Tyler Wilson

His boots are in one corner.
And on the table are his headphones and his phone.
That's pretty much it.
She hasn't decorated the room because she knows she won't be staying there for long. At least, that's the idea.
His savings barely allow him to live on for a month if he carefully manages every dollar. That's why the room doesn't really feel like home to Tyler.
It's a starting point.
A place where he can sleep while he tries to build something more permanent.

Your hotel room
Tyler's room is small and simple.
It has a single bed against a wall, a narrow table by a window, a chair, a small wardrobe, and a private bathroom. The furniture doesn't quite match, and some pieces clearly show their age, but everything is relatively clean.
The window overlooks a street lined with several old buildings. From it, Tyler can observe the lights of the businesses at night and, depending on the time, see people walking along the sidewalk.
He keeps his notebook on the table.
It is probably the object he uses most often these days.
In it, she notes how much money she has, how much she has spent, and what places she needs to visit to look for work. She also writes down addresses, bus schedules, and other small things she needs to remember.
Their belongings take up very little space.
The suitcase is under the bed.
The backpack usually stays next to the chair.
Her clothes are neatly folded inside the small wardrobe because she doesn't want everything to end up messy.

The neighborhood where he lives
Tyler got a room at a budget hotel in a relatively older part of Grayhaven, a bit of a walk from the center. The neighborhood isn't particularly upscale, but it's not completely run-down either. It consists of older residential buildings, small restaurants, laundromats, convenience stores, and independent businesses.
There is a bus stop a few minutes' walk from the hotel, something Tyler considers practically indispensable because he doesn't yet have a car.
During the day, the area is usually quite busy. People are going to work, students are returning from class, delivery drivers are out shopping, and locals are busy. At night it becomes considerably quieter, although it's never completely silent.
And that's still strange for Tyler.
In Bellridge, night could mean absolute silence.
There's always some distant sound here.
A vehicle passing by.
A mermaid.
People talking in the street.
The engine of a bus.
The constant noise of the city.

The city: Grayhaven
The city Tyler moved to is called Grayhaven. It has a population of several hundred thousand and serves as one of the region's major commercial and employment centers. It's a sprawling city, with a downtown area filled with high-rise buildings, very different residential neighborhoods, shopping malls, parks, transportation hubs, and districts that feel like small cities in themselves.
For Tyler, Grayhaven is gigantic.
The first impression she had upon getting off the bus was precisely that: gigantic.
The terminal was bustling with people constantly coming and going. There were announcements everywhere, buses arriving at different platforms, phones ringing, conversations overlapping, and vehicles passing by the glass doors.
Tyler stood by his luggage for a few minutes, trying to process everything.
I had imagined the city many times.
I never imagined it would be so noisy.
In Bellridge, I could walk several blocks without seeing a soul. In Grayhaven, I could step out of the hotel and immediately find myself surrounded by strangers. In the village, I knew the roads practically by heart. Here, I even needed to check my phone to figure out where I was.
The buildings impressed him too. Some had ten, fifteen, or even more floors, something Tyler had rarely seen in person before. During his first few days, he constantly looked up to study them.
Grayhaven was exactly what I had wanted for years.
And at the same time, it was intimidating.

The region
The region around Bellridge is dominated by small rural communities. There is no large city nearby; major towns are several hours away by bus, depending on the destination. The economy is based primarily on agriculture, livestock farming, auto repair shops, small retail stores, and family businesses.
Life there is much slower than in a city. The roads can remain virtually empty for long periods, and at night, the artificial lighting disappears quickly as soon as you move away from the center. From some spots around Bellridge, the stars can be seen very clearly.
Tyler grew accustomed to that silence.
That's why the change was so abrupt when he left the region.
During the bus ride, he watched as the open countryside slowly disappeared. First, larger towns appeared; then, suburbs, multi-lane highways, and increasingly taller buildings. The number of vehicles grew until it became a constant stream.
Tyler then understood that he was truly leaving behind everything he knew.

The people
Bellridge is a small rural town located in an agricultural region of the American heartland. It has just over four thousand inhabitants and is surrounded by vast fields, pastures, and small family farms. It's one of those places where distances seem greater than they actually are because between one property and another there can be miles of narrow roads, trees, and open fields.
For someone who's lived there their whole life, Bellridge might feel peaceful and familiar. For Tyler, after leaving, it also began to feel too small. There weren't many places to hide, few job opportunities, and virtually no space to reinvent himself without someone eventually recognizing him.
It was precisely that feeling of being constantly watched that ended up making Tyler dream of leaving.

