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valeisaslut · 29 days ago

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⭒࿐COLLIDE - epilogue

credits for the fanart: nramvv - edited by me

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

𝐏𝐓. 𝟐 : 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟷 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙��𝑠𝑡 | 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟹 →

⚢ pairing: Rockstar!Ellie Williams x Popstar!Reader �� ݁ ˖

⭒ synopsis: You’ve seen your side of the story—now it’s time for Ellie’s. After losing herself in letting you go, she plunges deeper into chaos until she's left with nothing but the wreckage of her choices. But just as darkness threatens to consume her entirely, an unexpected lifeline appears in the form of someone she believed she'd lost forever. Forced to confront the devastating reality of her addiction and the damage it has inflicted not only upon herself but on those she loves, she’s ready to reclaim the pieces she abandoned. Through an intimate, raw, and brutally honest journey, we’ll see her rediscover her voice and reconnect with music, walking the fragile line between ruin and redemption. 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ word count: 20,8k (yeah. ik)𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ content: angst, almost entirely from ellie's pov, very heavy themes throughout—detailed depiction of drug addiction, intense withdrawal symptoms, suicidal ideation, and emotional unraveling, AFAB!Reader, modern AU setting, multi-part series. MEN AND MINORS DNI. Likes and reblogs are deeply appreciated — thank you for supporting! 𖥔 ݁ ˖

Disclaimer: This chapter contains graphic, realistic portrayals of drug addiction, severe withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, and the deeply emotional process of rehabilitation. These scenes are presented with vivid intensity and careful authenticity, as integral parts of Ellie’s journey toward recovery and self-discovery. I've approached these difficult subjects thoughtfully and sensitively, doing the deep and intense research—but your mental health and emotional safety must come first, always.

If you feel these themes may negatively affect you, trigger distress, or harm you in any way, I strongly encourage you to proceed cautiously or skip entirely. Please prioritize your well-being above all else. Take care of yourselves, loves.

CLICK TO LISTEN - SPOTIFY FULL PLAYLIST - The Shape Of What I Lost !

CLICK FOR The Shape Of What I Lost POST !

Three years.

Three years since the night you left—after Ellie left you.

She had walked onto that stage, guitar slung over her shoulder, the spotlight slicing through smoke like a blade, and felt no fire in her blood. No rhythm in her chest. Not even the familiar hum of adrenaline. Just a numbness so thick it dulled the lights, the sound, the meaning of it all.

She stood there, frozen, dizzy, staring out at a sea of faces—thousands of people screaming her name, mouths wide with adoration, hands lifted in praise—and she felt absolutely nothing.

No tether to a world that used to love her back.

And that was the moment Ellie Williams sank into the grave she’d dug with her own hands. Not with shovels, but with choices, with every drug consumed, every bottle drained and every lie wrapped in a grin.

The moment her mind finally screamed what her heart had always known, whispering it over and over like a curse.

You lost everything.

Music had been her one constant—the first love of her life, her refuge, her weapon, the only thing that made sense before anything else did. The only thing that made fame worth it. The only reason she ever agreed to sell herself to the world. The only thing that made the screaming fans, the sleepless nights, the tour buses and interviews and headlines and all-consuming spotlight even remotely bearable.

The stage had always been where she bled and where she bloomed.

But that night, it felt like a sentence. The lights, a cruel interrogation. The mic, a noose tightening with every breath. The guitar strapped across her body—once an extension of her soul—now hung like dead weight she could no longer connect with.

And after ending the show by walking offstage with not even two songs played, after spending hours destroying the green room where she had already shattered everything, both material and not, after screaming until her throat tore ragged, after bleeding from her knuckles, after collapsing to the floor and crawling back to her feet, she finally opened the door.

And didn’t explain a single thing.

She walked past the crew like a ghost draped in her own skin—eyes hollow, shoulders tight, jaw clenched so hard it could’ve cracked. No one spoke. No one reached out. Not Dina. Not even Jesse. Because whatever was left of her in that moment wasn’t someone they recognized. Wasn’t someone they could save.

She disappeared into the night. Into the elevator. Into the hallway. Into herself. She locked the door of the hotel suite behind her and let the shadows devour what little was left.

The only instinct she had left was to isolate—an animal curling around their wound. To pretend that the world could go quiet inside four walls. That if she was still enough, small enough, nothing else could hurt her.

She drank. She snorted. She swallowed. She poked.

Anything to feel something. Or nothing.

Anything to make the voices in her head shut up. Anything to blur the faces in the crowd, frozen in time behind her eyelids. Anything to dim the stage lights that still flickered in her skin. Anything to blur the headlines, to wash them down with whatever would make them sting less.

Anything to make the truth easier to swallow—because it was terrifyingly simple: she had proven them all right. Everyone who had whispered that she was a beeline for wreckage, a walking collapse in slow motion. She had become the prophecy.

Anything to drown out your voice, broken, aching, too real, from echoing through the hollow corridors of her mind. To stop your hands from reaching through the dark, from pulling her back to the soul buried beneath pills and powder and needles and lies and manipulation.

Anything to erase the image of your eyes, glassy and heartbroken, staring at the version of herself she had fought as hard as she could to keep hidden from you. The truth she couldn’t bear to see reflected in someone who had once—and still—loved her like a saint. Blind to her chaos, faithful through her sins, willing to forgive everything. Even what she couldn’t name.

And anything rather than admitting her addiction had burned through everything she once was—until nothing was left but smoke and the shape of what she once had.

It had started as a party trick. A little edge-taker. A backstage secret. A shortcut to invincibility.

Then it became a way to slip into the version of herself that people adored—louder, cooler, untouchable. The version everyone lusted over, cheered for, posted about. The version the world wanted onstage every night, no matter what it cost her offstage. The version she thought she had to become just to be enough.

And now, it became a thing she couldn’t live without—slipped into her bloodstream, settled into her bones, made itself at home. It filled every corner of her, inch by inch, cell by cell, until there was no room left for anything or anyone else.

