Not right away.
Because this wasn’t the kind of win I was used to.
I was used to praise that didn’t ask for permanence. Applause that faded by morning. Compliments that came with the assumption I wouldn’t be around long enough to need more.
But this? This was acommitment.
A place. A plan. A timeline.
Three months of staying.
Three months of showing up.
Three months of no exits.
And I wanted it.
I really, actually,viscerallywanted it.
Which is probably why it scared the shit out of me.
I didn’t tell anyone right away.
I closed the email, opened a blank page in my sketchbook, and drew instead.
The studio space they’d described—high ceilings, wide windows, shared walls.
I drew it from memory. From hope. From want.
And then I drew myself inside it.
Harper foundme on the back steps, barefoot, sipping lukewarm coffee and pretending I hadn’t just made a decision that might reroute the rest of my life.
She sat beside me, handed me a piece of toast with strawberry jam, and said nothing for a minute.
Then: “You got in, didn’t you?”
I didn’t ask how she knew. She always knew.
“I did,” I said.
She looked at me. Really looked. “Are you going to say yes?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Then nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I am.”
She smiled. “Good.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s everything.”
Later that day,I walked the neighborhood. I passed the park, the little mural someone painted over the broken retaining wall, the shop windows half-decorated for a summer festival I’d forgotten was coming.
This was a town I’d only ever visited in fragments. In weekends. In memory.
