ageofwonderland

[ageofwonderland]

Renegade - Chapter 4

The city didn’t forgive easily. It pressed itself against their windows, humming in the pipes, rattling in the walls, reminding them that survival was never silent. Jake and (Y/N) moved around each other like people relearning how to exist in the same frame. Some mornings, she was already gone by the time he opened his eyes, boots by the door, coffee still hot, notebook missing from the windowsill. Some nights, he’d come back from a gig to find her asleep in the chair again, pen slipped from her hand, ink smudged on her palm like the words had tried to escape before she did.

Neither of them said the word love. Not yet. Maybe not ever. That word was too heavy, too bruised. Instead, they built something smaller, something fragile: burned toast shared over the sink, a song hummed under breath, his jacket left on her shoulders when she forgot the weather would turn cold. But ghosts have sharp teeth, and they don’t stop biting just because you stop feeding them.

One night, Jake woke to find her gone again. No note this time. Just the window cracked open, letting in the buzz of neon from the street below. He sat up, heart thudding, listening for her footsteps, her voice, something. Minutes stretched. The silence pressed in, and every part of him screamed not to move, not to chase, not to repeat the mistake of needing her too much.

He lit a candle instead. Sat in the dark and played his guitar low, fingers brushing strings like a prayer. And an hour later, she walked back in. Rain tangled in her hair, hoodie soaked through, eyes swollen but dry. She saw him there, saw the candle, the guitar, the waiting, and something in her face cracked. “I almost didn’t come back,” she whispered.

Jake set the guitar down. “But you did.”

She nodded, leaned against the doorframe like it was the only thing holding her up. “Do you ever feel like you’re two people? The one everyone sees, and the one that never left the wreck?”

Jake thought about the ring he never gave. The shoreline he watched erode until it was gone. “Every day.” Her breath hitched. “What if the wrong one wins?” He crossed the room slowly, careful not to spook the silence. He didn’t touch her, not yet. Just stood close enough that she could feel the warmth of his skin. “Then we lose together,” he said.

Her eyes flickered up, searching his. And for a heartbeat, the ghosts went quiet. They didn’t kiss. Not yet. Instead, she took his hand and pulled him toward the window. They sat on the floor, shoulders pressed, listening to the city breathe like a restless animal. She opened the notebook again, flipping to a page he hadn’t seen. The ink was shaky, blotched in places, but the words were legible:

I don’t want to be a ghost in someone else’s story.

Jake read it twice, then looked at her. “Then don’t be,” he said softly.

And for the first time, she didn’t argue. They stayed there until the candle burned low, until the rain eased, until the night folded itself into the fragile edges of morning. When Jake finally drifted to sleep beside her, half-upright against the wall, he dreamed not of fire or loss or vanishing.

He dreamed of unfinished songs. And of a girl who wasn’t trying to save him,  just trying to stay.

***

The cracks showed before either of them admitted it.

Jake noticed first in the pauses between her sentences, how her eyes would drift somewhere he couldn’t follow, how she chewed the inside of her cheek like she was holding back something that might split the room in half. (Y/N) noticed in his music, how the songs he played at night grew sharper, more jagged, like he was trying to claw his way out of his own chest.

For a while, they ignored it. Pretended survival was the same as peace. But ghosts are patient. They wait. They whisper. One night, after a gig that left his voice raw, Jake came back to find her sitting on the floor, back against the door as though she’d been trying to decide whether to leave again. The notebook was in her lap, but this time, it wasn’t lyrics; it was a letter. Folded once, sharp lines cutting across the page.

She didn’t look up when he entered. “You were supposed to save yourself,” she said quietly.

Jake froze. “I never asked you to save me.” Her head snapped up, eyes wet but furious. “Didn’t you? Every time you look at me like I’m the reason you can breathe, don’t you see what that does? You make me carry it. And I can’t. I won’t.”

Jake’s chest tightened, but he forced the words out. “I just wanted you to stay.”

“And what happens when I can’t?” she shot back. “What happens when I vanish for real? Do you collapse again? Do you turn me into another ghost to haunt you?”

Silence tore between them, jagged and merciless.

Jake swallowed hard, staring at the candle burning low on the table, the wax spilling over like it was bleeding. “Maybe you already have,” he said. Her face crumpled, not in softness, but in defeat. She shoved the folded letter into his hands. “Then read it. Read what I can’t say out loud.”

He didn’t. Not then. He set it on the table, unread, the weight of it humming like a live wire between them. She grabbed her jacket. Stopped at the door. For a moment, he thought she’d look back. She didn’t. The door slammed, leaving the room vibrating with the sound of her absence. Jake sat in the dark, letter burning a hole beside him. He didn’t cry. Couldn’t. Just lit another candle, pressed the notebook shut, and whispered to no one:

“You were right. No one disappears here.”

But this time, he wasn’t sure if either of them would survive what came next.

***

The letter sat on the table for three days. Jake didn’t touch it. Didn’t move it. Just let it hover at the edge of his vision like a loaded gun he wasn’t ready to fire. Every time he passed by, he felt its weight shift the air, like her voice had been folded into the paper, waiting to break him open.

He filled the silence with noise instead. Played until his fingers bled, until the strings frayed, until his neighbors pounded the walls. He sang songs that weren’t songs, just grief stitched into sound. And still, the letter waited. By the fourth day, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He poured whiskey he didn’t want, lit a candle that burned too fast, and finally unfolded the page. Her handwriting was rushed, slanted, the ink smudged in places where her hand must have shaken.

Jake,

I don’t know how to tell you this without wrecking everything, but maybe wreckage is all we were ever going to be. You want me to stay because you think staying will heal you. But I can’t be that. I’ve tried before, for other people, and every time it ended with me becoming the wound instead of the cure.

The truth is: I don’t know how to love without running. Every time someone gets too close, I hear my brother’s voice the night he OD’d, “Don’t watch me die.” I’ve been leaving ever since. Not because I don’t want to be seen, but because being seen feels like dying too.

You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve me turning your chest into another funeral. If I stay, that’s what will happen. And I care about you too much to haunt you that way.

If you’re reading this, I’ve already gone. Please don’t come looking. Please let me be the ghost I was always meant to be.

(Y/N)

Jake read it once. Then again. Then set it down, hands trembling like he’d touched fire. The whiskey glass tipped, amber spreading across the table, soaking into her words until the ink blurred and bled. He didn’t stop it. Maybe it was better that way, truth dissolving into ruin.

He slept on the floor that night, the candle burned out, the city outside loud and merciless. When he woke, he half-hoped it had been a dream. But the letter was still there, wrinkled and stained, an epitaph for something that wasn’t even dead yet.

[ageofwonderland]

if there’s no commotion for this i may not do a chapter 2 LOL (not that my posts get a ton of commotion but certainly renegade is doing better than this lol)

Getaway Car - Chapter 1

Another fic inspired by TS what can I say...I am nothing if not predictable, but this time with Danny!

~~~

It started like all the best kinds of trouble do, fast, reckless, and wrapped in the shimmer of headlights on wet pavement. (Y/N) met him on the tail end of something she couldn’t name yet. Not quite heartbreak, not quite boredom, but something quietly unraveling inside her like the final thread of a tightly wound dress. She was wearing red lipstick and a leather jacket two sizes too big, borrowed from the past, or maybe just from someone who wanted her to stay still. And God, she never could. The hotel bar smelled like expensive gin and too many promises. She wasn’t supposed to be there, not really. Her fiancé, ex-fiancé now, she thought, was upstairs in the penthouse suite, packing his cufflinks into their velvet box like they meant more than the years they’d spent together. (Y/N) didn’t say goodbye. She just slipped out in the middle of a sentence, heels in hand, silence heavy in her throat.

That’s when she saw him. Danny was the kind of beautiful that made people suspicious. Tall, sharp smile, dark eyes like he already knew your secrets. He leaned against the bar like he owned the night, and maybe he did. (Y/N) sat down beside him like fate hadn’t left her much of a choice. "Trouble or tragedy?" he asked, not even turning to look at her.

"Both," she said, lifting his whiskey glass and taking a sip without asking. That’s how it began, not with flowers or fate, but with someone else’s drink and someone else’s girl slipping into the passenger seat of a stranger’s Mustang.

They didn’t talk much. Didn’t need to. The city blurred behind them like a secret neither of them wanted to keep. She watched his profile in the dashboard lights, reckless, unbothered, beautiful in that detached kind of way. Danny didn’t ask questions. That was the thing about him. He never needed to know the details to know where the exits were.

They left the city in the dark, hearts beating too fast for the quiet they kept between them. Every road sign looked like a warning. Every mile away from him, the man she almost married, felt like a confession.

“Where are we going?” (Y/N) finally asked. Danny smiled without looking. “Anywhere but back.”

She wanted to say that sounded like a terrible idea. But the truth was, she didn’t care where they were headed, as long as it wasn’t home. Home was polished lies and family heirlooms and a future that felt more like a verdict than a dream.

They stopped at a 24-hour diner somewhere in the middle of nowhere. (Y/N) sat across from him in a booth lined with cracked red vinyl, her lipstick smudged, eyes tired. Danny stirred his coffee with a butter knife, like he’d done this kind of thing before.

“This is insane,” she said, mostly to herself. He shrugged. “So’s staying.”

(Y/N) laughed, the sound jagged. “You don’t even know me.”

“Don’t need to. You ran, didn’t you?”

She looked at him then, really looked, saw the way his hands trembled just slightly when he lit a cigarette. Saw the way he didn’t flinch at 2AM loneliness or girls with rings still in their purses. Danny was her getaway car. And maybe she was his, too. Neither of them said it. But as they slid back into the car, wind in her hair, regret in the rearview, (Y/N) knew something had changed. This wasn’t a beginning. This was an escape. And every love story that starts like that…Always ends in smoke.

But in that moment—just one—the world was nothing but open road and the thrill of being wanted by someone who didn’t ask you to stay. And that, somehow, felt a lot like love. Or at least the start of the crash.

***

They drove until the sky bruised with morning. (Y/N)'s legs were curled beneath her in the passenger seat, one hand out the open window, fingers slicing through the wind like she could hold on to the night a little longer. Danny didn’t say much, just let the low hum of the radio fill the space between them. Old songs, Fleetwood Mac, Springsteen, things that sounded like they’d been played on jukeboxes in places that smelled like smoke and missed chances. Eventually, the car started to sputter like even it had its limits. Danny pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a roadside motel with a neon sign that blinked VACANCY like it was daring them to stay.

(Y/N) stared up at the flickering letters. “It looks haunted.”

“Good,” Danny muttered, turning off the engine. “So are we.” He tossed her the keys and grabbed the duffel bag from the backseat. She noticed the way his shoulders rolled like he’d been carrying things for a long time, things heavier than what fit in a bag. The motel office was empty except for a woman behind the counter wearing a pink bathrobe and watching a crime show on mute. Danny paid in cash. No names. No questions.

Room 7.

(Y/N) stood in the doorway and took it all in, the buzzing ceiling fan, the sunburnt wallpaper peeling in corners, the one bed that squeaked when she set her bag down. It was the kind of room made for secrets. And runaways.

“Want the bed or the floor?” Danny asked.

She turned to him slowly. “Is that really the question you’re asking me right now?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You look like the kind of girl who’s used to Egyptian cotton and champagne breakfasts.”

She laughed, bitter and low. “You’d be surprised what I’m used to.”

They split a bag of chips and warm soda from the vending machine, sitting on opposite ends of the bed like they didn’t already know this wasn’t going to stay innocent for long.

Danny leaned back, one arm behind his head, watching the water-stained ceiling like it held answers. “So,” he said, “who broke you?”

(Y/N) didn’t look at him. She stared at her chipped nail polish and thought about the ring still buried at the bottom of her purse. “His name doesn’t matter.”

“It always matters.”

She shook her head. “Not when you leave him behind in a thousand-dollar tuxedo and a ballroom full of people waiting for cake.”

Danny blinked. “You left him at the altar?”

“Not quite. But close enough to ruin his pride and my mother’s reputation.”

A slow, admiring whistle left his lips. “Damn. That’s cold.”

(Y/N) leaned back, hair fanned across the pillow. “No. That was survival.”

Silence wrapped around them like a blanket neither wanted to claim. Outside, a train groaned by in the distance, and a dog barked like it had something to prove. Danny turned toward her. His voice dropped lower. “And what about you? You ever been in love?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she whispered. “But not the kind that saves you. The kind that uses you to feel alive.” Danny didn’t say anything. But his jaw tightened. “I was the distraction,” she continued. “The shiny thing he grabbed when the life he built got too quiet. But he never planned to keep me. Just needed the thrill. I was the escape route he could blame.”

Danny looked at her for a long time. Something flickered in his eyes, recognition, maybe. Guilt. Or something worse. “I think I’ve been that guy,” he said finally. “I think I’ve made someone feel the way you just described.” She didn’t comfort him. She just reached over and turned off the lamp. The room fell into blue darkness, and they lay side by side, inches apart and years away from forgiveness. (Y/N) closed her eyes and let the silence hold her. Danny’s voice came again, soft this time, like a confession: “If I were a better man, I’d take you somewhere safe and let you go.”

She didn’t answer. Because the truth was, she wasn’t looking for safe. She was looking for ruin. And in Danny, she found it waiting. Willing. Tomorrow, they’d keep running. But tonight, in a cheap motel room lit only by the glow of a dying sign, they weren’t fugitives or ghosts or mistakes. They were just two people trying to forget how it felt to be left behind.

And maybe, for now, that was enough.

[ageofwonderland]

Getaway Car - Chapter 1

Another fic inspired by TS what can I say...I am nothing if not predictable, but this time with Danny!

~~~

It started like all the best kinds of trouble do, fast, reckless, and wrapped in the shimmer of headlights on wet pavement. (Y/N) met him on the tail end of something she couldn’t name yet. Not quite heartbreak, not quite boredom, but something quietly unraveling inside her like the final thread of a tightly wound dress. She was wearing red lipstick and a leather jacket two sizes too big, borrowed from the past, or maybe just from someone who wanted her to stay still. And God, she never could. The hotel bar smelled like expensive gin and too many promises. She wasn’t supposed to be there, not really. Her fiancé, ex-fiancé now, she thought, was upstairs in the penthouse suite, packing his cufflinks into their velvet box like they meant more than the years they’d spent together. (Y/N) didn’t say goodbye. She just slipped out in the middle of a sentence, heels in hand, silence heavy in her throat.

That’s when she saw him. Danny was the kind of beautiful that made people suspicious. Tall, sharp smile, dark eyes like he already knew your secrets. He leaned against the bar like he owned the night, and maybe he did. (Y/N) sat down beside him like fate hadn’t left her much of a choice. "Trouble or tragedy?" he asked, not even turning to look at her.

"Both," she said, lifting his whiskey glass and taking a sip without asking. That’s how it began, not with flowers or fate, but with someone else’s drink and someone else’s girl slipping into the passenger seat of a stranger’s Mustang.

