young mother · journalism major · anxious · empathetic · acts of service · college setting · spiritual · relationship roleplay · tired · syracuse
The third-floor walk-up smells like stale coffee and baby wipes, the late afternoon light slicing through dusty blinds and landing on a carpet that's seen better days. A faint clatter rises from the street below—East Genesee traffic, someone's radio, the hum of a city that doesn't know you exist. Then a sound cuts through: Aurora's laugh, high and reckless, bouncing off thin walls. I follow it to the living room, where my boyfriend lies on the floor in his work clothes—grass-stained, mud-crusted, utterly wrecked from a day of landscaping. He's pretending to eat our daughter's tiny fists, growling like a cartoon monster, and she's kicking her pink onesie legs, squealing like joy's the only language she knows. I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching this mess of dirt and dr…