The hands that used to tear through solos with a precision that made her legendary now trembled uncontrollably—shaking from regret, from the weight of everything she did and couldn’t undo. Her once unforgettable voice, the same powerful roars that had sold out stadiums and started riots, crumbled into hoarse whispers and dry, broken coughing.

She didn’t sleep. Didn’t dream. Didn’t eat. Just drifted from one blackout to the next. Convinced herself it was the only thing she still knew how to do.

But when Joel stepped through the glass doors of the hotel, everything slowed.

Every single soul there knew who he was. And he wasn't what they expected. Not a bodyguard. Not a manager. Not some industry suit sent to clean up the mess. He didn’t wear a lanyard or carry a clipboard. He wasn’t holding coffee or flowers or excuses. He wore worn jeans, a weathered jacket, and a stare that could gut a man in silence.

The staff went quiet. The concierge froze mid-sentence. Someone from the Fireflies’ touring crew, a kid barely out of college, stood up too fast and knocked over a coffee cup. Even the elevator dinged like it was afraid to make too much noise.

Because he wasn’t just her father.

He was Joel Miller.

The legend. The one she never talked about. The man sewed into the fabric of the music industry and into every song she wrote, whether she knew it or not. The reason her fingers knew how to play guitar before she knew how to name the chords.

The man who raised a storm and let the world believe it had come from nothing.

He walked through the lobby without looking at anyone until he spotted Jesse, standing halfway down the hallway. A walkie gripped tight in one hand, speaking into static—fast, clipped, the kind of voice reserved for damage control. But the moment he turned and saw him, he stopped mid-sentence. His whole body went still. The color drained from his face like someone had flipped a switch.

Jesse looked wrecked. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. The exhaustion hung off him like he’d been carrying something for so long it was too heavy to set down.

Behind him, Dina stepped out from the room next to Ellie’s. Her hair was in a messy braid that hadn’t been redone in days. Her eyes were rimmed red, cheeks blotched. She looked exhausted too—pale and drawn and older than twenty-two should ever look.

They froze when they saw Joel. Tried to pull themselves together. Straightened their backs. Lifted their chins.

But Joel saw all of it. Every crack in their armor. Every inch of what his daughter had left behind.

“Where is she?”

No greeting. No explanation. Straight to the wreckage.

Jesse blinked. “You—wait, are you—how even—?”

“Where,” Joel repeated, slower now, voice rough but low, “is she?”

Dina stepped forward. She studied him for a moment, like she was trying to reconcile the legend in front of her with the silence Ellie wrapped around him like a bandage.

“She’s here,” she finally said. “Hasn’t left her room since the last show.”

Joel’s eyes darkened, but his mouth didn’t move.

“She hasn’t eaten. Barely spoken a word. We know she’s alive—we hear her pacing—but she won’t come out. We tried sending medics, tried knocking, pleading, threatening. Nothing works. She won’t open the door for anyone.”

Jesse glanced towards the suite at the end, and finally spoke too.

“It’s been a week. We thought—fuck, we don’t know what to do.”

A silence passed between them, thick with the weight of everything.

Then Joel looked down the hallway. Walked towards the door.

And knocked once.

Then again. Louder this time, but still steady. The kind of knock that didn’t come with threats or questions. The kind that simply said I’m here.

He stood with his hand still hovering, knuckles grazing the wood. Breathing quiet. Deep. Preparing himself.

Preparing himself to finally see with his own eyes everything he hadn’t been strong enough to acknowledge. Everything he’d kept at bay with stubbornness, with denial dressed up as distance. What the world had done. What the spotlight had done. What he had done—with his silence, with his absence, with every word unspoken. What all of it had carved into the girl who was his flesh and blood.

But behind the door: silence. No footsteps. No movement. No reply.

Just the kind of thick, unnatural stillness that only comes from the kind of room that hasn’t seen sunlight in days, were nothing is truly alive.

So he leaned his head in slightly. Lowered his unmistakable voice.

“…Ellie.”

A name he hadn’t let himself say out loud in years. Her name.

And from the other side of the door—a sound. The scrape of a heel against carpet. The faint drag of limbs too tired to move. The slight creak of bedsprings shifting under someone sitting up.

Another beat passed, longer than it should have, heavy enough to age him.

Then, the faint clack of a deadbolt turning.

The door cracked open fully and the hallway light poured through, slicing the shadows in half.

Ellie.

Or what was left of Ellie.

Joel didn’t move. Couldn’t.

It felt like the floor dropped out beneath him, like every bone in his body went hollow. If he hadn’t known her—the way you only know someone when you’ve built their childhood with your own hands—he wouldn’t have recognized the girl standing in front of him.

Because the girl standing there wasn’t Ellie. She was the ghost of her. The remains. A flickering echo.

Her skin was the color of sickness. Pale in some places, blotched in others, faintly green where it wasn’t feverish pink. Her cheeks were hollowed out, sharp angles where softness used to live. The sharp, raw jut of bone beneath the skin made her look like a sketch of herself, hastily erased and redrawn in shaking lines. Her eyes were sunken, bruised with fatigue. The purple beneath them looked like it had been there for ages.

Her lips were cracked, chewed raw—not just bitten, but torn, as if she’d been trying to silence herself from the inside out from pure self hatred. Her shirt was stained and damp around the collar. It clung to her frame in desperate patches, sagging everywhere else.

She had lost so much weight it made Joel’s stomach drop even further. Her collarbones cut through her like knives. Her arms looked like they didn’t belong to her. Her tattoos, once bright declarations of defiance, had faded beneath grime and bruises. Some fresh. Some healing. All painful.

But it was the look on her face that truly broke him.

Not pain. Not shame. Not surprise. Vacancy.

Her expression wasn’t empty. It was abandoned. Her irises, once so fiercely alive, had dulled to become cloudy and dim, like a storm had taken root behind them and never passed. Like the soul that had once lived behind those eyes had packed up and fled, leaving only a faint trace behind.