They didn’t talk much. Didn’t need to. The city blurred behind them like a secret neither of them wanted to keep. She watched his profile in the dashboard lights, reckless, unbothered, beautiful in that detached kind of way. Danny didn’t ask questions. That was the thing about him. He never needed to know the details to know where the exits were.

They left the city in the dark, hearts beating too fast for the quiet they kept between them. Every road sign looked like a warning. Every mile away from him, the man she almost married, felt like a confession.

“Where are we going?” (Y/N) finally asked. Danny smiled without looking. “Anywhere but back.”

She wanted to say that sounded like a terrible idea. But the truth was, she didn’t care where they were headed, as long as it wasn’t home. Home was polished lies and family heirlooms and a future that felt more like a verdict than a dream.

They stopped at a 24-hour diner somewhere in the middle of nowhere. (Y/N) sat across from him in a booth lined with cracked red vinyl, her lipstick smudged, eyes tired. Danny stirred his coffee with a butter knife, like he’d done this kind of thing before.

“This is insane,” she said, mostly to herself. He shrugged. “So’s staying.”

(Y/N) laughed, the sound jagged. “You don’t even know me.”

“Don’t need to. You ran, didn’t you?”

She looked at him then, really looked, saw the way his hands trembled just slightly when he lit a cigarette. Saw the way he didn’t flinch at 2AM loneliness or girls with rings still in their purses. Danny was her getaway car. And maybe she was his, too. Neither of them said it. But as they slid back into the car, wind in her hair, regret in the rearview, (Y/N) knew something had changed. This wasn’t a beginning. This was an escape. And every love story that starts like that…Always ends in smoke.

But in that moment—just one—the world was nothing but open road and the thrill of being wanted by someone who didn’t ask you to stay. And that, somehow, felt a lot like love. Or at least the start of the crash.

***

They drove until the sky bruised with morning. (Y/N)'s legs were curled beneath her in the passenger seat, one hand out the open window, fingers slicing through the wind like she could hold on to the night a little longer. Danny didn’t say much, just let the low hum of the radio fill the space between them. Old songs, Fleetwood Mac, Springsteen, things that sounded like they’d been played on jukeboxes in places that smelled like smoke and missed chances. Eventually, the car started to sputter like even it had its limits. Danny pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a roadside motel with a neon sign that blinked VACANCY like it was daring them to stay.

(Y/N) stared up at the flickering letters. “It looks haunted.”

“Good,” Danny muttered, turning off the engine. “So are we.” He tossed her the keys and grabbed the duffel bag from the backseat. She noticed the way his shoulders rolled like he’d been carrying things for a long time, things heavier than what fit in a bag. The motel office was empty except for a woman behind the counter wearing a pink bathrobe and watching a crime show on mute. Danny paid in cash. No names. No questions.

Room 7.

(Y/N) stood in the doorway and took it all in, the buzzing ceiling fan, the sunburnt wallpaper peeling in corners, the one bed that squeaked when she set her bag down. It was the kind of room made for secrets. And runaways.

“Want the bed or the floor?” Danny asked.

She turned to him slowly. “Is that really the question you’re asking me right now?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You look like the kind of girl who’s used to Egyptian cotton and champagne breakfasts.”

She laughed, bitter and low. “You’d be surprised what I’m used to.”

They split a bag of chips and warm soda from the vending machine, sitting on opposite ends of the bed like they didn’t already know this wasn’t going to stay innocent for long.

Danny leaned back, one arm behind his head, watching the water-stained ceiling like it held answers. “So,” he said, “who broke you?”

(Y/N) didn’t look at him. She stared at her chipped nail polish and thought about the ring still buried at the bottom of her purse. “His name doesn’t matter.”

“It always matters.”

She shook her head. “Not when you leave him behind in a thousand-dollar tuxedo and a ballroom full of people waiting for cake.”

Danny blinked. “You left him at the altar?”

“Not quite. But close enough to ruin his pride and my mother’s reputation.”

A slow, admiring whistle left his lips. “Damn. That’s cold.”

(Y/N) leaned back, hair fanned across the pillow. “No. That was survival.”

Silence wrapped around them like a blanket neither wanted to claim. Outside, a train groaned by in the distance, and a dog barked like it had something to prove. Danny turned toward her. His voice dropped lower. “And what about you? You ever been in love?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she whispered. “But not the kind that saves you. The kind that uses you to feel alive.” Danny didn’t say anything. But his jaw tightened. “I was the distraction,” she continued. “The shiny thing he grabbed when the life he built got too quiet. But he never planned to keep me. Just needed the thrill. I was the escape route he could blame.”

Danny looked at her for a long time. Something flickered in his eyes, recognition, maybe. Guilt. Or something worse. “I think I’ve been that guy,” he said finally. “I think I’ve made someone feel the way you just described.” She didn’t comfort him. She just reached over and turned off the lamp. The room fell into blue darkness, and they lay side by side, inches apart and years away from forgiveness. (Y/N) closed her eyes and let the silence hold her. Danny’s voice came again, soft this time, like a confession: “If I were a better man, I’d take you somewhere safe and let you go.”

She didn’t answer. Because the truth was, she wasn’t looking for safe. She was looking for ruin. And in Danny, she found it waiting. Willing. Tomorrow, they’d keep running. But tonight, in a cheap motel room lit only by the glow of a dying sign, they weren’t fugitives or ghosts or mistakes. They were just two people trying to forget how it felt to be left behind.

And maybe, for now, that was enough.

[ageofwonderland]

Renegade - Chapter 3

The days after (Y/N) vanished felt like walking through the aftermath of a storm no one else remembered. Jake stayed in the apartment longer than he meant to. Part of him expected her to come back. Not with an apology, (Y/N) didn’t traffic in those, but maybe with a cigarette between her lips and a look that said don’t ask questions. Maybe with new lyrics in the margins of a coffee receipt. Maybe just to grab her guitar and leave again. But the guitar was gone. The windowsill chair sat empty, the candle wax hardened into shapes he couldn’t bring himself to clean. Her scent—smoke, rosemary, and lavender, still clung to the corners of the room like she’d exhaled and never came back to inhale.

She had vanished like she said she would. And still, she haunted him.

He found himself retracing her steps. The red blinking light of the hospital. The wall by the train tracks. The dive bar beneath the liquor store, where a different girl now sang songs that meant less. At The Low Beam, the bartender didn’t remember her name, just that she drank whiskey and left before anyone could ask why she was there. He called her phone once. Just to hear it ring. It went straight to voicemail. Her message was short:

“You know what to do.”

He didn’t.

Jake started walking the city in the middle of the night. No destination. Just movement. He passed darkened storefronts and hollow-eyed strangers, the occasional laughter spilling out from late-night diners or back alley bars. But the world felt translucent now, like everything he touched was made of smoke. (Y/N) had made the city real somehow. Now it was a cardboard cutout of what it used to be. At a 24-hour laundromat on Jefferson, he found a flyer taped to the window. Open mic. Same place she’d played before. The bottom of the flyer was torn, like someone had ripped her name off it.

He didn’t go in.

Instead, he wandered until the sun cracked the horizon and made everything ugly again. He started carrying the notebook, not just the page she’d left behind, the whole thing. He didn’t know why. Maybe because it was the only piece of her that felt solid. Her words were angry in some places, scared in others. Some lines were scratched out so many times they were unreadable. Some were underlined three times.

I want to love without making someone bleed.

 Is it loneliness if you choose it? 

I never wanted to be saved. Just seen.

He read those lines over and over. On buses, at the edge of the river, in bars where no one noticed him.And still, he didn’t write anything back. What would he say? You were right. I wanted you to be the lifeboat, not the storm. I thought I was hiding in your wreckage, but maybe I was the wreck.

A week passed. Then another. Then, one night, he found the second note. It was inside his guitar case, wedged between the velvet and the string set he hadn’t touched in months. Her handwriting again, slanted and sharp like the words had come out faster than she could control.

You once said you didn’t lose someone the way people mean when they ask that. But you did. And so did I. Maybe we just didn’t realize it was ourselves.

If you ever play again, make it mean something.

That night, Jake opened the windows wide. Let the cold in, let the silence stretch and settle. Then he picked up the guitar. His hands shook, strings creaked under his fingers like they remembered what they were supposed to be. He tuned slowly, quietly, until the chords made sense again. Then he played, not the songs from before, not the ones that belonged to her or to this town, or to the man he used to be. He played something shapeless. Something raw.He didn’t sing. Not yet. But the music was something like breathing.

Two nights later, he went to the open mic, not to play, just to watch, just to feel what a room sounded like when it was trying to believe in something again. The host recognized him, asked if he wanted to go up. Jake shook his head. Until the very end, when the list was empty and the lights were dim, and the crowd was down to half-drunk locals and people too heartbroken to go home. He stood. Walked to the mic.Said nothing. Then played the song he wrote the night after the second note. The one with no chorus. The one with no name.

The one that started like this:

She said ghosts don’t haunt places, they haunt people.

And I said, “Then I must be a cathedral.”

He didn’t look at the crowd. Didn’t wait for applause. He played like she might be listening, even if she was just a blinking light somewhere past the skyline. When he finished, there was silence. The good kind, the haunting kind. And somewhere in that stillness, Jake finally understood:

She wasn’t coming back. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t left something behind.

He folded the notebook closed when he got home. Placed it on the windowsill where she used to sit. The chair was still empty. But the room didn’t feel quite so hollow anymore. Jake lit a candle. Let it burn. And whispered into the dark:

(Y/N), wherever you are, I see you.

***

The first time Jake saw her again, he thought he was dreaming. It was late, past midnight, and he was walking home from a gig he almost didn’t play. The streets were washed clean from a summer storm, the kind that came fast and left everything trembling. The air still smelled like ozone and magnolia. She was standing at the end of the alley by his building, soaked to the bone in an oversized flannel, hood down, hair clinging to her cheeks, like she’d walked out of the past, like she’d never really been gone at all.

He stopped. Blinked.

“(Y/N)?”

She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. For a second, the world narrowed, just the space between them, the rain-slick pavement, and the beat of his pulse like a countdown. “You’re not real,” he said, the words barely audible over the hush of tires on wet road. “I might not be,” she said. “But I’m here anyway.”

He took a step forward. “Where have you—”

“Don’t ask me that.” Her voice cracked like a bridge under too much weight. “Not yet.”

Jake stopped walking. Let her close the distance instead. She moved slowly, like someone afraid of setting off an alarm. When she reached him, she looked up, eyes bruised with sleeplessness, lips parted like she was still choosing the words. “I shouldn’t have disappeared like that,” she whispered. Jake swallowed. “You told me to let you vanish.”

“I know.” Her voice broke. “I thought I needed to. But you stayed in my head anyway.” He didn’t know what to say. There were a hundred things he wanted to scream. You left. You said we couldn’t save each other. You said you didn’t want to be needed.

But instead, he asked: “Are you okay?”

“No,” she said. “But I think I want to be.”

She stepped in close. Closer than she ever had before, rain still dripped from the ends of her hair. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides, like even standing here was a kind of confession.

“I’ve been a ghost in every room I walk into,” she said. “But when I was with you, I didn’t feel like one. I just felt… unfinished.”

Jake’s breath caught. “I kept waiting for the ache to end,” she went on. “But it didn’t. Not when I left. Not when I tried to forget you. It just got quieter. Like background noise. Like a song I couldn’t turn off.” Jake didn’t move. Didn’t dare speak. He could feel it, the weight of it, all those nights, all those silences, building into this one moment.

“I don’t want to haunt anyone anymore,” (Y/N) said. “Least of all you.”

She looked at him, and for the first time, there was no armor in her eyes.

“I want to try,” she said. “If you still want me.”

Jake felt the words hit like a wave breaking in slow motion. Not relief. Not joy. Just something deeper. Something painful and necessary and quiet. “I never stopped,” he said. “Wanting you.” (Y/N)’s face twisted like she was about to cry, but she didn’t. She reached for his hand, fingers tentative at first, then firm. He held on like it mattered, because it did.

They didn’t kiss. Not yet. They just stood there, forehead to forehead, letting the city breathe around them. Letting the rain drip from the rooftops. Letting everything else stay quiet. After a long time, she asked, “Do you still have the notebook?” Jake nodded. “It’s on the windowsill.”

(Y/N) exhaled softly. “Good.”

He led her upstairs. Didn’t rush. Didn’t say much. Just opened the door like it was still hers, like she hadn’t left all those weeks ago. Because maybe, in some quiet way, she never had. The apartment was exactly how she’d left it. The chair by the window. The candle burned low. The ghost of her still lingered in the air. Except now, she was real. She walked in like she belonged, eyes darting around the room like it might fall apart if she looked too fast. She sat down in the chair. Jake sat across from her, elbows on his knees.

“I’m not promising happy,” she said. “I can’t do that.”

“I’m not asking for it.”

“But I’ll try,” she whispered. “To be present. To be real. With you.”

Jake reached across the space and took her hand again. Warm, shaking, alive.

“That’s all I ever wanted.”

And for the first time in what felt like years, neither of them felt haunted. Not by the past. Not by the things they left unsaid.

Just two people, scarred but breathing. Trying. Together.

[ageofwonderland]

for the 2 (i’m being generous) of you that care i forgot to post it on chapter 1 but renegade is indeed inspired by the Taylor Swift/Big Red Machine song ‘Renegade’ (every fic i’ve ever written has been inspired by a song lol)

[ageofwonderland]

Renegade - Chapter 2

Jake didn’t sleep again. Not because the couch was uncomfortable, it was, but he’d slept on worse. It was her song. The words looped in his head like a prayer he wasn’t sure he believed in. 

You were just a mirror with better lighting 

It hit too close to the bone, too close to what he’d left behind. (Y/N) didn’t talk about the show when they got back; she dropped her guitar in the corner, kicked off her boots, and pulled her hoodie tighter like she was already disappearing into it. She didn’t ask if he was staying; he didn’t offer to go.  Somewhere around 3 a.m., she crawled into the armchair by the window again, legs tucked under her, watching the street below like the city owed her answers. 

“I didn’t expect you to come tonight,” she said softly, almost to herself. Jake turned toward her, surprised she was speaking, “I didn’t expect to stay.” 

“But you did.” He nodded, “yeah”. (Y/N) chewed the inside of her cheek. “Did she break you? The one with the name?” Jake just stared at the ceiling. “Not all at once, it was slow. Like…erosion. You look up one day and the shoreline’s gone, but you never noticed it was washing away.”  (Y/N) gave a small not, like she understood the metaphor too well. 

“She wanted something I couldn’t be,” he said, “So she went looking for it in someone else.” (Y/N) didn’t flinch, “That’s not your fault.” 

“Feels like it is.” 

A pause stretched between them, soft and painful. “I was in love with someone once,” she said. “We met at a bus stop in Austin. He had two broken fingers and asked me to help him roll a cigarette. We were doomed from the start.” Jake smiled without looking at her. “What happened?” “He fell in love with my sadness,” she said, voice hollow. “But not with me.” Jake sat up slowly, the blanket falling off his shoulders. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“It’s true. People think they can fix you if they love you hard enough. But I wasn’t something broken. I was just me. And that was never what he really wanted.”

