With You (You, Only You #1)

Chapter 1 Claire

The thing about rock bottom is that nobody warns you it comes with paperwork.

The eviction notice wasn't even in an envelope. It was just a bright, yellow piece of paper taped crookedly to my apartment door, shouting its message to anyone who cared to look.

NOTICE TO VACATE.

Seventy-two hours before the locks changed. Seventy-two hours to figure out where a twenty-six-year-old former teacher with thirty-three dollars to her name was supposed to go.

"Fantastic," I muttered to no one, my key scraping too loud in the lock. "Really love this for me."

I pushed the door open, peeled the notice off, and let it flutter to the floor, where I didn't have to look at it anymore. I'd memorized the first one a week ago anyway, along with the termination letter from the school district that had preceded it.

Budget cuts, they'd said, though Superintendent Morrison's tight smile and the way he couldn't meet my eyes told the real story.

I'd advocated too loudly for students in the free lunch program.

I'd questioned why the annual theater production required parent donations that half the kids couldn't afford. I'd made myself a problem.

Problems got solved with pink slips.

The apartment greeted me with its particular perfume, lemon cleaner fighting a losing war against damp and old carpet. Spoiler: the damp was winning.

"Home sweet home," I said to the water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like Abraham Lincoln. Abe didn't respond. Rude.

I leaned against the closed door and tried to swallow the lump of panic that had taken up permanent residence in my throat.

Yesterday's final paycheck was already a ghost, vanished into the digital void: overdue electricity, a dent in the water bill, the minimum on a credit card gasping for air.

And at the bottom of my banking app, the final balance, the sum of my life: $33. 18.

Rock bottom, I was learning, wasn't a dramatic crash. It was standing in my apartment that smelled like mildew and broken dreams, realizing I couldn't afford both dinner and dignity.

My stomach growled, proving that exact point. Regardless, I chose to ignore it.

I couldn't stay here, trapped with the ghost of my failures and that yellow paper on the floor, the silence pressing in until I couldn't breathe.

I needed air, even if the weather outside was threatening rain.

I grabbed my worn canvas tote, shoved the last of the stale sandwich bread into it, and escaped.

The park was a ten-block walk, a patch of green life between rows of aging brick buildings. The clouds had turned a deep gray with dark shadows, the kind that made farmers weep during harvest and women empty the clothesline early.

Parents were already herding children toward home, a dad with a stroller in one hand and phone in the other, a mom calling for a toddler in a red jacket who was determined to conquer the slide one last time.

"Five more minutes!" the toddler shrieked.

"You said that ten minutes ago!" the mom called back.

I almost smiled. Almost.

I found an empty bench with peeling green paint and sat down to perform my familiar, pointless ritual. Tear off a piece of bread. Crumble it on the ground. Watch the pigeons descend.

"Okay, guys," I announced to my feathered audience. "Dinner is served."

They didn't care about my bank balance or where I'd sleep next week. They just wanted the bread. One particularly aggressive pigeon that I had named Greg kept shouldering the others aside with zero shame, his beady eyes fixed on me like I owed him money.

"Same energy, Greg," I muttered, tossing him an extra piece. "Same energy."

A smaller pigeon, gray with an iridescent neck, pecked timidly at the edges of the group.

"Don't let him push you around," I advised her. "Stand up for yourself. Be assertive."

She cooed and retreated further.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Me too."

I was tearing another piece when I felt eyes on me, human ones this time.

Two benches over, a little girl sat alone.

She was small, maybe six or seven, with dark braided hair and a puffy blue jacket that seemed to swallow her whole.

Her legs swung slightly, not quite reaching the ground.

She wasn't crying or searching for anyone…

just watching me with an unsettlingly solemn expression, like she was trying to figure something out.

The teacher in me, the part that never fully switched off, kicked in automatically. I offered a warm smile and a small wave.

She didn't wave back. Just stared for a moment, then looked down at her hands.

Her parents are probably at the playground, I reasoned, glancing toward where families still lingered.

A boy around her age was attempting the monkey bars while his father watched him.

Two girls chased each other around the sandbox, shrieking with laughter.

A woman sat on a nearby bench scrolling her phone while a stroller rocked beside her.