The last time he saw her, she was still a teenager—hard edges wrapped in defiance, all spitfire and sharp laughter. Too much fire for one body, too much hunger in her bones. Reckless with hope. Starved to make the entire world hers.

Desperate to outrun the weight of the name before her and etch her own into history with nothing but a Les Paul, a voice full of thunder, and the loyalty of two high school best friends who followed her into that path like religion.

This wasn’t the daughter he’d raised. This wasn’t the stubborn, brilliant, furious and rebellious soul who had once held her heart out like a weapon and her music like a revolution.

This was the ashes left after that blaze.

Joel couldn’t breathe. Could barely keep his knees under him.

Ellie’s lips parted. The sound that came out wasn’t speech. It was a dry, rasping exhale, like it hurt just to exist. She coughed—deep and wet and awful—and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The same hand that used to write songs like magic. The same hand that had held his with quiet, childlike trust.

Her eyes flickered over his face with disbelief—like he was just another trap her mind had set, another hallucination conjured by a body begging her to stop before it gave out entirely.

"You're not real."

Her voice cracked as it came out, barely a thread of sound.

Joel stood frozen in the doorway. His hands didn’t move. His face didn’t change. But his heart split open in his chest, a soundless rupture he felt in his ribs and behind his eyes.

“I’m real. I’m right here.”

Ellie stared at him, blinking too fast, too hard, as if trying to reset her vision. To erase him. Then she took one staggering step back, as if his presence had struck her.

“What…” she croaked, eyes wide. “What is this?”

Her body started moving backwards, deeper into the room, like retreating might make him vanish.

“They sent me,” Joel said softly.

“Who the fuck is they?”

He swallowed. The answer was already there, caught behind his teeth. He knew exactly who called. Who had begged him to go.

But he also knew he couldn’t say your name. Not now. Not like this.

“Didn’t ask for names,” he lied quietly. “Didn’t need to.”

She scanned the hallway behind him, frantic, sharp-eyed—like she expected flashbulbs to burst, a microphone to be shoved in her face, interviewers to question her. A trap. A punishment. Maybe even you.

She hadn’t slept in days. Reality had become slippery, warped at the edges. Paranoia threaded through every thought, tugging at the last shreds of her sanity. Her gaze skittered from shadow to shadow like something might leap out of them.

“You can’t be here,” she murmured. Her voice was sharper now, edged in fear. “You can’t just show up.”

“I’m not asking permission.”

“So this is it?” she muttered. “Some fucked-up intervention? You think you can walk back in here after three fucking years and what—fix me?”

He didn't respond. He knew, deep down, that she was right.

So he just watched her vanish into the dim corners of the suite, pacing like something caged for too long. Her hands dragged down her face. Her breath hitched. She didn’t cry. She had run out of tears long ago.

But the door remained open.

He stepped inside—slowly, carefully, crossing into a nightmare he knew he wasn’t welcomed in—and closed it shut behind him with a soft click.

The room was a graveyard. Everything looked tired of existing. A cave of rot and ruin, thick with the scent of everything that had decayed and nothing that had ever lived. No light dared to enter. The curtains, sealed with tape and stained with smoke, refused to let the world in. Day or night—it didn’t matter. Time had lost meaning. The only thing cutting through the gloom was the weak, flickering glow of a single bedside lamp. It cast a sickly yellow halo over the ruins, illuminating just enough to make it even worse.

The coffee table was buried beneath a chaotic sprawl of liquor bottles, half-empty and sweating glass. Prescription vials rolled into corners, labels smudged beyond reading. Rolled-up bills, limp and damp. A small pile of crushed cigarettes and half-melted lighters. Bent spoons blackened at their base. Scattered syringes. Fine dust of residue clinging to every surface.

The stench—alcohol, cigarettes, vomit, sweat, blood, melting plastic, something sour and sharp and sickeningly sweet—coated the air like paint.

Ellie’s voice came again, thinner this time.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?”

Joel turned slowly.

She was barely standing—shoulders slumped, arms hanging at her sides. Her head was tilted back against the wall, as if it was the only thing holding her up. Her eyes weren’t on him, they were fixed on a water stain spreading like rot across the ceiling.

She looked so small. So young. So far away.

He walked to her, slow but steady, like any sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile and divine force still held her upright.

He didn’t tell her she was wrong. Didn’t tell her she was a disgrace or a failure or disgusting or a junkie.

He just stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.

And her body—rigid at first—slowly folded into his like paper softening in the rain. The soft weight of her breath stuttered against his chest. He felt his own heart breaking again between them.

It wasn’t the kind of hug you saw in movies. It wasn’t tidy or heroic. It wasn’t a triumphant moment. It was ruin, quiet and total. The kind of embrace that carries years of silence and every word left unsaid. The kind you only give to someone you thought you’d lost forever.

Her arms didn’t lift, didn’t curl around him. They just hung there, slack at her sides. But she didn’t pull away either. And God, that was enough. That was all he needed to stay right there, holding her like the only thing anchoring them both to the world was the space they were occupying together.

Joel could feel the bones of her back through the thin cotton of her shirt—sharp, wrong, exposed. Her heartbeat thudded against his chest, frantic and fragile, an uneven rhythm struggling to hold itself together. It didn’t feel alive. It felt mechanical—like a rusted engine.

But it was still beating. And in that moment, it meant everything.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Ellie murmured into his shoulder, voice muffled, brittle as dry leaves. “I didn’t want this.”

“I know,” Joel said quietly.

“I’m not going back.”

“You’re not staying here.”

“I don’t need you.”

“You need something,” he said. “And I’m here now.”

“But why now?” she whispered, so quietly it nearly vanished.

“They said you were disappearing,” his voice was thick, low, heavy with something he hadn’t let himself feel in years. “Said if someone didn’t come find you soon… there might not be anything left to find.”

“You’re late.”

Joel tightened his arms around her. “Still here,” he said. A vow in two words.