Ethan Miller, 18 years old
Ethan Miller was roughly the same age as Tyler and went to the same high school. He was one of the few boys Tyler ever felt truly comfortable with during his early teens.
Ethan was kind to him.
Not in an exaggerated or particularly romantic way, but through small things that meant a great deal to Tyler. She would sit near him during some classes, lend him notes when Tyler was absent, and occasionally stay and chat with him after class. She never seemed to mind that Tyler was quiet.
When Tyler was fifteen, she began to fall in love with him.
It wasn't immediate. First, it was simply about feeling comfortable around him. Then he began to look forward to the days they could talk. Tyler started to wonder if perhaps Ethan felt something similar. Some conversations gave him hope, especially since Ethan seemed to seek out his company even when he could be with other people.
Tyler never got around to confessing it to her.
She was too young and too afraid of ruining the only friendship she felt she truly had.
Then the rumors began.
Someone found out Tyler was gay, and, as often happens in small places, the news spread quickly through the school. Suddenly, some people started making comments about Tyler and Ethan. The jokes implied that they were together or that Tyler was in love with Ethan.
Ethan changed.
She didn't become cruel to Tyler, but she began to distance herself.
First, he stopped sitting next to him. Then he started making excuses to avoid continuing the conversation. When other people made comments, Ethan seemed uncomfortable and avoided getting involved. Tyler could see perfectly well that the situation was making him uncomfortable.
And that was enough to break her heart.

Mother — Elaine Wilson, 44 years old
Elaine is Tyler's mother. Before her son turned fifteen, she was the person Tyler was closest to. She knew his little habits, his favorite foods, the things that worried him, and the stories he didn't dare tell anyone else. During his childhood, Tyler used to spend a lot of time with her at home while Richard was at work.
That's why Elaine's change was especially painful.
When he discovered Tyler was gay, his attitude changed much more drastically than Richard's. He stopped calling him by some of the affectionate nicknames he'd used since childhood and began speaking to him with a coldness Tyler didn't recognize. In the most heated arguments, he even went so far as to tell him he wasn't his son.
Those words were etched in his memory.
Elaine could act as if nothing had happened the next day, but Tyler could never forget them. For a fifteen-year-old boy, hearing from his own mother that she didn't consider him her son shattered a part of the security he had felt at home.
Over time, Elaine grew increasingly distant. Tyler stopped telling her about his life and began spending more time locked in his room. She didn't seem interested in reaching out either. The house became a place where they could spend days together, barely exchanging a few words.

Father — Richard Wilson, 47 years old
Richard is Tyler's father and the man who, for much of his childhood, represented both an authority figure and a source of admiration for him. He is a serious, hardworking, and reserved man, accustomed to resolving problems through action rather than conversation. During Tyler's early years, Richard often took him along to the family business and taught him basic farm tasks. He wasn't particularly affectionate, but Tyler understood his small gestures as signs of affection: a pat on the shoulder, being shown how to use a tool, or being allowed to accompany him during a workday.
The relationship changed when Richard discovered Tyler was gay. At first, he tried to convince himself it was just a phase, but when he realized his son was genuinely attracted to other men, he began to distance himself. He never went so far as to kick him out of the house or tell him outright that he didn't want to see him, but his attitude became much colder and harsher.

For the first time since he had left home, Tyler felt genuine fear.
Not because he wanted to go back, but because he now understood that he was truly alone.
I didn't know anyone.
I didn't have a job.
I had no friends.
And he didn't have a permanent home.
After several hours of searching for options he could afford, he found a small room in a modest hotel. It wasn't much. There was barely enough space for a bed, a small table, a bathroom, and his belongings. However, when he closed the door that first night, Tyler dropped his backpack on the floor and sat on the bed for several minutes.
That room was tiny.
But it was his.
No one was going to tell her what she should be. No one knew her story. No one knew who her parents were.
The problem was that his savings would only last for about a month, and that was only if he was extremely careful with them.
Tyler opened a small notebook and began writing numbers.
Accommodation.
Meal.
Transport.
Phone.
Unexpected expenses.
He recalculated.
Then he did them a third time.
The result remained the same: I needed to find a job as soon as possible.

He traveled by bus for several days.
The journey was exhausting. He spent hours sitting, watching the landscapes gradually change. The countryside gave way to larger roads, then to increasingly numerous towns, and finally to urban areas that seemed to stretch on forever. Tyler slept as best he could, ate simple things, and repeatedly checked his money.
Every time he looked at his phone to check how much he had spent, he felt a small knot in his stomach.
It finally arrived.
And the city was nothing like what he had imagined.
It was too big.
Too many people walking in every direction. Too many vehicles. Too many buildings. Too many lights, advertisements, sounds, and conversations happening simultaneously. Everything seemed to be moving at a speed Tyler couldn't keep up with. Even crossing a street felt strange at first.
She stood for several minutes with her luggage in the terminal, watching people go by while trying to decide what to do first.

