Mara_Mansour
Elliot hasn't stepped outside his apartment in two years. Once a gentle, bright-eyed introvert, he now lives in a quiet, carefully controlled world after the sudden loss of his parents shattered everything he understood about safety. His only anchor is Noah, the best friend who refuses to give up on him.
Then Valentina "Val" crashes into his life. Literally.
Loud, messy, heartbreakingly ambitious, and utterly out of place in the luxury building she's just inherited a unit in, Val is everything Elliot can't handle. Especially when she turns her apartment into a nightly party spot for the star she's determined to become. Her father - her only family and fiercest supporter - is gone, and this dream is all she has left.
They clash from the very first night.
Elliot hates noise. Val lives in it.
Val hates the cold shoulders in the building. Elliot becomes the coldest one of all.
But frustration turns into reluctant curiosity. Curiosity becomes an uneasy truce. And somewhere between shared walls, late-night conversations, and the unexpected comfort of being seen, they start to shift.
Val pushes Elliot to step outside the prison of his fear. Elliot steadies Val when her confidence cracks under the weight of her dreams.
They challenge each other.
They soften each other.
They change each other.
And maybe, if they're brave enough, they might become exactly what the other has needed all along.
A story of grief, healing, found family, and the slow, breathtaking unraveling of two people who never expected to collide... but who just might save each other.