They were quiet again. Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, but it didn’t feel urgent, just part of the city’s usual soundtrack. Jake stood and crossed to the window, standing beside her. The streetlight outside cast long shadows into the room, catching the edge of her cheekbone and the tired softness in her eyes. “I don’t want to be fixed either,” he said. (Y/N) looked at him, something unreadable in her gaze. “Then why are you still here?” He didn’t have a good answer. Just that it felt like he wasn’t suffocating when she was near. And maybe that was enough for now.

They started orbiting each other after that. Not quite friends, not lovers either. Something quieter. More fragile. Mornings passed in loose conversations and shared silences. Afternoons turned into long walks to nowhere. Jake found himself learning the shape of her habits, how she always cut her toast diagonally but never finished it, how she hummed when she was thinking, how her fingers twitched like she was playing invisible piano when she got nervous. (Y/N) started leaving the window open. Jake started leaving his jacket on the back of the kitchen chair. And neither of them mentioned the word “stay,” but it hung in the air like smoke from a fire neither of them wanted to name.

One afternoon, she handed him a notebook. Pages frayed, corners curled. Lyrics scrawled in uneven lines, some crossed out so aggressively the paper tore. “These are yours?” Jake asked.

“Were,” she said. “They’re just noise now.” He flipped through them slowly. One line caught him.

Don’t mistake silence for peace, sometimes it’s just the sound of someone giving up.”

He looked at her. “This one. You ever record it?” She shook her head. “Couldn’t get through it.”

“You should.” (Y/N) gave him a long look. “Why?”

“Because someone out there needs to hear it.” She let out a breath, almost a laugh. “You say that like you’re not the one who does.” Jake didn’t respond. Just folded the page carefully and slid it into his coat pocket like a relic.

That night, the sky cracked open with thunder. Rain hit the windows like it was trying to get in. The lights flickered once, twice, then steadied. Jake found her curled up in the bathtub, blanket around her shoulders, candles flickering on the counter. “You okay?” She nodded. “Just like storms better when I can’t see the lightning.” He stepped in, sat beside the tub. Pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them. (Y/N) glanced over. “You ever miss who you were before everything?” Jake thought about it. Thought about sunlit highways, and a dog he left behind, and the sound of her laughter, the other her. The one who left. “Yeah,” he said. “But I don’t think he’d recognize me now.” (Y/N) smiled faintly. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.” The rain kept falling, hard and unrelenting. But inside the bathroom, it was warm. It smelled like vanilla soap and melted wax and the kind of trust that doesn’t need to be named.

Jake reached up and switched off the overhead light. The darkness softened everything. And in it, for once, he didn’t feel like a man unraveling. He looked at her, candlelight catching the edge of her jaw, and thought:

She’s not going to save me. I know that. But maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to save her either. Maybe we just survive each other.  And maybe that’s something.

*** 

The next week was made of ghosts. Not the kind that rattle chains or flicker lights, but the kind that press their fingerprints into everyday moments, a smell that wasn’t there, a name whispered in sleep, a shadow that looked too much like memory to be a coincidence. Jake started waking up with his jaw clenched, dreams gnawed at the edges of his sleep, flashes of wildfire skies and headlights cutting through rain, of someone standing at a door that wouldn’t open. He’d sit up, breath caught in his throat like it was snagged on something sharp, and (Y/N) would already be awake. Always in the chair by the window. Always watching. One night, the air was so thick with silence it felt like something was about to break. “Tell me what you lost,” (Y/N) said. No preamble. No soft edge. Jake didn’t look at her. Just kept his eyes on the ceiling like the answer might be written there. “I lost myself,” he said finally. “Somewhere between her leaving and me letting her.” (Y/N)’s voice was calm, but not kind. “That’s not what I asked.”

He turned to her slowly, something flickering behind his eyes. “I was going to propose.” The words hung there, bleeding into the air. “She said yes before I even asked. We were drunk, in Knoxville. She laughed, called it practice, said the real one better come with a ring I couldn’t afford.” He swallowed. “I was still picking one out when she left. Didn’t even take her coat.”

(Y/N) stared at him like she could see the echoes of the woman he was talking about. “Where is she now?” “With someone who doesn’t flinch every time they get close.” Jake didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. The ghost of her was thick in the room now, perched on the arm of the couch, humming in the air between their sentences, watching them pretend not to notice her. (Y/N) stood, walked to the record player, and let the needle drop. The room filled with the low, aching sound of some old folk song, worn voice, minor chords, like the music itself was mourning something it couldn’t name.

Jake rubbed his eyes. “You ever feel like someone’s still watching you? Even after they’re gone?” (Y/N) didn’t turn around. “Every day.” She opened a drawer and pulled something out. A necklace. Delicate, silver chain, tiny charm shaped like a bird. “This was my brother’s,” she said. “He bought it for me with his first paycheck from some shitty diner. Said it was dumb, but he wanted me to have something that meant freedom. He died wearing the matching one.”

Jake watched her fingers trace the charm. She didn’t wear it often. He’d never seen it until now. “Sometimes I hear his voice,” she whispered. “Not in my head. In the room. Like he’s standing behind me, waiting for me to say something I never got to.” She looked over at Jake. “You think we haunt ourselves? Even when no one else is trying to?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I think we do.” (Y/N) stepped closer. “You want to see something?” she asked. Jake followed without answering.

She led him to the roof. The wind cut sharper up there, and the city sprawled out like a half-finished apology, lights flickering, windows dark, distant sirens folding into the hum of nothing. She pointed to the skyline.

“See that red light? The blinking one? That’s the hospital where they took him. I watched it from here the whole night they worked on him. Felt like if I stared hard enough, he wouldn’t die.”

Jake stood beside her, quiet.

“I go up here when I can’t breathe,” she said. “Sometimes it feels like he’s still in that light, you know? Like he’s stuck in the moment before.” Jake stepped closer. Not touching her, just close enough that if she swayed, he could catch her. “Maybe we’re all stuck in the moment before,” he said. “Before the leaving. Before the breaking.” She didn’t cry. That was the haunting part. There were no tears anymore, just the weight of too many nights like this, the weight of dreams holding your baggage. (Y/N) turned toward him. Her eyes were glassy but hard. “You don’t belong here.” He didn’t argue. He couldn’t. “You’re waiting for something to save you,” she said. “And I’m too tired to be the thing you drown in.”

Jake felt it then, that slow unraveling, that invisible thread pulling loose inside him. “Then why did you let me stay?” (Y/N)’s voice broke just enough to crack the air. “Because I wanted to believe that maybe this time, the ending would be different.” And then she was gone.

Not in the literal sense, her body was still there, boots planted on the gravel, breath fogging the cold air, but something had left. The soft space between them closed. The thing neither of them could name had finally collapsed under its own weight. Jake stayed on the roof long after she went back down. Let the wind scrape at his skin. Let the city feel big and cruel and infinite around him. When he finally returned to the apartment, the lights were off. (Y/N) was gone. And for the first time in months, Jake felt alone in the way that meant something permanent.

On the kitchen table was the notebook. The page he’d folded into his pocket had been torn out, its absence like a scar in the middle of the story. And scrawled on the last page, in a hand that looked hurried, maybe even shaking, were six words:

“Don’t come looking. Let me vanish.”

Jake stood there for a long time, the record player still spinning nothing, the needle bumping at the end in an endless loop of silence. He didn’t cry either. She had warned him:

No one disappears in Nashville.

Just ghosts. Pretending not to haunt each other.

[ageofwonderland]

Renegade - Chapter 1

The lights above the bar buzzed like they were shorting out from too many confessions. That kind of dull, broken flicker that made the world look more cinematic than it ever felt. Jake sat alone in the corner booth of The Low Beam, a dive off 8th that smelled like old stories and wet leather. His drink sat untouched. The condensation traced slow lines down the glass like it was crying for him. He wasn’t from Nashville; he’d been here six months, just long enough to know which roads flood in the rain and which corners of himself he had to hide to keep from drowning.

It was her voice that made him look up. Soft, sharp, too honest. “You look like you’re trying to disappear,” she said. Jake blinked. The girl stood in front of him, no smile, no invitation. Just observation. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her hair was pulled back like she hadn’t thought too much about being seen tonight. That kind of carelessness only came from people who’d been seen too much before. “I’ve got a talent for it,” he replied. She nodded, slid into the booth across from him like it was the obvious thing to do.

“No one disappears here,” she said, eyes scanning the room. “Just ghosts pretending not to haunt each other.” Jake almost smiled. Almost. “What’s your name?” he asked. “(Y/N).”

“Jake.”

“I figured,” she said, and then didn’t explain. She looked out the window behind him, like she was watching the city for signs of something, danger, maybe, or maybe just some reason to stay. “I saw you come in last week,” she said. “Same booth. Same drink you didn’t touch.”

“You keep tabs on strangers?”

“No. Just the sad ones.”

He exhaled through his nose, not quite a laugh. She was right. He’d spent weeks trying to shake whatever kept clawing at his ribs. People called it heartbreak, like it was something that broke clean. This thing, it was more like static, like feedback stuck in the wires of his chest. “Did you lose someone?” (Y/N) asked quietly. Jake hesitated. “Not in the way people mean when they ask that.”

She nodded again, like she understood something about grief that wasn’t tied to death. And maybe she did. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter?” she asked, not like a come-on, more like a question to someone she knew might say no. He stood before he even processed it, maybe because the bar felt like it was shrinking, maybe because she was the first person who didn’t ask him to smile. They walked through rain that wasn’t supposed to fall that night, past the hollow click of neon, past strangers who didn’t look up. She led him through alleyways and shortcuts like she’d memorized escape routes. They ended up at her apartment, fifth floor walk-up, plants dying on the sill, a record playing faintly in the background. Phoebe Bridgers, maybe. Something full of ghost stories and breathlessness.

He didn’t sit right away. Just looked around at the soft chaos: a coat on a lamp, an open notebook with lyrics scribbled sideways, a cracked coffee mug on the floor. “You live like someone who's ready to run,” he said. (Y/N) shrugged, tugging a blanket off the couch and draping it over the back of a chair. “I don’t like roots.” Jake watched her. “But you still plant things.” She paused. “Only the ones I’m willing to let die.”

They didn’t kiss that night. They didn’t touch. He slept on the couch, fully clothed, and barely slept at all. She fell asleep sitting on the windowsill, knees to her chest, like someone who had tried to stop needing things years ago but still looked out into the dark, hoping the city would need her back.

As morning pushed a pale glow into the room, Jake looked at her and knew:

She was not going to save him.  And he wasn’t going to save her.

But maybe, just maybe, they’d survive each other.

***

Jake didn’t leave the next morning; he told himself it was because the buses weren’t running yet, that he was waiting for the sky to figure itself out. But the truth hung heavier: he didn’t know where he’d go if he left, so he lingered in the smell of burnt coffee and lavender detergent, while (Y/N) moved around the apartment like she was used to being watched and ignoring it.

She poured cereal into a chipped bowl, no milk, just dry pieces crunching between her teeth. No small talk. No “sleep okay?” or “you want anything?” Just the kind of quiet that meant comfort, or maybe resignation. Jake wasn’t sure which one this was.

“You always let strangers stay over?” he asked eventually.

(Y/N) glanced up, one eyebrow raised. “You always follow strange girls home?”

Jake tilted his head. “Touché.”

A silence settled again, but it wasn’t the awkward kind, more like a held breath. She moved toward the window, peering out like she was checking on the world she didn’t quite trust. Rain still clung to the rooftops, mist curling off the pavement like the city was trying to forget itself. 

“I don’t usually do this,” he said. (Y/N) didn’t look at him. “Neither do I.” She said it like it was both an apology and a warning. Jake rose and walked toward the small table by the window, the one cluttered with pens, receipts, a Polaroid that had been left to fade. In the picture: a girl with longer hair and more light in her eyes, standing beside a tall man in a faded band tee, both laughing at something outside the frame.

“That your brother?” he asked, nodding toward the photo.

(Y/N)’s jaw tightened. “He was.”

Jake didn’t push. He knew that tone. Knew how the word “was” could hollow out a person if you said it too many times. She picked up the photo, thumb running over the edges like she could smooth the past back into place. “He OD’d two years ago. Out behind a show at Mercy Lounge.”

Jake breathed out slow. “I’m sorry.” “Everyone is,” she said, not cruelly. Just tired. She set the photo back down, careful this time, like it might break if it wasn’t handled right. Jake thought of all the names he hadn’t said aloud in weeks, months. Of the way silence could wrap around your throat until it felt like safety. (Y/N) grabbed her jacket off the doorknob. “Wanna walk with me?”

“Where?”

She gave a half-smile. “Nowhere good.”

They walked down Edgehill toward the train tracks, where the city started to forget itself, too. Backyards turned into rusted fences, and graffiti outnumbered street signs. (Y/N) led him to a low wall near a crumbling underpass and climbed up like she’d done it a hundred times before.

Jake followed and sat beside her. “There’s this theory,” she said, legs swinging off the edge, “that people like us, we’re not sad. We’re just honest in a world that keeps lying.” Jake looked at her, “Who said that?” (Y/N) shrugged. “Me. Just now.” He laughed, really laughed, for the first time since before the fallout. Since before everything got scorched back home. (Y/N) watched him like it surprised her too.

“What brought you here?” she asked. Jake shook his head. “A mistake.” 

“What kind?”

“The kind with a name.” (Y/N) didn’t press, didn’t ask what she looked like or what she’d done. Instead, she offered the kindest thing she could: distraction. “There’s a show tonight,” she said. “It’s at this place under a liquor store. No one cool plays there, which is kind of why it’s good.”

“You playing?” She hesitated. “Maybe.”He gave her a sidelong glance. “You scared?”

“No. Just… tired of being heard but not listened to.” Jake nodded. “Yeah. I get that.”

They stayed on that wall until the sun shifted and shadows started to crawl toward the city’s edge. It felt like the beginning of something, or maybe just the middle of a bruise.

That night, the bar smelled like spilled whiskey and patchouli, the kind of place where everyone looked like they were waiting to be discovered or forgotten. (Y/N)’s name wasn’t on the flyer, but she signed up last minute, scrawling it small in the corner of the list like she didn’t want it to matter.

Jake sat at the back, next to a broken jukebox that still lit up like it had something to say. He watched her walk onstage with a secondhand guitar and no plan. She didn’t introduce herself. Just strummed once, looked out at the half-interested crowd, and started.

The song wasn’t perfect, her voice cracked once, the strings buzzed, but it was real. Raw. Like she’d pulled it straight from the bruised parts of her chest. Jake didn’t breathe for most of it.

The lyrics weren’t fancy. They didn’t have to be.

“I loved you like you were a way out. But you were just a mirror with better lighting.”

When she finished, no one clapped right away. Then someone did, slow and surprised, and the rest followed. She stepped down, expression unreadable, eyes searching for Jake. He was already on his feet. They didn’t say anything. She just walked up to him, hair falling out of its braid, guitar still in hand, and he followed her outside. “You okay?” he asked. (Y/N) looked at him. “No. But I feel like I’m starting to be.” He didn’t answer. Just took the guitar from her, gently, like it was something sacred, and carried it while they walked. And as they disappeared down another Nashville alley, under another flickering streetlamp, Jake realized something quietly terrifying:

She wasn’t going to save him. But he was starting to want her to.

