His career, the one thing that should have giv­en him pur­pose, was fail­ing to do so. After six months of painstak­ing effort, he had just pre­sent­ed his firm’s pro­pos­al for a new com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in Red Hook, a project he had poured him­self into with unwa­ver­ing con­vic­tion. The design was more than just functional—it was bold, mod­ern, and deeply inte­grat­ed into its sur­round­ings, a space that could gen­uine­ly trans­form the neigh­bor­hood. Yet, as soon as he fin­ished speak­ing, he could sense the inevitable rejec­tion set­tling in the air. It was too ambi­tious, too cost­ly, too much. Instead, they would choose some­thing for­get­table, a struc­ture lack­ing soul, devoid of passion—a hol­lowed-out ver­sion of what could have been.

He could already pic­ture it: a drab, unin­spired build­ing, with a life­less brick facade, ster­ile flu­o­res­cent lights, and small win­dows that let in bare­ly enough sun­light to remind peo­ple of the world out­side. It would be a mon­u­ment to medi­oc­rity, a dai­ly reminder to the peo­ple of Red Hook that their com­mu­ni­ty, their aspi­ra­tions, were nev­er wor­thy of any­thing more than the bare min­i­mum. The thought gnawed at him, mak­ing him ques­tion everything—his work, his pur­pose, even his deci­sion to pur­sue archi­tec­ture at all. If cre­ativ­i­ty and ambi­tion were always to be sac­ri­ficed for cost-cut­ting and con­ve­nience, then what was the point?

Instead of head­ing home, he let his feet car­ry him through the rest­less heart­beat of the city, past streets lined with famil­iar yet dis­tant places, places that had once felt alive with pos­si­bil­i­ty. He wan­dered with­out direc­tion, through SoHo, past Chi­na­town, until he found him­self on Lispe­nard Street, stand­ing before the build­ing where Jude and Willem now lived togeth­er. He hadn’t planned on com­ing here, but some­thing about the sight of their home made him pause, made him con­sid­er the kind of life they had cre­at­ed. It was warm, sol­id, built on a foun­da­tion of trust, and it was every­thing he had begun to doubt he could ever have for him­self.

Hes­i­ta­tion gripped him as he stood before the buzzer, his fin­gers hov­er­ing over it for just a moment before he pressed down. A beat lat­er, the door clicked open, and he stepped inside, greet­ed imme­di­ate­ly by the famil­iar scent of Jude’s cook­ing, a scent that had once meant belong­ing. He ascend­ed the stairs, his heart caught between the pull of nos­tal­gia and the ache of present lone­li­ness, know­ing what he would find inside—a world where Jude and Willem exist­ed effort­less­ly togeth­er, shar­ing their lives in a way he couldn’t help but envy.

As he knocked on the door, a com­plex mix of emo­tions welled inside him—relief at being here, unease at being an out­sider in a home that was not his own. Yet, when Willem answered, there was no hes­i­ta­tion in his wel­come, no ques­tion of whether he belonged here in this moment. They ush­ered him inside, made space for him on their couch, placed a plate of food in front of him as if it had been wait­ing for him all along. For a few brief hours, he could for­get the things that haunt­ed him, sink into the warmth of shared con­ver­sa­tion, of easy laugh­ter, of a friend­ship that had nev­er wavered.

But even as he embraced the com­fort of their pres­ence, he knew that when he left—when he returned to his par­ents’ house, to his emp­ty room, to the hol­low uncer­tain­ty of his future—the ache would return ten­fold. The con­trast between this moment of con­nec­tion and the soli­tude that await­ed him would carve into him, sharp and unre­lent­ing. He wasn’t sure which was worse—the lone­li­ness he felt when he was alone, or the way it deep­ened after moments like this, after being remind­ed of what it felt like to belong.