STRAW

Inspired by the 2025 Tyler Perry Film

Chapter 1: The Weight of the Day

The day began like most others—too early and too cold.

The hum of the broken space heater was the only sound in the small two-bedroom apartment on Hamilton Street. Janiyah Wiltkinson stirred beneath a tattered blanket on the couch, a couch she hadn’t meant to fall asleep on… again. She blinked her heavy eyes open, the dawn’s gray light peeking through the crooked blinds.

Her back ached, her head throbbed, and her hands were numb with the familiar chill of a winter morning with no working heat.

She reached for her phone—cracked screen, 7% battery—and winced at the time: 5:03 AM.

Before the sun had even thought of rising, Janiyah was already thinking of bills. Of doctors. Of that smell in the bathroom she couldn’t afford to fix. Of the man who hadn’t come back.

But most of all, she was thinking of Aria.

“Mommy…” came the raspy whisper.

Janiyah turned her head toward the hallway. Aria, her 8-year-old daughter, stood there in an oversized hoodie, pale-faced and shivering.

“You okay, baby?” Janiyah asked, pulling herself upright.

Aria nodded, but her breath came in shallow gasps. She coughed, doubling over slightly, and that sound—it was the sound that haunted Janiyah’s sleep.

It wasn’t just a cough. It was an alarm clock. A countdown. A reminder.

Aria had been born with underdeveloped lungs, and every winter was a battle.

“You take your inhaler yet?” Janiyah asked, moving quickly to her.

“I—I can’t find it.”

Janiyah’s face didn’t change. It couldn’t. The panic, the frustration, the rage at a system that left women like her with too much responsibility and too few options—it stayed locked inside.

“I’ll find it,” she said, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “You go sit on the bed. Wrap up in the blanket with the bears on it. I’ll get your meds before school.”

Aria nodded. She was quiet like her mother. Stronger than she should’ve had to be.

As soon as the little girl was out of sight, Janiyah leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

One more thing.

Just one more thing.

That morning, she dressed in silence. Black jeans. Faded sneakers. A maroon work shirt with someone else’s name stitched on it because the diner never gave her a new one. Her name wasn’t “Tasha,” but she wore the badge anyway.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her boss, Greg.

“Don’t be late. You’re already on thin ice.”

She muttered something under her breath and stuffed her phone into her coat.

Bus Stop Blues

At the corner of Hamilton and North 5th, Janiyah waited with her hands buried deep in her pockets. The bus was late. Again.

An older woman beside her struck up conversation, as she often did.

“Morning, baby,” she said. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t,” Janiyah said without looking up.

“You workin’ doubles again?”

“Triple, if you count worryin’ as a shift.”

The woman chuckled but stopped when she saw Janiyah’s face. There wasn’t even a smile. Just that same stone-still look. Like if she blinked wrong, she’d fall apart.

Another Blow

The diner was loud, hot, and full of chaos by 7:15 AM.

Greg, the owner, barked orders from behind the counter. He was a big man with a bigger ego, the kind of boss who acted like paying minimum wage made him a saint.

“Janiyah,” he snapped. “You’re late.”

“I’m seven minutes early.”

“You’re always late in attitude.”

She bit her tongue. She needed this job. She needed the check. Aria needed the medicine. Rent was due. No time to argue.

She tied on her apron and started pouring coffee.

By 9:00, she had burned her hand on a pot. By 9:15, a customer complained about eggs being too runny. At 9:30, she overheard Greg laughing with another server about how he only kept her around for “diversity optics.”

And by 10:00, he fired her.

No warning. No write-up. Just: “You’re not cut out for this anymore, Janiyah. Maybe try being a babysitter or something. You got that mom look.”

Cracks in the Mask

Janiyah didn’t cry.

She picked up her final paycheck from the back office. It was half of what she was owed, but she didn’t argue. She just left.

Outside, the city roared. Horns. Sirens. Cold wind. People walking fast past pain they didn’t want to see.

Janiyah stood there for a long time.

Alone.

That was when it happened—an explosion of noise behind her.

She turned just in time to see two men in ski masks rush into the diner with guns.

She dropped to the sidewalk. Glass shattered. Screams tore through the air.

Gunshots.

Then silence.

When she looked up, one of the men was crawling toward the door, bleeding.

And inside… Greg was slumped over the register, unmoving.