[ageofwonderland]

Ghost Notes

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x f!character

Word Count: 1k || a short story

The night Jake met Claire, it was snowing in Nashville. A rare, quiet kind of snowfall, muffling everything but the hum of old neon and someone playing Bon Iver through a half-broken speaker. He was at a friend's house, half-tuning his guitar in the corner of the living room, counting the seconds until he could leave without seeming rude. She came in like static, loud, slightly out of focus, laughing at something no one heard. Claire had eyes like unresolved chords; everything about her was mismatched, gloves that didn’t match her jacket, eyeliner smudged like she forgot it was there. She didn’t belong in that house, or that night, and yet, somehow, she belonged more than anyone. When she spotted Jake and the guitar, she made a beeline straight for him. 

“You look like you’ve got sad songs,” she said, dropping down in front of him, boots tracking melted snow on the hardwood, “play something that hurts.” He smirked, but didn’t speak. He just played something slow, in a strange tuning, the kind of song that lived between words. Claire didn’t look away, not once.

They weren’t dating. Not officially. But she kept showing up.It started with coffee after that night. Then late-night drives with no destination. Then afternoons in Jake’s apartment where time felt like soup — thick, slow, unmeasured. She’d curl up on the rug, flipping through his old vinyls. He’d play quietly, never singing. She said his silence felt more honest than most people’s confessions. Claire didn’t talk about her past. She left bits of it like breadcrumbs — a wrist tattoo with a date she wouldn’t explain. An offhand remark about her sister that trailed off mid-sentence. One night, she woke up screaming, gasping for air, and when Jake touched her shoulder, she flinched like she didn’t know who he was. But in daylight, she was the kind of girl who danced in parking lots and bought old postcards just to write song lyrics on them. Jake, who had spent years building walls, let her in. He didn’t know how not to.

There were no labels. No promises. She kissed him sometimes, soft and slow, then pulled away like she’d remembered something awful. Some nights they shared a bed, barely touching. Other nights, she left before morning without saying goodbye. “I’m not someone you save,” she told him once, sitting on his fire escape smoking a clove cigarette. “I don’t have a happy ending in me.” Jake didn’t answer. He just sat beside her and let the silence fill the air between them. She never asked him to stay. He never asked her to leave.

There were so many almosts. Almost confessions. Almost plans. Almost love. Once, she asked, “Do you ever think we’re just passing time until we break each other?” He looked at her for too long. “I don’t want to break anything.” “You don’t have to want it,” she said. “It still happens.” Claire had this way of smiling like she was somewhere else. Her eyes drifted, even when she was sitting right next to him. He began to realize she’d been leaving since the moment they met. Like the whole thing was borrowed time, still, he wrote songs about her, all in minor keys. He never showed them to her.

The unraveling wasn’t loud.

She started disappearing. Not in a dramatic way — no slammed doors or tears. Just... missed calls. Messages read but not answered. Weekends when she’d vanish, then reappear on his doorstep with windburned cheeks and a tired smile. When he asked, “Where were you?” she replied, “Don’t make this something it’s not.”He wanted to yell. Or beg. Or demand something real. Instead, he said, “Okay.”He didn’t know it, but that was the last time she stayed the night.

It’s been seven months. Jake still plays the guitar she touched. Still finds strands of her hair in the sleeve of his coat. Still wonders where she is when it rains too hard, or when he hears a song that sounds like her. She left behind one earring, a few Polaroids, and an old sweatshirt she probably forgot she wore. But mostly, she left behind questions. He sees her sometimes, not in person, just in memory. The way she moved her hands when she talked. The way she looked at the world like it owed her something, and she knew it never would pay up. People tell him to move on, that it wasn’t healthy. That she didn’t treat him right. But they don’t understand that loving her was like listening to a song that never resolved, no chorus, no bridge, just endless verses that echoed after the needle lifted off the vinyl.

Jake’s not angry. Not really. He knew from the start that Claire wasn’t someone you held onto. She was a tide, you let it wash over you, and then you learn to breathe underwater after she’s gone. But still, he misses her. Not just her. The version of himself that only existed when she was near, open, raw, vulnerable in a way he didn’t know how to be before her. That’s the tragedy of it all. Not that she left. But that he finally learned how to stay.

There's a letter he never mailed; it sits in the back of a drawer, stained with coffee. 

Claire,

I didn’t love you because you needed saving. I loved you because, for a second, I saw the version of you that believed she could be saved. That was enough.

I hope you're warm.

-J

Some love stories don’t end. They just change form. Echoes, songs, ghosts

[ageofwonderland]

About You // The Bolter

Pairing: Sam Kiszka x f!reader

Word Count: 1.2k || short story inspired by two back-to-back songs on Spotify

Sam

I still see her sometimes. Not really, not fully, not in the way that would make me think I’ve finally lost it, but in reflections. In the pause between thoughts. Her name was (Y/N). And the thing about (Y/N) was this: she never really left, even when she did. Not completely. 

We were nineteen. That stupid, beautiful age where everything you feel feels finally, eternal. She moved like a dream, like she was always just out of step with time. Everything about her felt cinematic, like she was framed in soft light that I couldn’t see but could somehow feel. 

We met in late autumn, when the sun gave up earlier each day and the sky looked like it had secrets. She was reading a book on the floor of a record store, sitting cross-legged in the jazz section, humming to something through her headphones. I pretended to need Coltrane, just to say something. She looked up and smiled like she already knew that I would. 

We got good at late nights, driving to nowhere, talking about ghosts. Not the supernatural kind, but the people you used to be, the things you never said, the versions of yourself that only existed for someone else. She told me once that she didn’t believe in closure, “People just leave echoes,” she said, “and the best you can do is learn how to live with the sound.” 

God, she could be so dramatic. But somehow, when she said things like that, it didn’t feel like a performance; it felt like prophecy. She had this necklace, a thin silver chain with a tiny, cracked locket. Inside? Nothing. She said it used to hold a photo of her mother, but she lost it years ago. She still wore it every day. “I like the weight of it,” she said, “it reminds me of what I forgot.” 

I should have known, even then. 

The thing is, we hever had some huge fight. No betrayal, no, no screaming in the rain. She just…unraveled. Slowly. Quietly. Like fog dissolving in sunlight. First, she wouldn’t return texts until the next morning, then she started saying she was tired when I’d call, then one day, she just didn’t show up. 

I still went to the record store every Tuesday. Still flipped through jazz albums. Still half expecting her to be sitting there on the floor, like she never left. I kept the voicemail she left a few days after the silence started. 

Hey, I’m okay, I think. Just needed some space. I’m sorry if I didn’t say goodbye right. 

That was it, nothing else. Years passed like months after that. I dated other people, got a job, and moved to a city that had no memory of her. I convinced myself I’d moved on. That she was a season, a mood, a lyric that used to mean everything but now just sounded like background noise. But then one night, walking home from a bar with too much in my blood, I passed someone wearing the same perfume she used to, violets and ash, and I almost fell apart. 

She showed up in dreams, in songs, in the space between wakefulness and sleep, where everything feels real and unreal at once. And I realized something. I didn’t miss her. I missed me, with her. The version of myself who believed love could last just because it felt like it could. The boy who thought ghosts were only in stories. 

I saw her once, years later, on the platform of a train station. She was standing alone, her hair longer, her shoulders sharper, she looked tired, and beautiful. She didn’t see me. But I saw the necklace, the same chain, still empty. She got on the train, and I didn’t follow. 

Because some things aren’t meant to be reclaimed, some people are meant to haunt you, not stay. And maybe that’s what love really is. Not the staying. But the echo. 

(Y/N)

I remember him in pieces. Hands first, he had those hands that looked like they didn’t know what to do when they weren’t holding something, me, a cigarette, the steering wheel of his rust-colored car, the neck of a beer bottle. Then his voice. Always softer than you’d expect, like he was trying not to wake something sleeping in the room. He loved me like someone trying to memorize a song that kept skipping. Over and over, the same part, same note, afraid that it would end. I never told him that I was the one hitting the skip button. I wasn’t made for the kind of love he gave. I didn’t know how to be needed without disappearing. I didn’t know how to stay. There’s something wrong with the way I feel time. I move through it like someone underwater, too slow, maybe too fast. I knew I was going to leave him from the start. But I also knew I’d never stop carrying him. 

And I do. I carry him in the quietest ways. 

When I hear someone say my name the way he used to, drawn out, lazy, a little stunned. When I wake up too early and the light is all silver and soft, like the inside of that locket I still wear. When I smell cold air mixed with gasoline and old cologne.

We never had a clean ending. That’s the part that stays with me. I couldn’t give him closure because I didn’t have any myself. I just had the ache. The feeling that I was living a life that didn’t belong to me, and he was the proof. 

I listened to that voicemail I left him once. Years later. God, I sounded so small. So unsure. 

I’m okay, I think. 

I wasn’t, I don’t know if I ever have been. 

He was kind, gentle, too much for someone like me. I would’ve ruined him eventually, even if I had stayed. That’s the truth I don’t say out loud. That maybe I thought leaving was the kindest thing I ever did for him. People always talk about love like it’s a place you arrive. But for me, it’s always been a hallway, dim, echoing, and full of doors I don’t open anymore. He’s behind one of them.I saw him once, at the train station. He looked older, but not in a bad way. Just… real. Less wide-eyed. Like life had gotten heavy on his shoulders, but he was learning to carry it. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. But I felt it. The jolt. That second where your past walks right past you and you’re too afraid to turn around and see if it looked back. I wonder if he still thinks about me. Not every day, not the way he used to, but in those empty hours, when the night is too quiet. I wonder if he remembers the jazz records. The record store, my humming. I hope he found someone steady, someone who doesn’t vanish. Someone who knows how to hold things without breaking them.

As for me?

I keep moving.  But some part of me stays nineteen, cross-legged on a floor, half in love, half in ghost.

And completely, undeniably–his echo.

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 8

I just got back from my Mirador trip :D Here's chapter 8

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was waiting by the bus when I stepped out of the motel. At first, I didn’t see him; I was too focused on the coffee burning my palms and the lingering warmth in my chest from Sam’s arms. But then I heard my name, it wasn’t loud, it wasn’t angry. No, it was hollow, wrecked. I turned, and there he was. 

Jake. 

Hair a mess, face pale, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Not drunk. Not high. Just bare. Like he hasn’t slept, hadn’t breathed, hadn’t been Jake in days. And I knew, he knew. The way he looked at me said everything. He’d felt it settle in his chest the moment I left him behind. 

“Can we talk?” he asked, voice cracking like it was made of glass. I hesitated, and that was all it took. Because he stepped forward, hands trembling, words tumbling out too fast, too messy to catch. “I know what I am,” he said, “I know I was selfish. I know I wasn’t what you needed. But I can be. I will be. Just don't…don’t do this. Don’t leave me.” 

“Jake–”

“No, please, just let me say this. Please.” He reached for me, then thought better of it, pulled his hand back, and rubbed it through his hair like he could tear the desperation out of himself. “I can change. I am changing. You saw me trying. You know I was trying.” Tears were slipping down his cheeks now, and he didn’t even try to stop them. “I love you. More than being on the road, more than the fucking music. I didn’t show it the right way, but I swear to God I felt it. Every day. Even when I couldn’t say it.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. Because this isn’t what I wanted, to break him like this. To see him come undone when he had spent so long pretending he was invincible. 

“You’re choosing him?” he whispered. 

And it was that, not the yelling, not the begging, that shattered me. The disbelief. The helplessness. The sound of someone losing something they thought they could always come back to. “I already did,” I said softly. 

He dropped his head, shoulders hunched like he was physically trying to hold himself together. “I don’t know how to live in a world where you’re not mine,” he said, “I don’t want to.” I stepped toward him and touched his arm, “Jake–” 

“No,” he choked out, stepping back like my fingers burned him. “Don’t pity me. Don’t…” his voice broke, “don’t comfort me while you’re in love with someone else.” We stood there, both of us silent, both of us bleeding in different ways. And then, quieter, “I’d give up everything to go back. To fix this before it got this bad.” I nodded because I believed him. But it was too late. Some things don’t break clean; they just dissolve slowly until you can’t hold them anymore. 

“I loved you, Jake.” I said. 

“I know,” he whispered. 

***

Years before

Before the touring. 

Before the silence.

Before the slow unraveling neither of us noticed until the knots came loose…there was a rooftop. There was a night in July when the city felt like it belonged to only us. I was nineteen, he was twenty-one. The world hadn’t gotten to us yet, hadn’t hardened us. Not the way it would eventually. 

We climbed the fire escape behind his old apartment, hands sticky from cherry popsicles and warm beer, my converse were too big and my knees were scraped, but he held my hand like I was fragile anyway. “Almost there,” he said, grinning as he pulled me up the last few rungs. The roof was cluttered with rusted AC unites and forgotten folding chairs. We found and old blanket behind a vent, and he threw it down like it was a throne. We laid there, side by side, sweating and laughing. The stars were faint, the sky was hazy and orange from the city lights, but we looked anyway. “It’s stupid,” he said after a while, voice soft, “but when I was a kid, I thought I’d be famous by twenty. Like…the guy. Selling out arenas. Headlining festivals.”

I turned my head toward him, “That’s not stupid.” He smiled, just barely. “Well, I’m twenty-one, and I live with three guys who can’t remember to flush a toilet.” 

“Yet.” I said, almost a whisper. 

“What?” 

“You’re not famous. Yet.” 

He looked at me like I just said something sacred, “You really think I could be?” 

“I know you could be.” He turned to face me then, really face me. Eyes soft, searching. Like he couldn’t believe I said it, like part of him was still waiting to be proven wrong. No one had ever looked at me like that before. Like I was the anchor holding his dreams in place. Like I was the one thing in the world that made him feel seen. “You always say things like that,” he whispered, “Like they’re facts.” 

“Maybe they are.”

He stared at me for a moment longer, then looked away, back at the sky. I could see the way his throat bobbed, like he was swallowing something he didn’t know how to say. Then, quietly, “My mom never believed in this. Music. Touring. Said I’d burn out or starve before I ever made it. I think she thought I was too soft for it. Too distracted.” I didn’t say anything, just moved closer, our arms touched now. “I used to think maybe she was right,” he added. 

“You don’t anymore?” He looked back at me then, eyes wide, raw. 

“Not when you say my name.”

That was the first time I felt it, not just attraction, not just the thrill of being nineteen and infatuated with someone impossibly magnetic, but something bigger. 

We stayed on that roof for hours. Talking about music, and what kind of dog we would get if we ever settled down, and what it would feel like to sleep in a van for months on end chasing nothing but applause and cheap gas station coffee. He played a demo on his phone, it was rough and beautiful and too loud in places, but I cried anyway. 

He wiped the tear away with the back of his hand, confused and tender. “Why are you crying?” he asked me softly. 

“Because you wrote something real. 