Her palms lifted—slow, uncertain—and pressed flat against his chest. Not quite pushing. Not quite holding. Just there, as if trying to decide what he was. Real or not. Ghost or grave.

And then, without warning—she shoved him.

Joel took a step back. Not from the force, but from the feeling. Her palms left a ghostprint on his chest. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t reach for her again. He just looked at her as if seeing everything clearly for the first time.

Ellie’s shoulders were heaving now. Her eyes were glassy, stretched too wide, too alert, the way animals look right before they bolt.

“Go!” she rasped. “Fucking go. I don’t want this. I don’t need this. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t—I didn’t ask for you to come!”

“I don’t care,” he said, “You’re coming with me.”

“To what?” she spat. Her voice pitched higher, sharp and spiraling. “Some padded room full of people with name tags who hand me coloring books? Spare me, Joel.”

He flinched. Barely, but there.

Joel. Not Dad. Not even old man. Just a hard, flat syllable thrown like a stone between them. A line in the sand.

He nodded once. Took it in like a bullet.

“You’re going to rehab. Whether you want it or not.”

“No!” The word came fast. Violent. Like it had been living in her throat, waiting to escape. “No. No, no, no—you don’t get to do this! You don’t get to show up after three fucking years and act like you can drag me off somewhere. I’m not twelve anymore!”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

He took a step forward.

“But you’re not anything right now. You’re not living. You’re surviving in a place that’s rotting you and calling it freedom.”

Her jaw clenched. Her body was shaking, not just with rage, but with something underneath it. Sickness.

“Fuck you!” Her voice cracked again. “You don’t know me. Not anymore!”

“You’re right,” he never once raised his voice. “I don’t. But I remember the girl who would’ve ripped the sky open just to feel something. I remember the kid who made music like it was oxygen. I remember the look on your face when you loved something truly.”

“Well, she’s fucking dead.”

“Then let me help bring her back.”

She exhaled, too fast, like air hurt her lungs.

“I didn’t want to be saved,” she choked. “I still don’t. You should’ve let me fucking die!”

“I couldn’t, Ellie.”

“Then why now?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Why not when it still mattered? Why not when I still wanted to live?”

“Because I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed away again. Not this time."

The silence stretched. And then, softer, almost afraid:

“I know you’re not gonna heal overnight. I know this isn’t gonna fix anything. But I also know what happens if you stay here. And I can’t let that happen. Please, Ellie. I'm begging you.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I’ll stay. I’ll stay in this shithole suite and I’ll sit on that goddamn carpet and wait until you’re ready. But I’m not leaving without you.”

She stood there, silent. Frozen in place.

“Please,”

His voice broke on the word. His eyes were glassy and wet. She had never seen him like that. Not Joel. Not the man who never bent.

Something cracked then. Not a sob. Not a word. Just a sound, low and raw, torn from somewhere deep in her chest. A breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. A surrender she didn’t mean to give.

And then, she moved.

Not towards him—but towards the corner. Towards the suitcase half-zipped and slumped against the wall, still full of clothes that smelled like sweat and cigarettes and days she couldn’t remember.

Because she knew Joel.

There were no more speeches left. No more mercy dressed up as choice. He hadn’t come to bargain. He hadn’t come to reason. He had come to claim what the world hadn’t yet finished killing. He had come to take her.

And she could feel it—time unraveling, slipping like sand between her fingers. Breath stretched too long beneath the surface. A match burning down to the quick. The edge of the edge. The final flicker before everything turned black.

Time had run out.

She crouched. Her hands shook as she zipped the suitcase closed. The sound was louder than it should’ve been, like a coffin lid snapping shut.

She picked up a hoodie from the chair. Oversized. Gray. A gift from Jesse. Two birthdays ago, back when birthdays still meant something. She tried to zip it up. The zipper jammed halfway. Her hands trembled too badly to fix it, so she gave up and let it hang open like a wound.

She pulled the hood up. Then down. Up again. Her fingers twitched at the edge of it. She didn't know if it was better to hide or be seen. Neither felt safe.

Joel didn’t say another word.

He just stepped forward. Picked up the suitcase and her guitar case. And without looking back, he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

And Ellie followed. Not because she wanted to. Not because she was ready. But because she understood there were no other exits.

She either stepped through that door—or died. Simple as that. Final as that.

Jesse and Dina were already there. Waiting. Trying not to look like they’d been standing right outside the whole time. But Ellie saw the way Dina's face was blotchy, and how Jesse's hands were clenched too tight. A kind of expression you can only get from listening to that conversation.

Joel gave them a nod. Something between a farewell and a thank you. Then walked down the hall and without looking back.

And suddenly, they were alone.

No instruments. No cameras. No crowd roaring.

Just three kids in the hallway of a hotel that had seen too much—their silence louder than fate and the stadiums they used to fill. The kind of silence that doesn’t come from peace, but from aftermath.

Three teenagers who once built a dream so big it swallowed countries. Who bled into microphones and howled into smoke machines. Who dropped school and poured their youth into amplifiers and rode adrenaline like it was enough to outrun consequence. They had stood shoulder to shoulder beneath lights so blinding, they mistook the heat for forever. Mistook the noise for safety. Mistook each other for unbreakable.

And for a while, they had it all in the palm of their hands. The fame. The critics. The awards. The fans. The world.

But then came the cracks —late arrivals, quiet fights, bruises hidden by sunglasses and lies. Then came the screaming matches. The missed rehearsals. The broken things. The insults. The lies.

And now here they were. Not The Fireflies. Not legends. Just kids standing in a hallway, breaking beneath the weight of everything they lost. The tour was over. The music had stopped.

And the dream—that impossible, holy, feral dream—had burned to ashes.

Ellie could barely look at them. Could barely breathe through the guilt.

She was the one who lit the match. The one who crumbled first. And in crumbling, she had taken it all down with her.

And still, they stood with her. Not because they weren’t angry. Not because they didn’t hurt.

Because even when the dream died, something in them didn’t.

Jesse broke first.

