RISE//REPEAT//REMAIN is live!
RISE//REPEAT//REMAIN began as a question I couldn’t shake: what does it actually take to keep choosing someone, especially when things stop being easy?
Not the cinematic version of love. Not the highlight reel. I mean the quiet, stubborn, sometimes messy act of staying.
This collection lives in that space.
At its core, RISE//REPEAT//REMAIN follows Ryan and Michaela through moments that aren’t always dramatic, but are always defining. The kind of moments that don’t look like turning points until you realize later that everything shifted there. A conversation that went a little too far. A silence that lingered a little too long. A choice that seemed small but wasn’t.
The title itself is a cycle, not a progression.
To rise is to try again. To repeat is to fall into patterns, both good and bad. To remain is the hardest part of all. It is the decision to stay present, to stay connected, to stay when leaving would be easier.
I wasn’t interested in writing a perfect relationship. I wanted something that felt lived in. Something that could hold tension and tenderness at the same time.
Ryan and Michaela don’t always get it right. They misunderstand each other. They carry their own histories into every interaction. They react instead of respond. But they also learn. They circle back. They try again.
That “again” matters to me.
Because love, at least the kind that lasts, is rarely about getting it right the first time. It is about what happens after. After the argument. After the distance. After the moment where you could walk away and don’t.
Structurally, this project reflects that idea. Instead of a single continuous narrative, RISE//REPEAT//REMAIN is told through interconnected short fiction. Each piece stands on its own, but together they build a fuller picture of who these characters are and how they evolve.
It mirrors how we experience relationships in real life. Not as one clean arc, but as a series of moments we return to, reinterpret, and carry forward.
There is also something deeply intentional about the tone of these stories. They lean into emotional intimacy. Into the weight of unspoken things. Into the push and pull between vulnerability and self-protection.
And yes, there is heat. There is chemistry. But it is always grounded in what these characters mean to each other. The physical is never separate from the emotional. It is an extension of it.
This project has also been shaped in real time. Shared in pieces. Written alongside conversations with readers. It exists not just as a finished product, but as something that has grown, shifted, and deepened as I’ve worked on it.
That process matters just as much as the final collection.
RISE//REPEAT//REMAIN is, ultimately, about endurance. Not in a heavy, punishing sense, but in a human one. The kind that asks: can we keep showing up for each other, even when we’re tired, even when we’re unsure, even when it would be easier not to?
There isn’t a single answer to that question.
But these stories explore what it looks like to try.