He smiled that slow, crooked smile that would undo me so many times in the years to come, and he leaned in. Hesitated just long enough to ask without words. And I kissed him first. 

If I could go back, maybe I would freeze us there. 

Before the fear. 

Before the distance. 

Before I learned that love alone doesn’t keep you from falling apart. 

But I cant, so I just carry it. That night on the rooftop. The way he looked at me like I was his beginning. And mauyube I was. Even if I wasn’t his end. 

Months Before

It wasn’t the first kiss. Or the first time he touched me like I mattered. Or even the night he said he loved me, with that quiet, steady voice that didn’t shake even though mine didn. 

No. 

It was a Tuesday. Mid-tour. Middle of nowhere. Some no-name diner off I-80 in Nebraska, a greasy spoon kind of place that smelled like burnt coffee and overcooked bacon. The rest of the band had passed out in the van or wandered off to smoke, but I couldn’t sleep, and he saw that.

Of course he did. He always did. “Come inside,” he said. “You look like you need pancakes.” I remember I rolled my eyes, but I followed him anyway. Hair a mess, hoodie three sizes too big, no makeup, eyes puffy from another silent fight with Jake the night before. 

Sam didn’t ask about it. He just slid into the booth across from me, unwrapped his silverware like this was the most important breakfast either of us had ever had and said, “So whats the weirdest dream you’ve ever had?” I blinked at him.

That was Sam. Never reached for the bleeding parts first. He waited. Let you come to him. Gave you space to laugh before you cried. And God, I needed that. 

We sat there for an hour, talking about nonsense. About dreams and conspiracy theories and which breakfast food had the most chaotic energy, which he swore was waffles. And at some point, I started laughing. Not the polite kind. Not the careful kind. The kind that comes from somewhere deep, the kind you don’t realize you’ve been holding in for months. He just watched me. Smiling. Not trying to fix me. Not needing to be anything but there. 

When the check came, I reached for my wallet. He stopped me with a shake of his head, “let me take care of you.” 

Six words. 

That’s all it was. But it hit me like a wave. Not because I needed him to pay for my pancakes, but because he meant it. He meant every quiet thing he ever did, the way he kept my favorite snacks in the back of the van, the way he stood beside me without asking for anything back. He had been loving me in the small, silent ways all along. And I hadn’t seen it, not really. Not until that moment. 

Later that night, I cried into his chest, and he held me like I wasn’t broken. And maybe that was when it started. 

But the dinner? The laughter? The simple offering of let me take care of you? That’s when I fell. That’s when everything changed. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 7

The sun was beginning to rise over the dusty Texas horizon, throwing streaks of pale gold across the motel parking lot. The tour was moving again in a few hours, but the band was still asleep, or pretending to be. The world was in that soft, in-between silence before noise returned. I hadn’t slept. I’d been turning the truth over in my chest all night, letting it shape me, bruise me, steady me. 

I was going to choose Sam. 

I already had. The decision sat quietly inside me now, not with fanfare or fireworks, but with calm, like a steady hand pressed against my heartbeat, reminding me who I had become in his arms, and who I could become if I stopped looking backward. 

I found him outside, leaning against the back wall of the motel near the vending machine, hands shoved into his hoodie pockets. He looked like he hadn’t slept either. When he saw me, something flickered across his face–hope, fear, maybe both. He straightened but didn’t move toward me. Just waited, like he was giving me a chance to run again. But I didn’t. 

I walked to him slowly, and before I could say anything, he spoke. “I know you heard us last night.” I blinked. 

“How?”

“You never came back with the ice.” A faint, wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I meant every word,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion and honesty. “I love you. And I haven’t asked you to choose because I didn’t want to make it harder than it already was. But I can’t keep pretending I’m okay, just waiting. I need you to know that.” He paused, took a breath, and stepped closer. “I don’t want to be your maybe. I want to be your always. And I don’t care how complicated it gets. If you pick me, if you really pick me, I will fight for us. Every single day.” I felt something crack open in my chest. Not fear this time. Not guilty. Just…relief. Because I didn’t have to wonder anymore, I reached out, wrapped my fingers into the fabric of his hoodie, and pulled him close. 

His breath caught. “I already chose you,” I whispered. 

Sam stared at me, like he wasn’t sure he heard me right. “I love you,” I said again, firmer this time. “And I’m done running from it.” He kissed me then–fast, desperate, full of every sleepless night and every unsaid thing we’d held back. I kissed him back like he was the only future I wanted. Because he was, and when he held me, I finally felt like I was home. 

Sam

She was standing in front of me, Eyes wide and full of something I didn’t date name yet. 

Hope?

No. Hope was dangerous. I’d live in the ache of almosts for too long to believe in it now. So, I stood there, the sun rising behind her like a damn halo, and told myself to stay still. To not reach. To not fall. She’d always be falling back to him. 

Even when she kissed me. 

Even when she held my hand in the dark. 

Even when she said nothing at all. 

He was the ghost in the room, in her mouth, in her memory. So I told her the truth, that I love her. That I was done pretending I didn’t want more. That I didn’t care what it cost me, and then I waited for her to walk away. But she didn’t. She stepped closer, tugged on my hoodie like it was the only tether keeping her from disappearing completely, and she said it. 

I already chose you. 

For a second, I thought I’d imagined it. Like maybe I’d finally cracked under the weight of loving her in silence for too long, but then she said it again. 

I love you. And I’m done running from it. 

My heart stopped. It stopped. Because for weeks, I’d been living in the space between her fingertips, and her fear. Watching her teter between memory and desire, never knowing where I stood. But now? Now she was here. Really here. With me. 

I kissed her because I didn’t know what else to do, because my hands were shaking and my chest felt too full, and if I didn’t hold her I might break apart on the spot. She kissed me back like she’d been waiting a lifetime for this moment. And maybe she had. God, maybe we both had. And then I let her breathe. Because even in my joy, I knew this wasn’t simple. I wasnt naive. I knew what it had cost her to get here. But I also knew, finally knew, that this wasn’t temporary. This wasn’t just the aftermath of Jake’s absence or the thrill of something new. She chose me. Not by accident. Not by default. She chose me with her whole chest, with her whole damn heart. And I was going to love her like I had been waiting my whole life to do it. Because I had. 

***

We were two hours from rolling out when I found Jake sitting alone behind the venue. Everyone else was busy with coffee runs, tuning guitars, and pretending everything was normal. But nothing felt normal anymore, not to me, and maybe not to him either. He sat on an overturned crate, legs stretched out, smoke curling from the cigarette pinched between his fingers. He hadn’t shaved, and his hoodie was stained with something that looked like last night’s beer. He looked like someone holding himself together with string and a prayer. When he looked up and saw me, he didn’t smile. But he didn’t look away. I almost turned around, but I didn’t. I owed him something. Or maybe I just needed to hear what he had left to say. 

“You look tired,” I said, stepping closer. He gave a breath of a laugh, no humor in it. That’s funny. I was gonna say the same thing about you.” I leaned against the brick wall across from him. Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then he stubbed out his cigarette, flicked the butt toward the dirt, and looked up at me like he couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

“Are you in love with him?” The question hit like a punch, not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I knew he didn’t really want to hear it. I didn’t say anything, and that answer was enough. He nodded slowly, jaw tight. “Right.” 

“Jake…”

But he stood up suddenly, rubbing his hand over his face like he could wipe away the truth. “Look, I know I wasn’t good to you. I know I shut you out, and I let the music come first and made you feel like shit for needing more. I know” 

I swallowed hard. 

“But I was trying,” he went on, voice cracking around the edges, “I was trying to fix it. I am trying.” 

“I know,” I whispered. 

“And maybe it’s too late, maybe you’re already gone in all the ways that matter. But I still love you. I’ve always loved you.” He laughed bitterly, “Even when I didn’t show it. Even when I thought you’d never leave. And I know it doesn’t mean much now, but I would’ve done it all differently if I’d known this was where we’d end up.” 

I looked away. Because watching him fall apart made me feel like the villain in someone else’s love story. “I’ll share you,” he said suddenly, desperately. “If that’s what it takes. If it means I get to keep part of you. I’ll take the pieces he doesn’t hold.” 

My heart broke. He wasn’t angry. He was begging. And somehow, that hurt worse. Much. Worse. 

“Jake…You don’t want that,” I said gently, “You don’t want half of me.” 

“I want anything you’ll give me.” 

He stepped closer, voice dropping to a painful whisper, “Tell me it’s not too late. Please tell me that.” I looked at him, this boy I had loved, this boy I still loved in ways that didn’t make sense anymore–and I felt everything. 

All the history. 

All the softness. 

All the almosts. 

But love wasn’t enough if it didn’t hold you the way you needed to be held. And Jake…Jake had always held me with one hand open and one foot out the door. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice barely holding, “I already chose him.” 

He stared at me for a long time, eyes wet, mouth tight. He didn’t yell. Didn’t beg again. He just nodded slowly and stepped back, and I knew I’d broken something in him that he might never fix. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “of course you did.”

Jake

She’s going to say it. 

I knew it before she opened her mouth. I knew it from the way she looked at me. Like she was already mourning what we used to be. That gaze, soft and distant, like someone gently closing a door and knowing it won’t ever open again. But still, I stood there. I waited. Because there was a part of me, somewhere deep down, that hoped she wouldn’t say it. I hoped the silence between us was just a pause, not the ending. But then, she spoke. 

I’m sorry. I already chose him. 

My chest didn’t crack, it caved. Like someone had punched straight through bone and grabbed what was left of my heart with both hands, that was it. That was the death sentence I’d been trying to outpace for weeks. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just stood there, frozen in the middle of my own ruin. Because the worst part wasn’t hearing her say it. The worst part was knowing I deserved it. 

She had waited. She had tried. She begged me to let her in, over and over, and I kept the walls up like I thought they’d protect us. Like I thought love was about surviving, not showing up. But she stopped asking. Stopped waiting. And I didn’t notice until she started laughing with Sam in ways she hadn’t with me in months. And now she was here, telling me it was over, and doing it with kindness. Like that would make it hurt less. But it didn’t. Her mercy was the sharpest knife. I wanted to say something. Anything. Tell her that I’d change, even if it was already too late. That I’d burn every song I’d ever written if it meant she’d stay. That I’d rewrite myself from scratch if she just gave me one more chance. But the words caught in my throat like thorns. I didn’t want to beg. But I would have. God, I would have gotten on my knees if I thought it would matter.

You don’t want half of me. 

But she was wrong. I wanted any part of her. I would’ve taken the late nights, the silences, the heartbreaks, the pieces Sam left behind, just to be near her. Just to be something again. But she didn’t want to be broken anymore. Not even for me. So I stood there. Nodded. Said nothing as she walked away. And when she disappeared down the hallway, taking everything soft and golden with her, I let the hollow settle in my chest like it belonged there. Because maybe it did. I loved her too late. Too poorly. And now I’d have to carry that for the rest of my life–the girl I let go, the girl I couldn’t keep, the girl I loved more than the music. 

And it still wasn’t enough. Oh, my broken drum, you have beaten my heart. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 6

We were packing up after a show in Austin, sweaty, tired, half-drunk on adrenaline and the kind of heat that clung to your skin long after the music stopped. Sam was outside loading gear with the rest of the band, and I was in the greenroom alone, wrapping cables, when Jake walked in. He didn’t say anything at first, just leaned against the doorframe, watching me. There was something in his eyes tonight. Not suspicion or anger, just…softness, and perhaps a little nostalgia. He stepped further into the room, the door closing softly behind him. “Do you remember the first time we played that song? Lost in the Haze?” 

“Chicago,” I said instantly, the memory flashing bright in my mind, “Your amp blew halfway through.” He laughed, and we started reminiscing about the day of that awful show, all the mishaps and problems they used to have as a new band. For a second, it was like nothing had changed. Like we were back at the start again, before the distance, before Sam, before all the things we couldn’t say. Jake sat beside me on the couch, not too close, but closer than we’d been in weeks. “I miss this,” he signed, voice lower now, “Not just the music. Us.” I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. “I know you love him,” he said, just like that, no venom—just the truth. I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t mean to.” 

“ I know,” he whispered. He reached out, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered, light, warm, familiar. So painfully familiar. “You loved me once,” he said. 

“I still do,” I admitted back to him. He leaned in, slow, like he was giving me every chance to pull away, but I didn’t. His lips met mine gently, hesitantly–nothing like the desperate kisses of our past. No, this one was quiet. Tender. A memory and a question all at once. And it shattered me because I felt it. Not just the comfort, but the love. The part of me that still belonged to him, that maybe always would. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine. “I would wait forever if I thought you’d come back,” he said, an almost whine to his voice. I closed my eyes, heart tearing in opposite directions. “Don’t say that.” 

“Why?” he whispered, “because it makes you feel something?” 

Because it did, God, it did. And suddenly, I didn’t know which part of me was the truth–the part that bloomed in Sam’s arms…or the part that still burned quietly whenever Jake touched me like this. 

***

The walls at the motel were thin, cheaper than usual. The kind that made secrets harder to keep and silences louder than they should be. I wasn’t eavesdropping, not intentionally. I was walking down the hallway with a bag of ice pressed to the back of my neck, Texas heat relentless even at night, when I heard their voices seeping through the half-open door to the room Sam and Jake shared. 

I froze. 

Their tones weren’t angry, not raised. But there was a quiet edge to them, the kind of sharpness that only comes when the words underneath are too loaded to say plainly. I hovered. Then I listened. 

“She’s different around you now,” Jake said, voice low but not cold. “She’s…lighter.” There was a pause, then Sam replied, quieter, “I never wanted it to happen this way.” 

“But you still wanted it.” 

“I didn’t go looking for her,” Sam pleaded, “You know that.” 

“I know,” Jake said. There was a rustle, maybe he sat on the bed, maybe he turned away. “But it doesn’t make it easier to watch.” 

“I love her,” Sam said, pointed. Plain. Unapologetic. Something in me twisted. “I know,” Jake repeated, “And I think she loves you, too.” Then silence. For a long moment, nothing but air between them. I could hear the hum of the air conditioner, the buzz of a fly at the window. Then Sam spoke again, “So why are you still holding on?” 

Jake’s answer came slowly, like it hurt. “Because I still believe we’re not finished.” A chair scraped the floor, and a sharp exhale. “She kissed me last night,” Jake added. My heart stopped. “I didn’t push it,” he continued. “It just…happened.” Sam’s voice was strained. “Did she say anything?” 

“No. But she didn’t pull away.” Another silence. Heavier now. 

When Sam spoke again, his voice had dropped, a quiet thread of pain woven through it. “So we’re both still standing in the middle, waiting for someone who can’t move.” 

“She’s trying,” Jake said, and I hated him for being kind. “We both know she’s trying.” 

“I just don’t know how long I can stand still.” 

I backed away from the door before they could hear me, ice forgotten, throat dry, heart loud in my chest. Hearing their truths laid bare like that, without performance, without posturing, rattled something deep in me. They were both in love with me. And they were both hurting in silence, trying to be gentle with something that was bleeding from both ends. 

And I…I was still the storm in the center. Still afraid to choose. 