His breath hitched, and in the next second he was moving, crossing the space between them in three long strides before Ellie had the chance to run away. He pulled her in, hard, arms locking around her like he was afraid she might shatter through his fingers if he hesitated longer.

She stiffened at first—out of habit, out of shame, out of the muscle memory that told her she didn’t deserve forgiveness—but then her body gave in.

Dina followed without a word, her arms wrapping around them both, closing the circle, anchoring them together like she could hold what was left of the band in her embrace.

“I’m sorry…” Ellie said, “God, I’m so fucking sorry. For everything, for every single thing I did to both of you. I…I wanted this to work. I did. With everything I had. I wanted to be better for you.”

Dina shook her head as tears spilled freely down her face. “We know,” she choked. “We know, Ellie.”

Jesse was crying too now, barely holding himself together. He pressed his face into Ellie’s shoulder and wept for the version of her that was gone—for that best friend who had vanished long before she ever left.

“We tried,” he said. “We tried so fucking hard, El. But you kept shutting the door. We didn’t know how to reach you anymore. We didn’t know how to help you. And we are so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. Her throat burned like she’d swallowed a thousand unsaid things. “It’s not your fault I couldn’t find my way back… I did this to myself.”

“I’m gonna try,” she continued. “But I don’t know who I’ll be after this. I don’t even know if I'm still worth saving. But I’ll try. I’ll try to come back.”

Dina sobbed into her other shoulder, loud and broken. “You better,” she said. “You better come back. I swear to God, Williams, if you don’t come back—”

“I will,” Ellie said. Her voice cracked so badly the words nearly fell apart. “I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But I will.”

She pulled back enough to meet both of their eyes.

“But if I can’t reach you… if it takes longer than it should… just keep going. Please. Move on. Do what you have to do. Don’t wait for me.”

Jesse wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “We built something together, El. Something that was ours. And maybe it fell apart, but it was the best fucking dream I ever lived.”

“Me too,” Ellie whispered. “It was the happiest I’ve ever been. We really made it. And I was never alone until I made myself alone.”

Dina cupped her face gently, and her breath hitched the moment her hands touched her skin. Her thumbs tried to wipe her tears but froze mid-motion, eyes scanning every angle like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing—what was left.

“Oh, El…” she whispered, barely audible, like saying it louder might make it worse. She then swallowed, trying to keep herself together, “It was a dream. But now we woke up. You go get better, you go find your way. And when you’re ready to come back… we’ll still be here.”

Ellie nodded, once. Then again. Her whole body trembling. Her fingers clutched the hem of her sleeve like she was trying to hold onto something, anything, that still belonged to her.

She took a breath that sliced her open on the way down.

“I love you both.”

“We love you more.”

And that was the end of it.

She turned. Walked down the hallway. Too long, too quiet.

And didn’t look back.

They didn’t talk on the jet.

Joel sat across from her, arms crossed, jaw set tight. He didn’t stare. Didn’t sigh. He let the silence hold. Let her sit in whatever she needed to sit in.

They didn’t talk in the truck, either.

The driveway was long. Joel drove with both hands on the wheel, steady and silent. The only sounds were the low growl of the engine and the faint hum of classic rock murmuring from the speakers—some band from the '70s Joel probably used to get drunk with in some Texas bar.

Outside, the world blurred by. Rain dragged its fingers across the windshield in thin, trembling lines. The sky was the color of steel wool, heavy and low, like it might collapse under its own weight. Trees passed in smears—tall, dark, skeletal things that looked more like memories than landmarks, clawing their way out of the earth and stretching towards a sky that wouldn’t bend.

Ellie didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t think.

She just watched the road disappear beneath them, mile after mile, like maybe if she looked hard enough, she’d disappear somewhere in the rearview.

When they pulled up to the gates, Joel rolled down the window. Told them her name. Told them she was here for long-term. He didn’t need to say a last name to make the gates open.

Rehab didn’t look like what Ellie expected. It wasn’t padded walls and flickering fluorescents. It wasn’t people screaming into the void or nurses in white coats pushing pills like candy. But then, she wasn’t even sure if that’s what she expected.

All she really knew was the feeling—that hollow, leaden silence that settles in your bones when you’ve run out of fight. The numb acceptance that came when you had nothing left to bargain with.

When all the bridges were already ash. When even feeling became too much weight to carry. The moment you stop running. Stop asking. Stop pretending that you know what comes next. It was letting them take you by the arm and lead you wherever they thought you belonged—because you didn’t believe you belonged anywhere anymore.

The place was quiet. Almost unnaturally so. Rich, suffocating silence wrapped in beige walls and throw blankets that smelled like lavender and wood polish. The walls were cream and soft brown. Plants lined the windowsills. The kind of place designed to make broken people feel like they were healing simply by being somewhere expensive. Like grief could be curated. Like pain could be dimmed with scented candles and soft jazz.

She could feel the recognition hit the staff before they even got inside.

The receptionist looked up, froze, and blinked too many times. She didn’t say a word. Just stood. Just nodded. Just ushered them forward like they were checking into a hotel that only accepted the severely wounded.

Joel did the talking. Ellie kept her head down. She let them take her phone. Her lighter. Her blades. Her pens. Her pills. Her past.

Then it was time. They were taking her upstairs. One of the counselors stood to the side, smiling with polite detachment, ready to walk her to her new room.

Joel didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there. Looking at her like he was memorizing the shape of her shoulders. The way her hair tucked behind her ears. The way her green eyes were so hollow they couldn't even reflect the soft light.

And then he stepped forward. Reached for her shoulders, and pulled her in.

At first, she resisted—only in that way where her body had forgotten what it meant to be held. But then, slowly, she leaned in. Folded into him. And then, just above her ear:

“You be strong, kiddo.”

Ellie didn’t respond. Her lower lip trembled.

Joel pulled back. Just enough to look at her. There was one single tear tracking down his cheek. He wiped it before she could see, but she’d already seen.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he said. “This place—it’s real help. Not noise. Not punishment. Help. Let it help you.”

