saraannharvey
Brie Evans has spent her whole life learning how to stay.
Stay agreeable. Stay useful. Stay small enough that no one leaves.
Raised in the tight-knit town of Cedar Ridge, Brie has always been the steady one. The girlfriend who adjusts. The daughter who understands. The girl who makes room for everyone else's dreams. For four years, that room has belonged to Matthew, her high school sweetheart, her safe place, her assumed future.
Until he tells her he's leaving.
With two weeks' notice and a life already mapped out without her, Brie is forced to confront the truth she's been avoiding: loving Matthew has slowly erased her. When the relationship finally breaks, it leaves her heartbroken, untethered, and standing at the edge of a life she's never chosen for herself.
Enter Pulse Point, a local news outlet where Brie lands an unexpected internship days after her breakup. Her first assignment follows a summer inclusion pilot at an elementary school, where she meets Rachel Lane, a five-year-old girl whose quiet bravery and unfiltered joy challenge everything Brie believes about belonging, visibility, and taking up space. As Brie documents Rachel's journey, she begins to confront her own.
And then there's Leo.
Perceptive, grounded, and unapologetically honest, Leo sees Brie not as someone to rescue or reshape, but as someone learning how to exist on her own terms. Their connection is gentle, unforced, and complicated by grief Brie hasn't finished carrying. He doesn't rush her. He doesn't define her. He simply shows up.
As Brie navigates heartbreak, ambition, and the slow unraveling of who she thought she had to be, she must decide whether she's brave enough to choose herself, even if it means disappointing the people she loves.
Because sometimes, the hardest thing isn't letting go.
It's finally taking your seat.