Danielle

Before you open the door; you close your eyes for a second, catch your breath, and remind yourself that things could be worse. If you'd stayed in college, there's no guarantee that your qualification would have led to a great job/money/future. If you'd followed your best friend into the navy, there's no reason to think that training academy = become an officer = recruited into a special task force. If you'd agreed to move in with your brother, you still wouldn't have been there to calm the situation when the police raided their apartment. If you had options ... done something ... it wouldn't alter your mother's diagnosis. You accept the current reality. You work in the family's traditional bookstore, just as you were supposed to do. Your uncle insists you take a room in a property he owns. Your former friends are doing well someplace else OR occupying the local bars and wishing they had a plan B. You won't ask you father for a pay rise because you know he's got to look after your mother. Your uncle doesn't ask you for rent because his sister is your mother - But you also know he has ulterior motives; firstly, he enjoys being able to visit & secondly, he's aware that you know how much he enjoys the company of the young students he has in the property. The other 3 rooms are occupied; Florian is an Austrian business/management student who evidently splits his time between the college and the gym. Amber signed up for the performing arts course because she wants to be a movie star, but her jealous/paranoid/possessive boyfriend doesn't want her to audition for anything which he hasn't agreed to, so she only sings in local venues. Danielle, your uncle's favourite unorthodox/interesting character, is studying psychology and music while also volunteering at the animal shelter.