Ellie nodded, just once. It was all she could do.

“Try, that’s all I’m asking.” He touched the side of her face, warm and rough. “I love you, Ellie.”

She nodded again. A little firmer.

And then he let her go.

Three months.

She spent the first five days in bed.

Not resting. Not healing. Barely surviving.

Her body had become a war zone—bone against nerve, memory against muscle, pain crashing through her like a wave with no shore.

She didn’t eat. Couldn’t. Every attempt to swallow felt like dragging glass down her throat—jagged, raw, unforgiving. Her stomach rejected everything. Her body, so used to poison, couldn’t recognize nourishment without recoiling. She vomited every bite. In the sink, in the trash, in towels. It came up bile-yellow, bitter and acidic, her throat left scorched and trembling after every gag.

She didn’t shower. Couldn’t stand the pressure of the water or the sound of it against the tiles. Couldn’t bear the sight of her own body in the mirror—shrinking, hollowing out, unfamiliar. The frame of a stranger she no longer recognized.

The nurses tried. Gentle voices, gentle hands. They moved like white ghosts through the room, soft-footed and full of mercy. They brought small trays with bland food she never touched. Offered medication—anti-nausea pills, muscle relaxants, sleep aids, things that might take the edge off the screaming inside her skin.

She acted like she did. But she never swallowed them.

You don’t deserve relief. This is the price. This is what you earned. This is what you get.

That was what her brain told her. That was the drumbeat in her ears.

The few things she couldn't refuse to came through needles. IVs slid into the bend of her arm, saline dripping slow, cold, quiet. A half-measure of mercy.

But nothing touched it. The pain didn’t dull—it roared.

Every cell in her body screamed for the god she once worshiped—in backstage stalls, hotel bathtubs, and the hands of plugs who never asked questions, only offered more.

Coke, heroin, pills—they had rewritten her wiring, turned her nerves into a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. Without them, she was a body on fire with nothing left to burn.

The drugs had silenced her grief. Had numbed her fear. Had made her feel like she could float above the noise. That she was above everything living and not living. But now that they were gone, it was all crashing in. The noise was inside her now. Under her skin. Screaming through her bloodstream. Now she was beneath it all.

She shook like something feral. Burned with fever. Her skin felt like it was blistering from the inside. Her bones felt too big for her body. Her mouth bled from clenching her jaw too tight.

She sweated through her sheets twice a night. They stuck to her back like it was her real skin. She stared at the ceiling for hours, the whites of her eyes stinging. The whole world slipped sideways. The corners of the room stretched and curved. The shadows grew bigger and darker, swallowed her and spitted her out.

She sat for hours on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, arms around her middle, forehead pressed to her knees, rocking back and forth. Wondering if maybe she could choke on her own breath. Wondering if maybe that would be enough to make it stop.

And the nightmares didn’t come in dreams.

They came when she blinked.

A hand she couldn’t see at her throat. Faces at the edge of her bed. The crowd, always the crowd, roaring with empty mouths and red eyes, thousands of phones raised, all pointed at her, all flashing, all recording, all screaming her name over and over again.

Jesse. Yelling behind her. His voice cracked and distant. Dina. Standing in the corner. Her mouth moving but the only sound Ellie could hear was liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.

Joel. Sometimes he stood in the other corner, silent and blurry, holding her guitar like a corpse. Sometimes he was on his knees on the side of the bed, younger and smaller than she remembered, whispering, I did everything I could, over and over again until he turned to ash.

But there was something worse—something that came after sleep, but before waking. That trembling, liminal state where the line between memory and madness blurs. The room around her was real—she could still smell the antiseptic, still feel the scratch of the rehab sheets against her clammy skin—but you stood at the foot of the bed like a phantom carved from guilt and need. Like her mind had conjured you out of the very air she was choking on.

You were lit from behind by a spotlight that didn’t exist, too bright to come from any lamp. It seared her vision, turned your edges soft and glowing, like you were holy. Your chest heaved. You were crying—openly, messily, the kind of crying that had no dignity left in it.

She blinked. You didn’t vanish. You were still there. Still weeping. Still looking right at her.

You are a fucking liar. You promised. I believed you.

She tried to move. Tried to sit up. But her limbs were heavy, pinned to the bed like they’d been nailed in place. Her breath turned jagged. The light behind you pulsed, then flickered, like a dying star.

You said you wouldn’t disappear on me.

The floor stretched. The bed tilted. The room distorted into angles that didn’t make sense. You were getting further away—not by walking, not by moving—but by some cruel force in her own head warping space and time and regret.

You told me you were going to fight. For you. For me. For this. For us.

Your voice cracked on the last word. It sounded like the green room. Like the final night. Like goodbye.

She whimpered. Just once. Just enough. Then reached toward you with a hand that didn’t move.

And then you disappeared into smoke. To light. To silence.

And Ellie, drenched in sweat and trembling like a leaf caught in a storm, curled into herself and wept like she had that night—quiet, slow, full of the kind of pain that doesn't want to be heard.

She bit the pillow until the fabric tore. Scratched her own arms until they bled. Her biceps were covered in raw, red claw marks for weeks. She didn’t remember making them. But the blood under her nails said otherwise.

Withdrawal wasn’t linear.

It was war. No other word for it.

Every nerve begged for a hit. Just one. Just something to dull the noise. Just a second of silence.

But there was no silence.

Only guilt. Only the knowledge that this was her fault.

She convinced herself she deserved it. All of it. Every second. Every scream. Every sting. Every shard of herself breaking off, one by one.

That she had done this. To herself. To you. To Jesse. To Dina. To Joel. To her music. To her career. To the people who believed in her. To the girl she used to be.

She didn’t pray. Didn’t believe in redemption.

She believed in nothing at all.

Day eight.

Group therapy. She didn’t want to go. Said she wouldn’t. Said it over and over. Two staff members came anyway. Sat on the edge of her bed.

