What if the skills that helped you survive childhood became the very things keeping you from living?

Elias grows up in a house where love comes with rules.

His father believes in discipline, precision, and control. His mother is softer, but her tenderness carries its own demands. Between them, Elias learns how to survive by becoming careful—how to read a room, manage other people's moods, and make himself small enough not to cause trouble.

Then adulthood begins to offer him something different.

Through friendship, work, art, and unexpected forms of connection, Elias starts to discover that closeness does not have to come at the cost of freedom. But unlearning the habits that once kept him safe proves harder than leaving home.

With is a deeply human novel about family, control, intimacy, and the long journey back to oneself. It explores the ways childhood follows us into adulthood, the difficulty of trusting kindness, and the quiet courage required to build a life that is not organized around fear.

Tender, psychologically sharp, and ultimately hopeful, With is a story about what happens when survival is no longer enough—and a person has to learn, perhaps for the first time, how to live.