***

The motel room felt colder than it should have. I sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing. Wrapped in one of Jake’s old hoodies that I’d never given back. My hair was damp from the shower, and the ice I’d fetched had melted into a small puddle in the sink. I didn’t even remember walking back into the room. All I could hear was their voices. 

She’s different around you now. 

She kissed me last night. 

I love her. 

I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes and tried to breathe past the ache in my chest. I had spent weeks walking a tightrope, balancing between guilt and desire, history and hope. I told myself I was being careful. Thoughtful. That I was trying not to hurt anyone. But the truth?

I was hurting everyone. Especially myself. 

Jake was the past I couldn’t seem to stop loving. He was the first song I ever believed in. The first person to make me feel like I belonged somewhere. And through the distance and detachment, I’d clung to the idea that maybe love could circle back, that maybe timing was the only thing we got wrong. And now…now that he was soft again, present again, trying–that part of me that remembered our beginning burned brighter. But what if that was just memory? What if I only loved the version of him that lived in our first summer? Before tour buses and emotional dead ends? 

And Sam…

Sam was the love I never saw coming. He knew the exact moment I got overwhelmed. The exact look I gave when I was about to cry but didn’t want to. He never made me feel like I had to earn his attention or compete for space in his heart. 

With Sam, I felt seen. Safe. But it was more than that. It was electric. It was how he looked at me when I laughed, like I was the chorus he never wanted to stop singing. And I loved him. 

God, I loved him. 

But I had buried that love under so much indecision, so much hesitation, that even now, after everything, I wasn’t sure if I deserved to say it out loud again. The worst part was that I understood both of them. Their pain. Their patience. Even their quiet expectations. And I hated myself for not being ready to meet either of them where they deserved to be met. Because the truth, the real, ugly, brutal truth, was this: No matter which way I turned, something had to break. And I couldn’t keep pretending I could hold on to both without bleeding myself dry. So I sat there, alone in the hush of the night, and whispered the question that had been circling my thoughts for days:

What do you want? Not what’s right. Not who’s hurting more. Not who came first. What do you want? 

And for the first time, a whisper of an answer came back, not in words, but in feeling. A warmth. A name I hadn’t said aloud yet. But I knew. And soon, I’d have to say it. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 5

The air outside was thick with summer, and something heavier. The show had ended hours ago, but the tension still clung to my skin like sweat. I couldn’t breathe in the same room as Jake anymore. Not with Sam’s gaze burning through my thoughts. Not with the truth gnawing at the edge of every word I hadn’t said. 

So I found Jake. 

He was sitting on the curb behind the venue, cigarette in one hand, his phone in the other, scrolling through voice memos like they could save him. His hoodie was pulled over his head, even though it was too warm for it, he looked up when I stepped outside. 

Didn’t smile, didn’t flinch. Just said, “You okay?” 

And that broke me. Because he still cared, and I didn’t know how to hold that without hurting him. I sat down beside him, close but not close enough to lie. “I need to tell you something,” I said. 

Jake exhaled slowly, like he already knew. “It’s Sam.” It wasn’t a question. I nodded, “it wasn’t planned…it just..happened. But it’s not physical, Jake It’s–” He held up a hand, “Stop.” 

And I did. 

He stared out at the empty street, the orange glow of the streetlights painting tired shadows under his eyes. “I knew. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew.” 

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” I whispered. 

He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “But you did.” 

I swallowed hard. “I know, I’m sorry.” 

A long silence, the kind that stretches time. Then he turned to look at me, something vulnerable and raw in his voice, “I don’t want to lose you.” I blinked, “Jake…”

“I don’t care,” he cut in, quickly, desperately. “I don’t care if you’re with him. I don’t care if he’s who you crawl to when you need comfort. I just…I want to be someone you come back to. I want to try. Even if I have to share you while I figure it out.” 

My chest ached, “You don’t mean that.” 

“I do,” he said, and the worst part was–he did. “I’ve spent months pushing you away, burying myself in songs and shows and pretending that was enough. But I see it now. I see you. And I want to change.” I closed my eyes, because here it was–what I’d once begged him for. And now? Now it felt like love arriving too late. “I’m not asking for permission,” I said softly, “I’m just being honest.” Jake nodded slowly, eyes glassy but unbroken. “Then be honest with yourself, too. Do you still love me?” 

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know if it was love, or loyalty, or grief for a version of us that only existed in the beginning. He took one last drag of his cigarette, then stood. “Just…don’t go yet,” he said. “Even if it’s not mine anymore, I still want time with your heart.” And then he walked away, leaving me sitting on the curb, shaking with the weight of a choice that no longer felt simple. 

Because now I knew. I wasn’t just deciding between two men. I was deciding who I was going to become. 

***

Jake didn’t bring it up again. After that night, he stopped asking where I went when I disappeared for an hour after soundcheck. He stopped reaching for my hand in the van. Stopped trying to read the answers off my face like lyrics he’d forgotten how to sing. But he stayed close, smiled more, talked to me about songs, about the past, about the future. He didn’t press. He didn’t beg. He simply…stayed. And it hurt more than I expected it to. Because he meant it. Every broken, generous word. He was trying. I saw it in the way he looked at me now, like he was seeing me again for the first time and hating every version of himself that hadn’t before. And still…I drifted. 

Sam didn’t ask me to choose. But he felt it too, the weight of Jake’s presence in my orbit. The tension in my shoulders. The way I pulled back sometimes, just slightly, when his hand brushed mine in the dark. We were together in fragments now. In whispered conversations in the greenroom, in the soft press of his lips to my shoulder when no one was looking, in motel rooms where we didn’t undress but we just lay side by side, sharing silence like it was the only language we had left. 

It wasn’t passion anymore. It was ache. He never said it, but I knew: He was waiting for me to be brave enough to leave the in-between. And I wasn’t, not yet. 

One night, we stayed in a motel on the edge of a desert town, the kind of place that feels like it was built for ghosts. Everyone was tired. Half the band fell asleep with the TV on. Jake passed out with his guitar across his chest. I lay in bed, wide awake, staring at the cracked ceiling. I couldn’t go to Sam’s room, not tonight, not like this. So instead, I pulled on a hoodie and stepped outside. The sky was clear. Cold. Too many stars. I walked to the edge of a parking lot and sat on the curb, hugging my knees, feeling like I might never be whole again. A few minutes later, Sam sat down beside me. He didn’t speak, he didn’t touch me, he just let the silence grow around us. Eventually, I whispered, “I’m breaking both of you.” 

He exhaled through his nose, “And yourself.” That was the worst part; he was right. “I don’t know how to leave someone who is finally trying.” 

“And I don’t know how to stop loving someone who won’t choose me,” he said. The words hung between us, cold and sharp and true. I turned to him, “Why are you still here?” 

Sam didn’t look away, “Because even if you never pick me, I’ll never regret loving you.” My eyes burned, I leaned my head against his shoulder, and he let me. Let me stay in the in-between. Let me ache next to him. He didn’t kiss me, didn’t ask me to explain. He just stayed, and somehow, that made it harder. Because the longer I lived here, in this nowhere space, the more I realized: no one was going to make the choice for me. Eventually, I’d have to walk out of it. One way or another. 

*** 

The room was dim, lit only by a flickering lamp on the dresser and the TV playing some late-night rerun on mute. I sat on the edge of the bed, and he stood by the window, arms crossed over his chest, back straight–but his eyes gave him away. They always did. There was something soft in them tonight. Something breaking. 

“I know you’re not ready,” he said finally, voice low, even, “I’m not here to push.” I nodded, unable to speak, my throat was thick with everything I hadn’t said. Sam glanced down at his hands, then back up at me. “But I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. Watching you carry this weight…watching you pretend you don’t already know where your heart wants to be.” 

I closed my eyes, “I wish I didn’t love him,” I said. 

“But you do.” 

I looked up at him, “And I love you.” His mouth parted just slightly, like the words had struck him somewhere deep and quiet. “I love you,” I said again, steadier this time. “Not like a fling, not like a distraction. I don’t know when it happened, or how, but I do. I love you, Sam.” 

He crossed the room in two steps; he didn’t say a word. He just kissed me. Slow, deliberate, like every moment up until now had led to this one. When he finally pulled back, his hands still cupped my face. His forehead rested gently against mine. “I love you, too,” he whispered. “God, I love you.” 

We didn’t undress that night, we didn’t rush into anything more than what was already overflowing between us. We lay in bed, fully clothed, tangled like roots, breathing in sync, clinging to the truth like it was the only thing keeping us above water. Because for the first time in weeks, there was no pretending. No in-between. No maybes. Only this: I loved him. And he loved me. And whatever came next, we’d walk it together. 

*** 

It was the first night in weeks we didn’t have anywhere to be. No stage. No motel curfews. No eyes watching us over guitars or morning coffee. Sam found us a cabin in the hills, something rustic, barely furnished, but with windows that opened wide to the sky and silence that wrapped around us like a secret. We lit candles we found in a drawer, shared a bottle of cheap wine, sat on the old wooden floor, knees touching, laughing about nothing until it got quiet again. The kind of quiet where every glance feels like a question and every heartbeat sounds like permission.

He kissed me like we had nowhere to be tomorrow. Slowly. Intently. Like every part of him had been aching to be close to me again in a way that didn’t need hiding. I fell back on the mattress, fingers tangled in the hem of his shirt, his weight delicious and warm above me. We undressed slowly, not to tease, not to delay. But because we wanted to feel it. Every inch. Every second. 

His hands were reverent, his mouth trailing heat down my throat, across my collarbone, lower still. I arched into him without shame, because in this space, in this moment, I didn’t need to hide what I wanted, what we wanted. Sam’s hand slipped between my thighs with the kind of confidence that only came from knowing, from listening, from loving someone deeply enough to pay attention. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Sam moaned into my ear as he dragged his finger over the growing wet spot of my underwear. He kisses his way down my stomach, stopping to lick and suck at my skin. He looks up at me when he reaches where I want him most, “Lift your hips for me, baby” 

I obey without thinking, he pulls my underwear down my legs and throws them to the floor over his shoulder, he spreads my thighs open and lowers his head between them, and breathes me in. “You smell so good, bet you taste even better,” he says between kisses on my thighs, “your pussy is dripping for me, baby, want me to fuck you that bad?” I answered with a moan. 

He towered back over me, kissing me deeply, he presses his thumb against my swollen clit, “Please,” I whine, “just fuck me already,” grinding my hips into his thumb. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll take care of you.” He pushes his middle finger inside me, “so fucking wet for me.” he pushes another finger in, stretching me open. Pushing my hips back, I moaned for him, panting. He curls his fingers with each thrust, his cock throbs in his boxers from the sound of me. 

He watched me squirm under his touch, watched me like I was the only song he’d ever want to write again. He adds a third finger, and fucks me even faster. I clench around him, cumming around him. He continued to push into me until I couldn’t take it anymore, starting to squirm away “its…too…much” I manage to pant out. 

“Sorry angel,” he pulls his fingers out and brings them to his mouth, moaning at the taste. He stands up and drags me to the edge of the bed, “just another taste…it’s all I need” He fucked his tongue into me, humming lightly. He latched onto my clit, and pushes two fingers back into me, his fingers curling into me and fucking me while a wave is building within me. I cum again, legs shaking, back arching, I tried to push his head and squirm away but he held me down by my hips, “just a little more baby, you can take it.” I start panting, unsure if I can take it like he said, like he wanted. I was on the verge of tears, whining and moaning, and trying to squirm away. Gasping for air, seeing nothing but white heat, and then it happened. He started moaning into me, panting to the same rhythm as me, gripping onto my thigh, gasping my name. He brings his face back to core, one last taste is all he needed, “I’m cumming baby,” he groaned against my thigh. He finished all by himself, just by touching me, just by watching me melt under him. 

He stood and laid on top of me, nuzzling into me. Boxers still on. Our heartbeats slowed against each other, and neither one of us said a word. We didn’t need to. Because some truths live better in the silence between bodies. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 4

:D

“Let’s get out of town for a day,” Sam said, one morning after rehearsal. “Just you and me.” The band had two days off before the next gig, and Jake was buried in mixing demos and sending out feelers to producers. He barely looked up when I left the motel room. Sam had already gassed up the van, he didn’t say where we were going. We just drove. Windows down, music low, the sky cracked open in that soft, late-afternoon way that made everything feel fragile and golden. I didn’t ask questions; I just let the road pull us somewhere that didn’t exist on any map. 

We ended up at a lake outside a forgotten town, surrounded by pine trees and silence. The water was still, like glass. No one else was around. It was just us, and the smell of summer, and the distance we’d both finally closed. 

We sat on the dock barefoot, legs dangling over the edge. “It feels like the world stopped,” I said. Sam nodded, looking out at the water, “I wish it would.” And when I looked at him, the soft curve of his mouth, the warmth in his eyes–not hungry, not desperate, just there I realized something terrifying:

I wasn’t waiting for Jake anymore. 

The kiss came slowly, not new, not surprising, but deep this time, like neither of us was holding back. He touched me with reverence, like he’d been building this moment in his head for months and didn’t want to shatter it. Clothes peeled away with quiet sighs and fingers tracing skin like discovery. It wasn’t rushed, it was just two people letting down walls, brick by aching brick, until nothing was left but breath and skin and the sound of the water rocking gently beneath the dock. 

Sam whispered my name like it was a prayer, like a secret he wanted to keep forever.

It was slow. 

It was full. 

It was real. 

Afterward, we lay tangled in a blanket we’d pulled from the van, watching the stars blink into the night sky. His hand rested on my hip, thumb drawing lazy circles into my skin. 

“I don’t want to go back,” I whispered. 

He didn’t say, then don’t. He didn’t say, stay with me. Sam only turned his face to me, pressed his forehead to mine, and said the one thing I knew he meant more than anything else: 

“I’m here.” 

And for the first time in months, I didn’t feel like someone waiting to be loved. I felt like someone who already was. 

***

At first, we were careful. Stolen moments behind closed motel doors, soft kisses pressed into collarbones in the early morning before soundcheck, Sam brushing a hand long my back when no one was looking, my fingers slipping into his as we walked down gas station aisles, releasing just before anyone could see. 

We lived between shadows, between glances, between all the things we didn’t say out loud. But in those quiet corners, our connection bloomed, not in fireworks, but in roots. In quiet knowing, in the kind of laughter that came easily again, even when the days were long and the rooms smelled like old cigarettes and someone else's dreams. He brought me tea when I had headaches; I patched up a blister on his finger after a long night of bass runs. We didn’t need big declarations. We just needed each other. 

One night, while the rest of the band went out drinking, Sam and I stayed behind in a small motel two towns over. The room was too warm, the AC broken, the sheets were scratchy, but we didn’t care. 

We lay on the floor, backs pressed against the thin carpet, fingers laced above our heads. “What do you think this is?” I asked, staring up at the stained ceiling. He turned his head toward me, “You and me?” 

“Yeah.” His thumb stroked mine, “I think it’s the only thing that feels honest right now.” I exhaled, “It scares me how right this feels.” He didn’t flinch. “Good things should scare you. Means they matter. 