By the time he turned eighteen, Tyler had already decided he wouldn't wait any longer.
She didn't leave immediately. She needed to get organized. She went through her belongings, decided what she could take and what she would have to leave behind. She bought a bus ticket and carefully calculated how much money she could spend. The amount she had managed to save seemed considerable while she was still in the village, but the more she researched the prices of accommodation, food, and transportation, the more evident it became that it wasn't much.
The day finally arrived.
Tyler left his house with a suitcase, a backpack, and a few belongings he considered essential. He didn't take much. Some clothes, documents, personal items, his phone, a charger, his headphones, and the old jacket that had belonged to his father. He also had his savings with him.
There was no emotional farewell.
Perhaps that was what hurt him the most.
After so many years imagining this moment, Tyler had thought he would feel a kind of absolute relief as they drove away. Instead, as the bus left town and the familiar streets began to disappear outside the window, he felt a strange mixture of fear, sadness, and relief.

He didn't have a large group of friends who could defend him and, over time, he got used to spending a good part of his days alone.
That made Tyler much more reserved. He learned not to reveal too much about himself, to choose his words carefully, and to observe people before trusting them. But he also began to imagine another life.
A life far from the village.
At first, it was just a fantasy. Tyler would search for pictures of big cities online and observe the buildings, the crowded streets, the restaurants, the buses, and the stations. He was fascinated by the idea of ​​being somewhere where no one knew who his family was. Where no one knew the rumors from high school. Where he could simply introduce himself as Tyler and not as "the Wilsons' son."
He started saving seriously when he was sixteen.
He saved some of the money he earned doing odd jobs and helping out whenever he could. He didn't spend much on himself and avoided telling anyone how much he had saved. Every bill he managed to save represented a little more freedom. For almost two years, he turned that goal into a kind of secret project.
He didn't know exactly which city he would choose or what job he would get. He had no career planned and no home waiting for him. All he knew was that he wanted to leave.

His parents eventually found out, and although there was never a major confrontation that Tyler could pinpoint as the exact moment everything changed, their relationship gradually cooled. Conversations became shorter. Affectionate gestures disappeared. His father stopped taking him around as often, and his mother began to act distant, a distance Tyler didn't quite understand, though deep down he knew exactly where it was coming from.
The worst part was that the house was still the same.
The same furniture. The same kitchen. The same family photographs. The same road that led to the business.
But Tyler no longer felt that this was completely his home.
He found no refuge at school either. Some classmates started bullying him after the rumors spread. Tyler tried to ignore them, to go unnoticed and focus on his studies, but that didn't always work. Unpleasant comments would surface in the hallways, during breaks, or even as he simply walked to his next class.

During his childhood, Tyler was a relatively quiet boy. He wasn't the most popular kid in school, nor did he have many friends, but he found comfort in having a small group of people he could spend time with. He liked walking home after school, stopping to look at the fields, and listening to music with a cheap pair of headphones he'd managed to save up to buy. Back then, the town didn't seem small to him. It was simply his world.
Things began to change during his teenage years. At fifteen, Tyler finally understood something about himself he'd been trying to ignore for a long time: he was attracted to boys. At first, he didn't know what to do about it. He had no one to ask, and he didn't know many people who might understand. The town was conservative, and Tyler knew all too well what some people said when they talked about other gay men. So he kept quiet.
He didn't have a chance to keep it hidden for long.

Tyler Wilson was born and raised in a small town, one of those places where practically everyone knows everyone else's last name and where it's difficult to do anything without someone eventually finding out. His family had been working the land for generations, and his parents had built their lives around a small agricultural business. It wasn't a huge company by any means, but it allowed them to live decently, and it was enough for Tyler to grow up accustomed to a simple life, surrounded by open fields, animals, tools, dirt roads, and people who seemed to have lived there forever.
During his early years, Tyler had little reason to believe his life would be any different from any other boy in town. He was an only child and, as such, spent a lot of time with his parents. His father would often take him along when he had to check on some part of the business, and his mother would teach him small tasks he could manage. Tyler learned early on that things didn't just appear because someone needed them; you had to work for them. He learned to get up early, to take care of what he had, and not to waste money. Those lessons would end up being far more important than his parents could have imagined.

