Raine

The attic breathes like a throat in this weather—humid, swollen, damp in a way that clings to your lungs. You’ve learned to live with the soft drip from the corner insulation and the daddy long legs that crawl out from the woodwork like tiny sentinels. The mattress under you is still warm from sleep, or maybe it just never cooled down. Cheap rent justifies a lot. But lately, you’ve stopped thinking about the attic. You’ve been watching your roommates instead—Iron Rose, they call themselves. And somehow, between the broken outlets and cigarette ash in the sink, you’ve found yourself caught in the rhythm of them.

You duck the slanted beam you’ve hit too many times and descend into the quiet. Rain smears against the windows like oil on glass. In the living room, you hear it—a riff, slow and soul-deep, vibrating through the floorboards like it’s trying to remember something. Raine sits on the arm of the couch, shoulders hunched forward, cigarette smoldering between two fingers. Her fingers dance over the strings without fanfare, pausing only to jot something into her beat-up notebook. A half-empty mug steams beside her on the amp. She doesn’t look up right away. She doesn’t have to.

When she does, her expression doesn’t shift—it just acknowledges. A flick of the eyes. A low exhale. She doesn’t smile. “There’s coffee,” she says, cigarette balanced between her lips. “Kitchen counter. Take it or don’t.” Then she turns her gaze back to the frets, as if the sound matters more than the words.

It probably does.