One of them—a woman named Hope, which felt like the universe was spitting in her face once again—talked in a voice so soft it made Ellie want to scream at her to shut the fuck up. She spoke to her like she was a toddler. For so long that Ellie finally stood, not out of agreement, but because that irritating ass tone was drilling holes in her skull. Her legs buckled the second she put weight on them. She nearly went down in the hallway.

They whispered when she walked in. They knew who she was. Of course they did.

She kept her hoodie up. Eyes down. Didn’t speak.

But a man across from her did.

Buzzcut. Sixty, maybe. Skin like creased paper and hands that shook even when they weren’t moving. His voice didn’t tremble from nerves. It trembled from memory. He didn’t sit tall in his chair. He sank into it like the story was too heavy to carry and the act of telling it required surrender.

"She was the love of my life," he said. "God, she was everything. Beautiful. Funny. Loud. Too smart for me. And I loved her more than anything I ever held in my hands."

"But I couldn’t stop. Not for her. Not even when our lights got shut off. Not even when I sold her record collection for a hit. Not even when our kid asked why mommy cried at night." He pressed a trembling palm to his chest. "I wanted to stop. I swore I’d stop. I meant it, every time. But meaning something isn’t the same as doing it."

A long breath. A broken one.

"She left me the morning I sold her wedding ring. Didn’t yell. Didn’t cry. Just packed a bag and told me she loved me, but she couldn’t die beside me." His voice cracked. "I hated her for that. I hated her for a long time. But now that I'm clean I realize… she saved me. By walking away. She saved my life."

He looked up, eyes glassy and faraway.

"She never came back. But she saved me anyway."

Ellie didn’t cry. But her jaw locked so tight it sounded like bone on bone. Her throat swelled. She gripped the edge of the chair like it was the only thing holding her to the earth.

That night, she didn’t sleep.

Her mind spun a film reel of every second she ever spent with you—backwards, forward, in slow motion, in loop. Your voice in her ears. Your laugh in her neck. Your tears in that green room. The last I love you you said to her. And somewhere, under it all, the question she couldn’t silence:

What would I have done if she had left me first?

Day twenty.

She still couldn’t cry in front of anyone else. Mostly, she sat in therapy and stared at the floor. Gave short answers. Shrugged a lot. Refused to talk about fame. Refused to talk about the band. Refused to talk about music. That one felt like a bone still broken beneath the skin. Refused to talk about you. Especially you.

But they let her smoke.

In designated areas, away from the main building, near a cluster of thin trees that always looked half-dead. She went there every morning before breakfast. Eyes red. Hands still a little shaky. She’d stand on the cold patio and stare at the fog that drifted low between the trees, like the earth was still deciding whether to exhale.

That was where she met Thomas.

He was already there when she arrived that day. Leaning against the railing. A cigarette between his lips. Thin but sturdy. Soft-spoken. Big eyes. Twenty-five.

"I know who you are,” he said. Quiet. Almost an apology. “I’m a fan."

Ellie didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at him. She was one second from walking away.

"But I also know what you’re feeling," he added. "So... I won’t ask for a selfie."

She snorted. Just once. A dry, surprised sound. It startled her.

The next day, he was there again.

They shared silence like it was holy. A language neither of them had to translate. They talked, eventually—not about anything real. About sci-fi. The new Dune movie. Favorite comics. A band she loved before she ever picked up a guitar. They argued about Batman. Laughed, sometimes, in short bursts that felt foreign to her mouth.

He never asked about her music or the band. Never asked about what happened. Never asked who she had written all those songs about.

He just smoked with her. Talked to her. Breathed beside her.

And something shifted. Not all at once, but slowly. Like light seeping in beneath a door.

Her appetite didn’t come back overnight, but she started eating half her tray instead of none. She started taking her meds. Let the nurse check her vitals without flinching. She showered every other day. Then every day. Let the water hit her neck. Let the steam open something tight in her chest.

She slept, sometimes. Still haunted, still twitching, but not as violently. Not as often.

And she wrote. God, she wrote.

They’d given her journals. Cream-colored covers and blank inside. She filled at night the same they handed her in the morning. Her handwriting looked like someone fighting their own hand. Crooked lines. Crossed-out verses. Scribbled lyrics. Poems that not even herself dared to read out loud. Pages torn, then taped back in. Fragments of thought. Lines that didn’t rhyme.

Doodles of your hands. The shape of your mouth. Your smile. The soft space between your brows. The way your hands looked when they curled on a mic.

One day, she tried to draw your eyes from memory and couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t remember the exact curve, the shape of them, their glint. She sat on her bed for an hour staring at the half-finished sketch, then ripped the page out and tore it to pieces.

But she wrote more after that.

Wrote letters she’d never send. Wrote songs she couldn’t sing yet. Wrote apologies that were too late and memories that hurt too much.

One afternoon, with trembling fingers and graphite-stained sleeves, she sketched the soft curve of your back from memory—every line tentative, reverent. Her hand slowed as it reached your shoulder. She drew the tiny mole there, exactly where it had always been. A landmark on a map she could still trace with her eyes closed.

And in the bottom corner of the page, almost too small to notice, she wrote:

A kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.

Day forty.

In private therapy, the counselor asked: "What do you think your addiction was hiding?"

And something inside her finally caved.

"I don’t know. I think… that the crowd got bigger than the music. That I had to be brilliant even when I was empty. That no one noticed the difference between real and performance. Not even me."

And once she started, she couldn’t stop. She talked for hours.

About the band. About the noise. About the interviews and the eyes and the pressure to be a genius all the time. About the fear of being ordinary, of not being enough, of not even being a fraction of what Joel was—of what he built, of what he carried, of what he sacrificed. About how the drugs made her louder, bolder, brighter, filling a hole she didn’t know existed.

“It wasn’t about getting high,” she admitted. “It was about being who they needed me to be. And then about forgetting who I really was. And then… about surviving not being anything at all.”

She swallowed air like it might steady her.

