The woman looked at me. “How long can we stay?”

“Long enough to make a real plan.”

Her fingers tightened around the key. “No one has ever said that to me before.” That moment gave me more satisfaction than selling my platform for twelve million dollars.

Jason moved to another state after declaring bankruptcy. He found work outside financial advising and slowly disappeared from our shared social circle.

Sydney raised her son in a small apartment near my parents; she and Jason established support through court-supervised arrangements, but they never built the life they had imagined in her living room.

Terrence completed the divorce and returned to the work that had always kept him grounded. A year later he began dating Elena Ruiz, an architect who volunteered at Harbor House.