Janiyah's heart pounded.

One of the robbers dropped his gun.

And before she even realized what she was doing, she picked it up.

And ran.

To Be Continued...

The Girl Who Stayed
Chapter 1: The New Girl, Again

She walked through the heavy double doors of Eastwind High with the same quiet grace she always carried. Her boots clicked softly against the worn linoleum floors, her eyes scanning the hallway not for popularity or power—but for pain. That’s what she always looked for. The quiet kids. The ones hunched over their books during lunch. The ones who spoke in whispers or not at all. The ones who cried in bathroom stalls or stared out windows like they were trapped in a cage.

Her name changed every few decades, but this time she called herself Elara Wren.

She looked about seventeen—long chestnut hair, slightly curled at the ends, and eyes like storm clouds holding secrets they couldn’t rain out. Her smile was soft but rare. Most people forgot it seconds after seeing it. That was her magic. That was her curse.

Elara was immortal.

She didn’t remember how it started. Maybe she made a deal with a god or broke some rule of fate long ago. All she knew now was that she couldn’t die, and she didn’t age—not since her seventeenth birthday over 300 years ago. But she wasn’t here to chase love or riches.

No, she had a mission. A purpose.

She helped the forgotten.

Every generation, Elara chose a new high school, enrolled herself, and found the underdogs—the bullied, the broken, the ones who wouldn’t make it without her. She helped them rise. She helped them believe. She stayed just long enough to change their lives before time pulled her forward, always to the next school, the next forgotten kid.

And every time, when her friends got older and started talking about college and marriage and adult things she’d never get to experience, she disappeared. Quietly. Without goodbye.

That was the rule.

Until David.

Elara had only been at Eastwind High for two weeks when she noticed him. Not because he was loud. Quite the opposite.

David Reyes sat in the back of the classroom, always sketching in the corner of his notebook. Not superheroes or monsters—just faces. Real ones. Sad ones. His hair was messy in a way that wasn’t styled to look messy. He wore headphones even when there was no music. And he never spoke unless spoken to, like his words cost too much to waste.

Elara noticed him the way a lighthouse notices a storm.

She’d helped kids like David before. Quiet artists. Lonely boys. But there was something different about him. Something she couldn’t name.

The first time they spoke, it was because of an accident.

She was carrying her lunch tray in the cafeteria when someone behind her bumped into her shoulder, making her trip. Her food spilled all over the floor—and David.

She gasped, horrified. "Oh my God, I’m so sorry!"

He stood slowly, wiping mashed potatoes from his hoodie.

"Not your fault," he said, his voice low, almost surprised that someone was talking to him.

She scrambled for napkins. "Here. Let me help."

He shook his head. "I’ve been through worse."

She laughed. Not mockingly. Just... softly. “Well, now you’ve been through cafeteria war. That’s gotta be worth a Purple Heart.”

A smile twitched on his lips. The first one she’d seen.

After that, he started waiting for her after third period. At first, just to nod hello. Then to walk her to class. Then to sit with her during lunch. He never said much, but when he did, it mattered.

Over the next few months, Elara did what she always did. She found the misfits—the girl who wore only black and spoke to no one, the boy with stutters and bruises, the kid who sat in the library every lunch pretending to read while holding back tears.

She helped them. She lifted them up.

But she kept returning to David.

And he kept letting her.

That was the beginning of the problem.

Because Elara had never stayed for someone before. She was supposed to move on.

But with David, the idea of leaving felt like dying—even though she couldn’t.

The Girl Who Stayed

Chapter 2: The Rule of Ghosts

There was an unspoken rule in Elara’s life:
Never stay long enough to be remembered.

She’d learned that the hard way in 1832, when she stayed too long in a village schoolhouse in France. She was called a witch that time—thrown out before she could say goodbye to the boy she’d taught to read and dream again. She never made that mistake again.

For nearly three hundred years, Elara lived like a ghost in the world of the living. Floating from one life to another, always vanishing before her absence could hurt.

But with David, the rule was starting to slip.

He remembered everything.

The way she scrunched her nose when thinking. The songs she hummed. The exact spot on her cheek where a dimple appeared when she laughed too hard.

“You don’t act like other people,” he told her once as they sat on the bleachers during gym, watching the sky instead of playing dodgeball. “You listen like... like you’ve been waiting forever for someone to say something real.”

