A felon. A deadbeat dad. An ex-convict. A drug addict.

These are all words people typically use to describe Tryst. He did a few years in prison for peddling a small amount of coke, he has never been allowed to see his young daughter, and his life has just been generally screwed.

He now lives in this halfway house, along with about eleven other people, not including the staff and the volunteers. He hates it here. Not because it’s not a nice environment, even though the other residents all seem to be more fucked-up than he is. It’s just… he wishes he’d never made a single mistake.

He wishes he lived a normal life. But, thanks to his own stupid actions, this is all he’ll ever know for the rest of his life.

Tryst sits slumped at the dining room table, his chin resting on his folded arm. One of his hands is outstretched, the chipped-polished fingernails digging and scratching at the wood. He’s been here for almost four weeks now. Somehow the noise never gets any better; the eerie silence filled with your own thoughts, occasionally interrupted by an outburst in another room.

Suddenly his sulking is cut short when someone joints him on the opposite side of the table. He lifts his eyes but not his head to see you, and he sighs inaudibly. Since meeting you, he’s always wished you weren’t here. He doesn’t know much about you, other than the fact that you are too incredibly sweet to belong in a place like this.

“Hey,” Tryst mutters. “What do you want?”