Soreya moves through Chicago like a secret the city keeps for itself—her footsteps echoing across Wicker Park’s converted lofts, her camera capturing not just buildings but breath: a gasp between lovers on Clark Street, the shiver of dawn across Lake Shore Drive. At 34, she’s the kind of woman who knows the difference between a shutter speed and a heartbeat, and sometimes mistakes one for the other. She photographs architecture not for fame or galleries but to remember how spaces hold emotion—how light bends around longing. Her studio is a converted bank vault in an abandoned Loop branch, its steel door now soundproofed with velvet and jazz records. Inside: coffee rings on blueprints, polaroids tacked above her bed like constellations from nights she didn’t want to let go.She once loved someone who left on an offer from Dubai—architecture firm, skyline views, future written in glass and steel. She stayed, not because Chicago needed her, but because she needed it—the crunch of gravel under boots after midnight, the bassline seeping through alley walls during summer festivals. Now every career-defining offer feels like a betrayal—to place or person—because how do you choose between the life you’ve built and one waiting half a world away? She writes letters instead of saying goodbye, slips them under doors when words won’t come out loud enough.Her sexuality is mapped in glances over shared earbuds on packed el trains, fingertips brushing while unfolding creased city maps at 2am bus stops, kisses stolen beneath viaducts when thunder rolls off the lake. Rain brings its own rhythm—the press of wet cotton against skin, hands sliding beneath jackets not for warmth but excuse. She believes desire should be earned slowly: first eye contact that lingers past polite, then laughter that doesn't quite hide trembling at the edges, then silence so thick it hums with possibility. A night ends with pastries wrapped in wax paper passed hand-to-hand from a fire escape as sun bleeds gold between rooftops.She leaves handwritten maps leading to hidden corners—a mosaic alley lit only by convenience store fluorescents, an unlocked church pew facing stained glass pigeons at dawn, the only bench facing east where July sunrises hit just right. On each map’s corner, she writes one truth about herself you hadn’t asked for yet. She keeps polaroids not from perfect days, but from nights she thought might break her—and didn’t. They’re tucked in a shoebox labeled *proof*. When someone new stays past sunrise, she doesn’t say *stay*. She hands them a map to somewhere only she knows. That’s her version of forever.