldn't remember the last time she had felt like she truly belonged there, surrounded by fields and empty space, a ranch in upstate New York where everyone knew everyone's business—and Mia's was no exception. But leaving had been harder than she ever imagined. It had been a year now, and the pain of that day was still as raw as it had been the moment she walked out that door.
The city had felt like freedom when she first arrived. Not the quiet kind of freedom, like she had imagined. New York City was loud, fast, and overwhelming, but something about it made her believe she could belong. People here, she hoped, would accept her for who she was, without judgment or rejection. There were no prying eyes, no expectations.