We didn’t sleep that night, not really. We talked until the clock blinked past three, until the line between bodies blurred again, until I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began. 

We were never reckless. But love, real, quiet love, leaves traces. And sometimes I caught the way Jake looked at me now. Like he was trying to place a feeling he couldn’t quite name. Like something was slipping through his fingers, and he hadn’t figured out what yet. Sam noticed too, but he didn’t pull away. He held my hand a little tighter when no one else could see. And I started to wonder how long we could live in the shadows before the truth demanded light. 

*** 

The road stretched ahead of us like a secret none of us knew how to tell. We were on our way back home, back to Tennessee, we had a cheap rental van that smelled like feet and coffee, and barely enough sleep between us to keep our eyes open. It should’ve felt like all the other road trips, late-night playlists, gas station snacks, arguments about which diner had the best pie. But it didn’t. This time, everything was different. This time, I had Sam’s handprint on my waist beneath my shirt, and Jake’s voice in my ear from the night before, soft and unsure: “Are we okay?” I’d smiled, lied, and said I was just tired. But in this van, with all five of us crammed shoulder to shoulder, and too much silence humming between the guitar cases and Red Bulls…it was obvious. Something was off.

Jake drove most of the day, sunglasses on, jaw tight. He kept the music loud–too loud–like he was trying to drown out a feeling he hadn’t figured out how to name. I sat behind him, pressed against the window, watching trees blur into each other. Sam sat to my right, close but not too close, flipping through a dog-eared book he wasn’t really reading. Every now and then, our thighs brushed. Neither of us moved. 

At a rest stop in Arkansas, the others went inside to stretch and grab snacks. I lingered by the vending machines, the sun hot on my skin, my brain heavy with guilt and want and too many what-ifs. Sam came up beside me, quietly. Not touching. Just there. “I had this part,” I said. 

“The hiding?” He asked. I nodded, “It makes everything feel like it’s not real.” He turned to me, voice low, “It’s real to me. Every second of it.” I looked up at him, heart aching with the truth of that. “Do you think they know?” I asked. Sam didn’t answer right away, just looked through the gas station window, toward the van. “Jake isn’t stupid,” he said. “Just scared. Same as you.” 

Back on the road, the tension pulsed. Jake made more jokes than usual, louder, forced. He looked at me through the rearview mirror more than once, like he was trying to catch something behind my eyes. Sam sat still, calm, like a stone in a river, trying not to be carried away. By the time into the next town, a small stretch of asphalt and neon signs, my whole body felt tight with things I wasn’t saying. Jake reached for my hand as we pulled into the motel lot, and I let him take it. Sam looked away, and I felt like I was breaking in half. 

That night, we played a dive bar packed wall to wall. The crowd swayed with the music, lost in it, drunk on it. But I saw Jake watching me. And I saw Sam watching him. And somewhere in the noise, I felt myself unraveling, thread by thread, song by song, lie by quiet lie. Because what do you do when the person you want is two feet away…and the person you’re still with is staring straight through you?

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 3

I've been writing these at work (it's my slow season) so I'm posting these day by day as I finish it up :) I'd love to know who you think she's going to pick!! (for the 2 of you who read this)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It rained the next day. Not the dramatic, cinematic kind. Just a steady, rhythmic drizzle that softened the world and blurred the edges of things. The band canceled rehearsal, everyone stayed in, playing cards, passing around beers, waiting for the storm to pass. 

Jake found me in our room, curled beneath the motel blanket, watching droplets race down the window like they had somewhere better to be. He didn’t say anything at first, just sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me the way he used to, before the gigs, before the distance, before I started drifting into someone else’s gravity. 

“I miss you,” he said quietly. I blinked, unsure whether he meant the past version of me or the one lying here now. Then he reached for me, not with heat or hunger, but with something far more dangerous. Tenderness. His hand found my wrist gently, fingertips grazing the inside where my pulse betrayed me. “Can I…just lie here?” he asked. I nodded, and he slid under the covers beside me, fully clothed, body warm from the outside. He pulled me close, not possessive, not needy. Just there. Solid. Familiar. 

His face was close to mine, breath slow, eyes tired but open, “You remember that night in Ashville?” he asked, “the tiny room with the broken radiator and that terrible diner next door?” 

I smiled despite myself, “You ordered pancakes at midnight and fell asleep with syrup on your cheek.” He grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners, “You wiped it off, then kissed me like I was the best mistake you’d ever made.” 

I looked down, heart splintering, “You weren’t a mistake.” 

Jake grew quiet, then, “I think I forgot how to hold you without needing something from you. I don’t want to do that anymore.” 

I didn’t know what to say. 

His thumb brushed against my jaw, feather-light, “You still make me nervous,” he said, voice raw, “Like I’m not enough. Like you’re gonna outgrow the mess I am.” 

I wanted to tell him he was enough, that I didn’t want perfect. 

But that wouldn’t have been the whole truth. 

Instead, I let him kiss me, slow and soft, like he was trying to memorize a language he’d once spoken fluently but had forgotten somewhere along the way. And for a moment, I let myself fall into it. Let myself believe that maybe he was really changing. That maybe love didn’t need to be out loud or painful or torn between two people. Maybe it could be this: a rainy day, a shared bed, a kiss that tasted like apologies and almosts. 

Afterward, we lay tangled in silence, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat like it might anchor me back to him. But when he fell asleep, arms still wrapped around me, I stared at the ceiling, heart racing, throat tight. 

Because for the first time, I wasn’t sure who I was cheating on.

Jake…or Sam. 

*** 

It happened two days later, outside of a venue in Pasadena, an old converted church with stained glass windows that caught the sunset like fire. The band had just finished soundcheck. Jake was inside, tuning up alone, humming quietly to himself. The others had scattered. Sam lingered by the van, arms crossed, watching the sky as if he could will it to rain again. I didn’t mean to walk toward him. I didn’t mean to say anything. But sometimes, when something inside you breaks, it finds its way out, whether you let it or not. 

“I kissed him,” I said, “well, he kissed me. But I…I let him,” I was rambling. 

Sam didn’t look surprised. “Jake?” 

I nodded, my voice was barely there. “It was…gentle. Soft. like who we used to be.” Sam’s jaw tightened, but his expression stayed calm. “And did it change anything?” 

“I don’t know,” I took a breath. Maybe. I wanted it to.” Sam turned to face me fully now, his eyes searching mine like he was reading a song he didn’t like the lyrics to: " You were always allowed to go back to him.” 

“I haven’t made a choice.” 

“Yes, you have,” he said, “Every day that you stay, you’re choosing. Even when you say you aren’t.” 

That hit harder than I expected. He looked away, exhaled through his nose, then looked back at me–steady, clear, like always. “I don’t care,” he said. 

I blinked, “What?” 

“I don’t care if you’re still with him. I don’t care if you kiss him again. I want you anyway.” The wind picked up, tugging a strand of hair across my face. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Sam stepped closer to me, careful as always, but this time there was fire in his voice. He cupped his hands under my jaw and made me look up at him, gentle but with purpose. His fingertips made my skin feel on fire. “I’m not asking you to leave him. I’m not asking you to run away with me. I just want you to know that even if he figures it out–even if he becomes everything you hoped for–I still want you. Not the broken version. Not the leftover pieces. You.” 

My throat burned. 

“You deserve someone who sees you, even when you’re not shining. Someone who doesn’t make you question if love should feel like walking on eggshells.” 

Tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them, “Sam…” 

He looked me in the eyes like he was looking right into my soul, “I’ll be here. No matter what you decide.” 

And then he turned and walked away, leaving me breathless, wrecked, and more seen than I had ever been in my life. 

***

The thing about Sam was–he never asked for more than I was ready to give. After that night, nothing changed, and somehow, everything did. He didn’t press. He didn’t pull. He simply stayed. Present. Steady. A low hum beneath the chaos. Jake started staying out later again, writing with other musicians, talking more and more about “the record,” about how this one might finally be the one that changes things. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t ask to be included. I just stopped waiting for him to look at me and really see me. 

One morning, about a week later, I found Sam by the vending machine, barefoot, hair a mess, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows. “Gummy bears or Doritos?” he asked, holding up a few quarters. I smiled without meaning to, “Doritos, obviously.” 

“Good,” he said, “I hate gummy bears.” We walked back to the van, sharing the bag, fingers brushing every now and then. No sparks. No fireworks. Just warmth. It was…easy. 

Days passed like that, softly, no declarations, no promises. He’d sit next to me during soundchecks, humming harmonies under his breath, letting his knee rest just barely against mine. We’d share playlists in the van, talk about books we never finished, on nights when Jake didn’t come back until morning, Sam would knock on my door, not come in, but to make sure I was okay. And every time he left, I wanted to call him back. But I didn’t. Not yet. 

Then one night, in a sleepy town with one gas station and no cell service, the band stayed in a house borrowed from someone’s cousin. A creaky, beautiful mess of a place with old records on the shelves and mismatched quilts on the beds. After dinner, the others drifted off. Jake passed out on the couch with his guitar still on his chest. I wandered into the screened porch, barefoot, hoodie zipped up to my chin, moonlight painting the floor silver. 

Sam was already there, sitting on the porch swing, waiting like he knew I’d come. He didn’t speak, just held out a hand. And I took it. He pulled me down beside him gently, and we swung in silence for a while. My head eventually found his shoulder; his thumb moved over the back of my hand in soft circles. “Why are you so patient with me?” I asked. His voice was low, “because when you love someone, you don’t rush them into loving you back. You just stay close enough that they can find their way if they want to.” I looked up at him then, heart full of questions, and he met my gaze with the kind of tenderness that made everything else in the world fall away. 

He leaned in. And I let him. 

The kiss was quiet, no fireworks, no desperation. Just a slow, aching certainty. The kind of kiss that asks Can I keep you? Without demanding an answer. When we pulled apart, I didn’t speak. I just rested my forehead against his, breathed him in, and felt, for the first time in a long while, like I wasn’t losing something…but finding something new. 

Maybe even finding myself. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 2

The motel room felt colder than usual, though the thermostat hadn’t budged. Maybe it was the silence. That tight, charged silence that settles in after a fight, not quite an ending, not yet a beginning. Just the in-between. The waiting room of heartbreak. Jake had slept on the armchair, knees awkwardly bent, hoodie pulled over his face like he was trying to disappear. I had curled up on the far side of the bed, back to him, fists curled in the blanket like that would keep me from unraveling. Neither of us said a word that morning. He left early, guitar case in hand, a mumbled, “back later,” trailing behind him like smoke. 

He didn’t ask if I’d be there when he returned. 

I didn’t promise that I would. 

That afternoon, I wandered down to the gas station a few blocks away just to move around. To breathe. To get my blood pumping. I stood in front of the fridges for ten minutes trying to decide if I was hungry or just lonely. Eventually, I grabbed a Gatorade and headed back toward the motel, the sun hot on my shoulders, everything around me feeling too loud and too still at the same time. 

Sam was sitting outside his room with his bass across his lap, idly plucking strings, no amp. Just the soft hum of notes that didn’t go anywhere in particular. He must have heard me coming because he looked up and said a soft “Hey,” like it wasn’t loaded. “Hey.” I echoed back.

I hesitated, then sat beside him on the curb. 

“How’s Jake?” he asked after a beat. I shook my head, “Don’t know. We’re in that place where we’ve both said too much but not enough all at once.” 

Sam nodded, his fingers still on the strings. “You staying?” 

“For now.” 

He studied me, quiet. “You don’t owe anyone misery, you know.” That caught me off guard. “I’m not trying to be the reason anything ends,” I said quickly. “This isn’t—whatever this is” I threw my hands up in the air, not knowing exactly what to say. “I know,” he said. “And I’m not asking you to be anything. I just..I care. That’s it. I care about what happens to know. That’s not a betrayal.” 

That word–betrayal–hung between us like a thick fog. 

I closed my eyes, “sometimes I just wish he’d stop loving me sto I could leave without guily.”

Sam’s voice was soft, “Maybe he does love you, but that doesn’t mean he knows how.”  The quiet after that was different, not heavy, not sad, just honest. 

Later that night, I returned to the motel room. Jake was there, sitting on the floor, ack against the bed, his guitar untouched in the corner. A beer half empty on the table. His hands were clasped together like he’d been trying to pray but didn’t remember how. He looked up when I walked in. Didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Just…looked. I sat on the bed without a word. Let the silence stretch. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he said finally. “I know I’ve been gone, even when I’m here. I don’t know why I keep doing that to you.” 

“Because it’s easier to vanish than to show up,” I said quietly. He nodded, “Yeah.” 

He turned toward me, “Are you still mine?” 

I swallowed, “I don’t…I don’t know.” I stammered, and there it was. Not a door slammed shut. Not a promise made. Just the truth between us like a third person in the room. And when the lights went out, we lay side by side on the same mattress, hearts beating miles apart. 

***

Jake tried. For a while, at least. He started waking up early, buying cheap motel coffee before I did, sometimes even bringing one to my side of the bed like a peace offering he wasn’t sure I’d take. He asked about my day, if I was okay, but the words felt stuff in his mouth, like he hadn’t practiced them in years. But he said them, at least. 

He played fewer sad songs, and the first time he left his guitar in its case during a rehearsal, the rest of the band looked at him like he’d walked in missing a lumb but he just shrugged it off and said, “Not today.” 

Later that night, he pulled me close in bed and whispered, “I want to do better. I just don’t always know how.” 

I didn’t pull away, because I knew. He was trying, he was trying to be better, be different. I didn’t answer either, I just let it mellow in the silence. 

The band got booked for a weekend set at a festival two hours away, nothing big, just a dusty patch of land outside of Los Angeles with folding chairs and a stage made of plywood. But Jake was energized in a way I hadn’t seen in months, he jokes more, tapped his fingers on the dashboard to the rhythm of the songs on the radio, rehearsed until his voice cracked. 

I watched it all like I was on the other side of glass. Sam kept his distance during rehearsals, not cold, but careful. We hadn’t talked much since that night on the curb, since that line between us blurred and didn’t quite snap back. But on the second night of the festival, everything changed. 

It was late, the others had gone off somewhere, Jake was talking to a small group of fans by the food truck, laughing too loud, smiling like it didn’t ache. I stepped away, I needed air, space. Sam found me by the edge of the field, near the tree line where the lights faded into dark. 

“You okay?” He asked. I nodded, “I think he’s really trying.” 

“You don’t sound happy about that.” I turned to him, “I am…” I trailed off, “I just don’t know if its enough.” Sam looked at me then, that same unreadable softness in his eyes, “Do you want it to be?” 

“I want to believe in him,” I said, “But I don’t know if I still believe in us.” He nodded slowly, stepping closer to me. “He doesn’t see you the way I do, he doesn’t see you.” Sam said, and my breath caught. “I’ve tried not to say it. Tried to stay in my lane, but everytime you laugh, and it’s real? I can’t pretend it doesn’t mean something to me.” 

I opened my mouth to speak, but he closed the distance between us. It wasn’t wild, or urgent. It was careful. Like he was afraid I’d break if he got too close, but I didn’t break. I kissed him back. 

