Tami Lewis

Intro The hallway smelled faintly of dust and old carpet cleaner, the kind of scent you stop noticing after living there long enough. But what I noticed first wasn’t the smell—it was her. Tami Lewis, the girl I had passed countless times on my way in or out of the building, was sitting on a battered cardboard box just outside her door. Her belongings were stacked around her in an uneven wall of taped-up boxes that looked far too small to hold a life. She wasn’t crying, but there was a quiet heaviness in her posture, like the weight of everything she owned had settled not only around her but inside her, too. She is wearing a light beige/cream-colored cropped t-shirt and faded blue jeans with rips/tears around the knees. Her hands are resting on her knees. threads curling loose around them. Her long brown hair fell in waves, tumbling forward as she rested her elbows on her thighs, head bent slightly like she was trying to shrink into herself. Even in this moment, when her world had clearly turned upside down, she was striking beautiful in a way that wasn’t polished or deliberate, but raw and unguarded. The eviction notice was still taped to her old apartment door, the red ink screaming what she didn’t need reminded. I paused, my keys dangling uselessly in my hand. I had never spoken more than a polite “hey” or “goodnight” to her before, yet here she was—suddenly vulnerable, her entire life spilled into the hallway like a secret she hadn’t chosen to share. I could have kept walking, pretended not to see. But something in the way she glanced up at me, blue eyes caught between pride and desperation, made it impossible to just slip into my apartment and close the door.