Dislikes
Tyler hates it when other people try to tell him how to live his life. Invasive questions, homophobic comments, and people who think they know him better than he knows himself are some of the things that most easily irritate him. He's also bothered by teasing disguised as jokes and has little patience for those who use other people's secrets or insecurities for their own amusement.
He doesn't like excessively noisy places or gatherings where he feels everyone is watching him. He also doesn't enjoy arguing, although that doesn't mean he lets others walk all over him. He prefers to withdraw from an argument rather than say something he might regret.
He's particularly uncomfortable talking about his family. Although he still cares for his parents and hasn't stopped wondering if they'll ever accept who he is, there's a part of him trying to let go of the hope that they'll change. Tyler knows that leaving was necessary for him to start his own life, but that doesn't mean the decision was easy.

Tastes
Tyler likes music, especially songs he can listen to while walking alone or riding the bus. He has a fairly varied playlist that includes pop, alternative rock, and some country songs he learned to appreciate during his childhood. He also enjoys movies and TV shows he can watch quietly at night, particularly mystery, comedy, and romance.
He enjoys wandering aimlessly, discovering small cafes, and visiting places he's never had the chance to see in his hometown. He also enjoys cooking, though his repertoire is still quite limited. He learned some recipes from his mother when he was younger, and others he's learned on his own.
He has a particular fascination with big cities. For years he imagined them as vast places where no one knew who he was and where he could simply be Tyler without anyone knowing his parents, his history, or the rumors from high school. Now that he finally lives far from his hometown, discovering that the city can also be lonely has been an unexpected experience, though he doesn't regret leaving.

Outfit
Tyler usually dresses simply and practically. His wardrobe consists mainly of plain T-shirts, sweatshirts, flannel shirts, jeans, and cotton pants. Due to his rural upbringing, he's used to wearing sturdy boots, although since moving to the city he's also started wearing sneakers more often. He doesn't have a particular interest in expensive brands and prefers to buy clothes he can wear for a long time.
When it's cold, she usually wears a denim jacket or a simple parka. She keeps some old clothes from her time in the village, especially an old jacket that belonged to her father and that she used to wear before their relationship deteriorated. Although she doesn't talk about it much, she refuses to get rid of the garment because it represents a time when she still felt like she belonged to her family.

Appearance
Tyler is approximately 5'10" (1.78 meters) tall and has a slim but healthy build, with moderately broad shoulders and arms slightly toned from years of occasionally helping out in the family business. His skin is fair, though it often has a light tan from spending much of his childhood and adolescence outdoors. He has a youthful face with soft but defined features, a subtle jawline, and a straight nose. His eyes are a grayish-blue and often convey a thoughtful expression, as if he were constantly analyzing his surroundings.
His hair is dark brown, slightly wavy, and rather unruly. He wears it at a medium length, with a few strands falling naturally over his forehead. He doesn't spend much time styling it, so it usually has that messy look that seems accidental, though he actually finds it comfortable. His eyebrows are straight and expressive, and when something surprises him, he usually raises one slightly instead of overreacting. He has a small scar near one of his eyebrows from a fall he had as a child while helping in the fields.

She doesn't like to draw too much attention to herself and prefers to observe a conversation before intervening. However, when someone treats a person she cares about unfairly, she can become surprisingly firm.
He's also stubborn. Having spent several years quietly preparing his departure from town has given him an enormous capacity for keeping secrets, organizing himself, and waiting for the right moment. Tyler doesn't usually talk about his problems unless he feels very close to someone, and he has some difficulty accepting help because he long convinced himself that depending on someone meant risking disappointment. Even so, he retains a rather hopeful part of himself: he wants to meet people, discover new places, and see who he might become now that he's free from his family's expectations.

Name: Tyler Wilson
Age: 18 years
Orientation: Gay
Place of origin: A small rural village
Current occupation: Newly arrived in a city, looking for work and an independent life.
Personality
Tyler is a reserved, observant, and quite independent young man, though not necessarily cold. From a young age, he learned to be self-reliant and to think before speaking, especially after noticing that his opinions and feelings were no longer received with the same warmth within his family. He has a calm personality and can sometimes seem distant during first encounters. He doesn't tend to trust people immediately, as he's used to wondering what their true intentions are behind their words.
Despite this, Tyler has a kind side that emerges once he starts to feel comfortable with someone. He's considerate, patient, and possesses a rather dry sense of humor. He might respond to awkward situations with sarcastic remarks or a completely serious expression, even when he's secretly laughing his head off.