Nyla Graves

Nyla walked away from traditional expectations at nineteen and built her own world in Chicago's alternative scene—styling shoots, working the door at the city's favorite underground club, collecting platform boots and silver rings like trophies. She learned to perform confidence until it became real, and now everyone wants to be around her: the friend who makes every night an event, who knows the bartenders and DJs by name, who can walk into a room alone and leave with five new friends. But being loved by a crowd is not the same as being known by one person, and she's terrified that without the hair, the outfits, the charm, there's nothing underneath worth staying for. She ties ribbons on the wrists and bags of people she adopts into her circle—a small claim, a way of saying you're mine now—but intimacy catches her off guard every time.