She’d smiled, because she couldn’t tell him the truth:
She had.

There was something broken in David—Elara could feel it the way you can feel a storm coming in your bones. His drawings got darker over the weeks: eyes without faces, hands reaching out of water, people staring into mirrors that didn’t show reflections.

She wanted to ask about them, but he always shrugged.

“I draw what I see,” he said.

“What do you see?” she asked softly.

“Things most people look away from.”

Elara understood that. She had lived lifetimes watching people pretend not to see pain.

But not David.

And that’s what scared her.

Because David wasn’t like the others she helped. He didn’t need a shove into the light. He was already walking into darkness, dragging his hope behind him like a fraying kite.

One rainy afternoon, Elara found him behind the art building. His backpack was on the ground. His fists were clenched.

She sat beside him without speaking.

He didn’t look at her. “You ever feel like you’re a placeholder? Like... life didn’t really want you, so it just stuck you in an empty seat and forgot to write you into the story?”

Elara inhaled slowly. “Yes,” she said.

He turned toward her, surprised.

She met his eyes. “For a long time.”

David looked down. “Most people just tell me I’m being dramatic.”

“You’re not.”

And that was all it took. A flicker. A crack in the armor he’d built around himself.

From that day, he opened more.

He showed her his sketchbooks, his favorite abandoned bookstore, the secret rooftop he climbed to when the world felt too heavy.

She listened.

She laughed with him.

She told herself it was just another mission—just another lost soul to guide.

But that was a lie.

Because she was the one getting lost.

Elara usually stayed in one school for a year. Sometimes two, if needed.

She had been at Eastwind for two and a half.

And the other underdogs she helped? They were thriving now. Juno had started a goth poetry club. Miles won first place in the science fair. Toby no longer hid in the library.

Her work was done.

But she hadn’t left.

She hadn’t left... because of David.

Because when she imagined the next school, the next lonely soul, she didn’t feel purpose anymore.

She felt empty.

And the rule—the sacred, ancient rule she’d followed for centuries—felt like a chain now.

Leave before they love you. Leave before you love them.

But it was too late.

Because she loved him.

Chapter 3: Shadows and Secrets

Elara’s nights became restless. The usual calm she carried like a shield began to crack. When she closed her eyes, she saw David’s face — tired but hopeful, sketching under a flickering streetlamp, carrying the weight of worlds too heavy for one boy.

One night, she stood by the window of her room in the old Eastwind house she rented near the school. The moon hung low and full, casting silver light over the trees. A cold breeze slipped through the cracked window, but she didn’t move to shut it. Instead, she whispered to the empty air:

“I don’t want to leave.”

It was the first time she said it aloud.

For centuries, Elara had kept her immortality a secret. She had learned that some truths were too heavy, too dangerous to share.

But with David? She felt the pull to be real — even if it meant risking everything.

David was a puzzle she wanted to solve, but he also guarded his heart like a fortress. Sometimes, when she asked about his past, his lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes darkened with pain.

One afternoon, she found him sitting alone by the creek that ran behind the school. His sketchbook lay open, but his pencil was still.

“I don’t want to be the guy everyone feels sorry for,” he said without looking up.

Elara sat beside him. “You’re not.”

He scoffed. “Try telling that to my dad. He left. Like I was a mistake.”

Her heart clenched, but she kept her voice steady. “That’s not your fault.”

David finally met her eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“No,” she said, “but I know what it’s like to carry the weight of forever alone.”

His eyes searched hers, and something flickered—maybe trust, maybe hope.

Days turned into weeks. Elara and David grew closer in quiet ways — shared glances, half-smiles, the comfort of silence that didn’t feel lonely.

But Elara felt the pull of her secret growing stronger. The truth was an invisible wall between them, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up.

One night, after a late study session, David walked her home.

They stopped under the old oak tree near her front porch.

“Why do you stay here?” he asked suddenly. “Most people would’ve moved on by now.”

Elara looked at the ground, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag.

“I’m waiting,” she whispered.

“For what?” His voice was soft, searching.

“For someone who can make me want to stay.”

David’s face softened, and he reached out, brushing a stray hair from her cheek.

Elara’s breath hitched.

She wasn’t supposed to want this. She wasn’t supposed to let herself feel.

But there, under the ancient oak tree, the immortal girl and the broken boy found something fragile and real—a moment neither wanted to end.