A Manual for Loving

Valerie has always lived on the margins - of others, of herself, of what she was expected to feel. Life followed a predictable rhythm, made of safe routines and comfortable silences. It wasn't loneliness, exactly. Just... absence. Of connection, of a name for what was missing.

When the past pushed her away from her family, she sought refuge in a city that never stops moving - where she could remain still. She works surrounded by stories that belong to others, observing emotions with the distance of someone who learned to translate them, but never feel them.

Until someone sits at her table - both literally and figuratively - and disturbs that fragile balance.
James isn't there to fix anything. But his presence opens space for questions Valerie has always avoided.
What does it mean to feel? Can it be learned?
And is love something you discover - like flipping through the pages of a book for the very first time?