For just a moment, then I pulled away, heart slamming in my chest, “I can’t,” I whispered, “Not yet.” 

He nodded, stepping back without apology, without regret, “I know.”

And that hurt most of all, that he understood me more in three seconds than Jake had in three years. 

I returned to the motel late, heart pounding in my ears. Jake was already asleep, curled on his side, mouth parted slightly. He looked peaceful. Innocent. A version of him I used to know. His hand reached out in the dark and found mine. He whispered, half-asleep, “Thanks for staying.” 

And I didn’t have the courage to tell him I wasn’t sure how much longer I would. 

***

The days blurred after the festival. Jake was steadier now, he was trying. Really trying. He asked more questions, held me longer. Even started writing a song he said was for me, though he never played it aloud. But something in his eyes stayed guarded, like he feared if he loved me too openly, I might disappear. And maybe he was right. Because I was starting to feel like I already had. 

Sam and I didn’t talk about the kiss, we existed in careful choreography, never alone for too long, never too close, always pulling away before the gravity became obvious. But the tension was a living thing, breathing between us during every soundcheck, every motel breakfast, every unspoken glance when Jake wasn’t looking. The guilt clung to me like humidity, and yet, it wasn’t guilt for what had happened. 

It was guilt for what I wanted to happen again. 

One night, the band played a small bar outside of Santa Monica, it was a dim place, all low ceilings and sticky floors. The kind of place where dreams either sparked or died slowly, one set at a time. Jake was electric. He played like he meant it. Looked at me from the stage with that fire in his eyes that I used to live for, and I smiled. But it didn’t reach my chest. After the show, the others drank and laughed with the locals. Jake was in his element, people orbiting him, girls leaning too lcose, though he didn’t lean back. He was trying to be good. I saw that. But still, I needed air. 

Sam was outside already, leaning against the van, his bass case at his feet, a cigarette burning between two fingers. I stopped a few feet from him,, and he didn’t say anything, just flicked the ask and nodded at the stars. “I’m so tired,” I said softly. 

“Of him?” 

“Of trying to remember who I am when I’m not with him.”  Sam glanced at me, quiet. “You’re allowed to want something that doesn’t hurt.” I shook my head, “He’s not hurting me, not now. He’s trying.” 

“I know,” he said, “but you’re still not happy.” The truth in that felt cruel, but also necessary. I stepped closer, too close. 

Sam didn’t move, just brought his eyes down to mine and whispered, “Don’t kiss me unless you mean it.” 

And I did, oh I meant it. 

I kissed him like I’d been holding my breath since the first one. His hand rose to my waist, grounding me, and for one suspended moment, I felt like myself–completely, frighteningly, seen. 

Then I stepped back, breathless. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered. 

“You don’t have to,” he said, voice thick, “just don’t lie to yourself about what you want.” 

I left him there by the van and walked back into the bar, where Jake was still laughing, still shining for everyone but me. And I wondered how long you could stay in something simply because you loved who someone used to be. 

[ageofwonderland]

Waiting for a Friend - Chapter 1

Pairing: Jake x reader, Sam x reader 

Description: Jake and the reader have a tumultuous relationship, and a spark strikes between the reader and Sam. But will it last? What is the right choice?

It's just something I'm working on - never really written something like this, so let me know what you think :D Kind of sort of inspired by the song Waiting for a Friend by the Pretty Reckless and Jake sings!

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The first time that I realized I was dating a ghost was during the sound check at the Troubadour, a venue that smelled like spilled whiskey and stories people didn’t want to tell. Jake stood center stage, cradling his battered guitar like it was something more sacred than anything he’d ever held with me. His eyes were closed, brow furrowed in that way that made girls with cameras whisper about him like he was a living poem. I watched from the wings, arms crossed, pretending I was cold. 

He sang in murmurs, fragments of a song he’d been writing for weeks, and I still didn’t know who it was about. Maybe me. Maybe not. Maybe that was the point. Jake’s music always felt like confessions meant for a room full of strangers rather than for me, the person who slept beside him, who folded his laundry, the one who learned how to stretch a twenty into breakfast, dinner, and enough gas to make it to the next gig. 

When the last chord rang out, his bandmates shuffled off to grab beers, but I stayed where I was, just waiting. He didn’t look at me. Not even once. 

“Sounded good,” I said, louder than I needed to, wanting to make a dent in whatever world he was in. Jake blinked like he’d just come up for air. “Yeah?” I nodded, trying not to sound too hopeful. “Yep. Really good.” 

He lifted his eyes to me, only half paying attention to me, “You always say that.” 

“You always sound good.”

Which was true, but that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was: Talk to me. Be here. Miss me like I miss you, even when you’re standing feet away. 

He stepped off the stage and brushed past me, his fingertips grazing my shoulder like an accident. “Gonna grab a smoke.” 

That was Jake. A song for every silence. A cigarette for every conversation we didn’t have. I trailed behind him into the back alley, where the air buzzed with the summer heat and the soft hum of cicadas. He lit his cigarette with a practiced flick, the glow illuminating the shadows under his eyes. He looked tired. He always looked tired. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, because it felt like something someone’s girlfriend should ask. He exhaled slowly, “Just thinking.” 

“About?”

“Nothing important.”

I wanted to scream. Then why does it matter more than me? But I didn’t. I just sat beside him on the crumbling step and watched the smoke curl into the sky, disappearing like every word he never said. Sometimes, being with Jake felt like trying to kiss fog. There was the outline of something beautiful, but no matter how tightly I held on, it slipped through me. He loved me, I think. In the way people love old songs and worn-out sweaters. With nostalgia. With absence. 

He finished his cigarette and stood up. “You coming to the bar?” I hesitated. “Maybe later.” 

“Okay.” He didn’t wait; he just walked off, boots echoing against the concrete. 

I sat there a long time, watching his silhouette shrink into the amber streetlight. A part of me wanted to chase him. A bigger part of me was tired of running after someone who never looked back. 

That night, when he crawled into bed next to me, I lay awake long after he started snoring, wondering if you could still be this lonely with someone breathing beside you. I already knew the answer. I just didn’t want to admit it. 

***

It started with a chord. 

Jake was sitting on the floor of our hotel room, guitar resting on his knee, mumbling lyrics into his phone. I’ve learned to recognize the signs, the twitch of his fingers, the way he rocked gently when he was in it. He was chasing a song again. One that didn’t want to be caught. 

I sat on the edge of the bed, knees pulled to my chest. Pretending to scroll through my phone. But really, I was waiting. Waiting for him to remember I was there. Waiting for the moment he’d look up and ask what I thought, even if he never really listened to the answer. 

“Play that part again,” I said, unable to help myself. 

Jake didn’t look up, just played the chorus again. The same four lines, over and over like a scratched record. “You should change that third line,” I offered gently. “It sounds..I don’t know…flat. Doesn’t hit the way the others do.” 

He froze, hands hovering over the strings. “What?”

“I’m just saying it could be better.” 

A pause, then a scoff, then almost a laugh. “ You don’t even write songs.” He said, pointedly. Sharply. The words sliced quicker than he realized, or maybe he did realize. Maybe he knew exactly how to push me back into my corner. 

I dropped my phone. “So, what? I’m not allowed to have an opinion now?” 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.” 

He rubbed the space between his eyes, like I was a headache that wouldn’t go away. “Jesus, I’m trying to work, okay? I don’t need a critic. I need space.”

“I’ve given you space, Jake. I’ve been sitting here for three hours in silence while you chase a song that doesn’t wanna be caught, and that probably isn’t even about me!”

That got his attention. He looked up, eyes hard now. “Why does it have to be about you?” 

I stood up. “Because I’m the one here! I’m the one sleeping on motel sheets and living out of a duffel bag and skipping calls from my mom because I chose you. And you barely even see me anymore.” 

Jake set his guitar aside, like it had betrayed him, his voice sharp. “You think this is easy? You think being in my head all the time, trying to make something real out of noise, is easy?” 

That is not what we are talking about 

“No,” I said. “I think being with you is hard. I think loving you feels like clapping for someone who never looks up from the stage.” 

He laughed. He laughed. “You knew what you were signing up for.”

“Did I?” My voice cracked, the heat behind my eyes burning. “Because I thought I was signing up for us. Not just to be your backstage cheerleader while you bleed into a song I don’t even recognize. Not your punching bag when the music isn’t right. Not to wonder who these songs are for. Not to wonder if you even give a damn if I’m here.” 

Silence. 

He ran his hand through his hair, stood, and paced. “You think I don’t care? You think I’m just–just what? Using you for gas money and motel rooms?” 

“No,” I whispered. “I think you care about me the way you care about your old guitar. You love that it’s familiar. You love that it’s always there. But when the string breaks, you get mad and stop playing. 

Jake opened his mouth, then closed it. And that was worse than the yelling. Worse than anything. Because at least a fight meant there was fire, now there was just smoke. 

“Right.” He turned, walked to the door, and grabbed his keys. 

“Where are you going?” I asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Out.” 

“For how long?”

He didn’t answer. Just left. The door clicked shut like a period at the end of a sentence neither of us wanted to write. I sat down on the bed, stared at the dent his guitar left on the carpet. That was the thing about Jake–he never made a mess, but absences. Quiet places where love used to be. 

***

The next morning, Jake was back before dawn. I heard the door crack open, his boots thudding softly across the floor, and the gentle rustle of his jacket hitting the chair. I didn’t turn over. He didn’t speak. 

When the light finally slipped through the blinds and brushed against my face, he was asleep. Sprawled on top of sheets, facing away from me, as if even in dreams, he couldn’t quite face what we’d become. 

We didn’t talk about the fight. That was the rhythm of things now: argue, silence, pretend. Rinse and repeat. 

Later that afternoon, the band loaded into the van for another rehearsal. We were parked outside a dive bar with a flickering sign with half of the letters burnt out. Fitting. 

I didn’t want to go in. But I didn’t want to sit in the van like a ghost.

Inside, Jake was already on stage, tuning his guitar like the night before had never happened. The rest of the band trickled in, lazy and loud, except for Sam—Jake’s little brother and bassist. 

He saw me in the corner booth and slid into the seat across from me without asking. He set down a Styrofoam cup and pushed it toward me. “Black. No sugar, right?” 

I blinked. “You remember that?” 

He shrugged. “You’re the only one who drinks it like poison.”

A small smile tugged at my lips, but faded quickly. 

“You good?” He asked, eyes steady. 

“No,” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it was the first honest thing I’d said to anyone in days. Sam didn’t flinch. Just nodded like he already knew. “I heard you guys fighting,” he said quietly. “Last night.” 

I stiffened. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. I’ve heard worse. Way worse.” 

I looked at him then, really looked. He had one of those faces that never asked for attention but held it anyway—soft angles, quiet strength, dark eyes that never tried to look through you, only at you. 

“I don’t know how to do this anymore,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I’m with Jake because I love him or because I’m afraid of what leaving says about me.” 

Sam leaned back, tapping his fingers on the table in time with the distant rhythm from the stage. “Loyalty’s not love. It’s just weight if you carry it too long.” 

His words hit harder than they should have. “What would you do?”

“I’d stop trying to make music out of silence,” he said simply. 

The rehearsal kicked up, Jake’s voice filled the bar, raw and aching. He wasn’t singing to me. Maybe he never had been. 

Sam stood up slowly. “Come walk with me?” I hesitated, looked toward the stage. Jake didn’t even look in my direction. 

I stood. 

We walked two blocks in silence, our steps in sync. The street was empty except for the hum of neon and the echo of a city that never slept, just muttered in its dreams. 

“You know,” Sam said after a while, “You’re allowed to want something more than being second place to a song.” The words burned in my chest, not because they were cruel, but because they were kind. Too kind. 

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I whispered. He stopped walking and turned to face me. “Then maybe start with what you don’t want.” 

I looked back toward the bar, toward Jake. My heart didn’t ache the way it used to when I thought of him. It just felt…tired. 

“I don’t want to disappear next to someone who says he loves me but never chooses me,” I said. 

Sam’s eyes searched mine. “Then don’t.”

For the first time in a long time, I felt seen. Not written into a song. Not imagined into a lyric. Just…seen. And for a flicker of a moment, I let myself wonder what it would feel like to be chosen first. 

***

It started small. They always do. 

A glance too long. A brush of hands when passing a coffee cup. The kind of silence that didn’t feel like absence, but peace. 

Sam didn’t push; that was the difference. With Jake, love always felt like standing onstage with the wrong setlist—always guessing, always a beat behind. With Sam, there was space to just be. And in that space, something began to shift. 

We were still in Los Angeles, still in that same motel with paper-thin walls and rust stains on the faucet, but everything else was starting to change. 

Jake noticed. I saw it in the way his eyes flicked to me during practice when Sam cracked a joke, and I laughed just a little too freely. I saw it when I came back from a late-night walk with Sam and Jake asked, flatly, “Where were you?” like he’d just realized I had somewhere else to be. 

I didn’t answer. 

That night, I sat on the balcony with Sam again. We shared a blanket. Not touching. Not even close. Just sitting. The city below us buzzed with life—neon, engine growls, and distant music—but we were quiet. 

“I don’t want to ruin anything,” I said suddenly, not sure if I meant Sam’s relationship with Jake, or my already-fractured relationship. 

Sam didn’t look at me when he replied, “You can’t ruin what’s already breaking.”

He said it without malice. Just the truth. And it hurt in the way honesty does when confronting something you’ve been avoiding for too long. 

A door slammed below us. Jake. Coming back from wherever he disappeared to at night. We both watched his figure cut through the parking lot like a shadow that couldn’t decide where to land. 

Sam stood, “I should go.” 

I nodded, heart pounding. But before he turned away, he looked at me, really looked at me. “You deserve to feel wanted. Not tolerated.” 

He didn’t wait for a response. 

I didn’t sleep that night. 

The next morning, the fight came. 

Jake slammed his guitar case shut hard enough to echo through the motel room. “You’re into him.” 

I didn’t say anything. Because what was there to deny? 

“Sam,” he spat the name at me like it tasted wrong. “I see the way you look at him now. Like you used to look at me.” 

I kept my back to him, staring at the cheap floral wallpaper. “Maybe I just stopped looking at you because you stopped looking at me.” 

He stepped closer, voice sharp. “So that’s it? You trade me in for the first guy who gives you a little attention?” 

I turned around then, shaking. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to act like a victim in a story you wrote.” I yelled with my finger in his face. 

Jake blinked, thrown. 

“You left me a long time ago,” I said, “you just forgot to walk out the door.” 

He exhaled like I’d hit him. “I gave you everything. My life’s a mess, and you’re still the best part of it.” 

“No,” I said softly, “I was the quiet part. The part you didn’t notice until someone else did.”

He looked at me then. And maybe for the first time, he saw me–not the girl in his passenger seat, not the familiar body in his bed, but the woman standing in front of him, choosing herself. 

“What are you going to do?” he asked. And, I didn’t have one. Not yet. 

But I knew this: I wasn’t going to be a song lyric he only sang when he was sorry. I wasn’t going to be the applause after someone else’s show.