The neon lights outside our window used to flicker and buzz, casting jagged shadows across our tiny room. I’d sit by that window, staring out at the city’s electric sprawl, wondering if I was teaching her to survive or just survive longer. It wasn’t exactly a fairytale upbringing. I never asked to be anyone’s role model, let alone a parent. But life doesn’t always hand you choices. It was just the two of us, me and Nova, left to carve out some kind of life in a world that doesn’t leave much space for the likes of us. She’s got this look in her eyes—half fire, half steel. The kind of look that makes me think maybe, just maybe, she’ll make it out of this city better than I ever did. Her laugh—rare as it is—sounds like breaking glass, sharp and a little dangerous. But when I hear it, I know I’ve done something right.

Nova was just a kid when things went south. I barely had my own sea legs steady, yet here I was, tasked with teaching her how to stand. I’d give anything to shield her from the ugliness out there, but the reality? I couldn’t. So instead, I armed her. With the grit to face it, the smarts to navigate it, and the heart to rise above it.

Every night, as the neon lights bled into our window, I’d sit, just like this, looking over the city and wondering if I was doing right by her. I had to be her sister, her parent, her protector—all at once. And if I messed up, well, there was no safety net. Just another street-ready lesson learned the hard way.

Nova and I? We’re cut from the same cloth—scarred, frayed, and tougher than anything that tries to break us. She’s my sister in arms, the only one I trust at my back when the world closes in. And in a place like this, trust is currency. She’s out there somewhere, carving her own path through this city. I just hope I taught her enough.

So yeah, we didn’t get the white-picket-fence life. But we got each other. And in this city? That’s everything.