Plenty of kids. Plenty of parents. The girl was fine.

I turned away and fumbled with the small silver locket I always wore, the clasp cold under my fingers.

It opened with a faint click. Inside, the photo was faded, colors bleeding at the edges, but the woman's smile was still achingly familiar.

Auburn hair, my hair, falling in soft waves.

Eyes that held light before life extinguished it.

My mother. Pamela Cross in her one good dress.

“How did I end up just like you?” The question was a silent weep. I'd promised myself stability. Security. Better choices. I'd clawed my way to a teaching degree, a savings account, a decent enough apartment, and a life that looked nothing like the chaos of my childhood.

But here I was. Unemployed. Penniless. Facing the street.

Mom had left for the grocery store when I was twelve and simply hadn't come back. Just a note on the kitchen table: "Be good, Claire. I need to find some air." She'd returned six months later, a broken ghost smelling of stale cigarettes and defeat.

And I, the desperate child, had spent seven years trying to fix her. Cooking meals she wouldn't eat. Reading library books aloud, keeping our shabby apartment spotless. All while a terrifying chant lived in my chest: If I am enough, she will stay. If I am perfect, she will love me.

She died when I was nineteen. A quiet, chemical end to a long sadness. And I was left with a deep belief that, at all times, love was a transaction. Something earned through usefulness. I feared, with the truest of convictions, that the moment you stopped being needed, you'd be thrown away.

A cold droplet hit my cheek. Then another on my hand.

"Perfect timing," I told the sky. "Really excellent work up there."

The sky, like Abraham Lincoln and my bird friends, did not respond.

I shoved the locket back under my sweater and stood as the drizzle became steady rain. The park emptied fast, parents scooping up kids, everyone scattering for cover. The toddler in the red jacket was finally surrendering to her mother, wailing about the unfairness of the weather.

I passed the little girl's bench on my way to the exit. She was still there. Sitting. The rain was beginning to darken the shoulders of her blue jacket.

I hesitated. My feet slowed.

Go check. Just ask if she's okay.

Not every child sitting alone is abandoned, Claire. You're projecting your own damage onto a random kid at the park. I chastised myself.

Surely one of these parents heading toward the parking lot was hers. Surely someone was coming for her.

I was soaked already, and exhausted, and drowning in my own disaster, so I tucked my head down and kept walking.

I didn't look back.

The walk home felt twice as long in the rain.

My thin cardigan was soaked through by the time I stumbled into my apartment, which somehow felt smaller and more desolate than before.

I peeled off the wet layers, changed into sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and was contemplating the profound emptiness of my cupboard when someone knocked at the door.

A gentle sound, it was almost a light tapping.

"Probably Mrs. Gable," I muttered, shuffling over. "Coming to share in the communal misery of our impending homelessness."

I opened the door. Already steadying my eyes to meet an adult-sized person, and yet, at that exact height, there was only cold air. I looked down and found her.

The little girl from the park stood on my worn welcome mat, utterly drenched.

Rain plastered her dark braids to her head and streamed down a face that was far too pale.

She was shivering violently, teeth chattering, a huge backpack strapped to her small frame like she was heading off to conquer Mount Everest instead of escaping from. .. what?

My heart stopped.

"Oh my god." I dropped to my knees, bringing myself to her level. "Sweetheart, how did you… Where are your parents?"

Her gray-blue eyes, fringed with wet lashes, filled with a misery that had nothing to do with the cold. Her lip trembled.

"Aunt Victoria said..." She stopped. Swallowed hard. "She said Daddy doesn't love me. That he wouldn't even care if I disappeared."

For a moment, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but stare at this shivering child who helplessly reached out to the closest person she could find.

"No." My voice came out fierce, almost angry. "No, honey, that's not true. That could never be true." I reassured her even though I had no idea what the reality of things was.

"But she said—"

"I don't care what she said." I pulled her gently inside, closing the door on the damp hallway. "Grown-ups say wrong things sometimes. Cruel things. That doesn't make them true."

Her lower lip wobbled. "Promise?"

"I promise." I guided her toward the couch. "Now let's get you warm, okay? Can you tell me your name?"

"M-Millie," she managed through chattering teeth.