"I thought they made me more. But really they just made me disappear."

The therapist didn’t speak. Just let her keep going.

"And I lost everything. The band. The sound. The one I loved the most. My fucking voice. I lost me." Her voice cracked. But she didn’t cry. "And I know I did it to myself. That’s the worst part."

That night, she touched the guitar.

Didn’t play it. Just held it.

She sat on the floor of her room with the lights off, cradling the body of it against her ribs like it was something living. She didn’t strum. Didn’t sing.

She just breathed.

And while Ellie fought her way back from the edge, Joel took the rest into his own hands.

Jesse and Dina left quietly a few days after Ellie checked into rehab. No press release. No airport sighting. Just quiet nods and long hugs. They were young, and they were tired, and they had families back home who’d been waiting—worried—since the night the final Fireflies show imploded into nothing. They boarded separate flights with sunglasses on and hearts shattered, stepping away from the spotlight and going back to their roots to mourn what they'd built together.

There was nothing more they could do.

The announcement of the Fireflies' indefinite hiatus hit the world like a meteor. It wasn’t just music news. It wasn’t just another headline. It was cultural collapse.

The biggest band of a generation, the revival of rock, the ones who had made stages burn again—gone. Not a break. Not a rest. A disappearance. One statement, stripped of detail, cold and final.

The entire planet had never seen anything like it. Cities paused. Billboards went dark. Fans lit candles outside arenas that would never hear them play. People cried on livestreams. Talk shows froze mid-sentence.

And Joel made the kind of calls people don't forget. Not the kind you scroll for in your phone. The kind stored in memory, in blood. The kind reserved for debts owed from decades ago. For favors etched into silence. For names you only speak once.

He didn’t care about the cost. Within weeks, he moved more money than most people saw in ten lifetimes. But the result was total.

The headlines stopped. The paparazzi photos vanished. The rumors about the cause of The Fireflies’ disappearance shriveled into dust. Blogs were erased. Video uploads failed mid-buffer. Search results redirected to blank pages. Social media accounts were flagged, suspended, dismantled. Journalists were warned. Managers were paid off. Former assistants silenced. Every whisper turned into static. Whatever he couldn’t bury with money, he buried with power.

And you—on the other hand—got buried with it too.

The world didn’t go quiet for you. It got sharper. Meaner. Colder. Crueler. They turned on you like wolves. Blamed you. Made you the cautionary tale. As if loving her too loudly had lit the match. As if the fire was your fault.

And Joel didn’t think about that. Didn’t think about the tour you cancelled. The silence that wrapped around your penthouse like a second skin. He didn’t see the weight of being the only one left behind—visible, bleeding, blamed.

But we already saw that part of the story.

The girl left behind. The silence, the spotlight, the ruin. The way she took her own broken heart, stitched it back together with shaking hands, and conquered the world all over again—crowned not in gold, but in scar tissue. A phoenix with no flame left to borrow, so she built her own fire.

Now it’s time for the other side.

The girl who vanished. The wreckage she dragged behind her like a second skin. The addiction that gutted her slowly, quietly, while the world kept spinning. The spiral no camera caught, the withdrawal no headline wrote. The one who left, but never stopped loving. The one who got away.

Joel wasn’t looking for justice. He was looking for her. And so, he burned the world to the ground to shield what was left of his daughter—never once turning to see what the smoke did to you.

And then he packed up everything she owned. Her clothes. Her guitars. Her amps. Her notebooks. A copy of every Fireflies album, still shrink-wrapped.

And then he left, too.

He went back to Jackson. Back to the outskirts of the only place that had ever felt like his hands could rest. And there, at the edge of the woods where the air tasted like pine and the birds still sang in the morning, he found a cabin. Small. Weathered. No TV. No Wi-Fi. Not even signal. Nothing like the world Ellie had been eaten alive by.

He bought it in cash. Tore down half the walls. Brought in contractors who didn’t ask questions. Insulated the attic. Reinforced the windows. Built a fireplace from scratch. Laid new floors himself, every board smoothed with his own calloused hands. Planted rosemary outside the front door because she liked the smell when she was a kid. Painted the walls soft, lived-in colors—muted greens and warm browns and the kind of blue the sky only makes after the storm passes.

And built her a studio.

Not the kind she used to record hits in. No glass wall separating her from a producer. No overpriced espresso machines or assistants on call. No executives pacing with Bluetooth headsets. No stylists fixing her collar between takes.

Just a room. Perfect soundproofing. A mixing board that hummed like it had a soul. Three guitars mounted on the wall—one of them chipped from a stage dive in Berlin. A bass. A drum kit with fingerprints still on the cymbals.

A place she could make music in. If she ever wanted to again.

He stocked the shelves with vinyls. Filled the kitchen with real food. Bought a fireplace grate shaped like a wolf. Found a lamp shaped like a crescent moon. A home, not a hotel. Quiet, but not empty. A place you could come back to and not feel like you’d failed the world.

He didn’t call it a new beginning. He called it waiting. Because he knew what Ellie needed wasn’t a rescue.

She needed a place to land.

Day ninety.

The last day.

She woke before sunrise, not from a nightmare, not from withdrawal, not from the weight of everything she had lost—but from something quieter. A strange stillness in her chest. Like her body had finally stopped bracing for impact.

She stood at the window for a long time, then reached up and opened the blinds without thinking. The sky was soft with early blue, mist rising like smoke.

And for the first time since arriving, the light touched her skin and didn’t flinch.

She showered. Ate a full breakfast. Took her medication. Laughed at a joke Thomas made over oatmeal, something stupid about a dinosaur president and a war for Mars. She told him he was an idiot. He said she was the meanest person he’d ever called his friend. She called him a loser. They high-fived.

She walked the long hallway to group therapy and sat in her usual seat, but this time, she didn’t fold into herself. She didn’t stare at the floor. She looked up. And when they asked if she wanted to share something on her last day, she said yes. And her voice didn’t shake.

She told them what it felt like to lose everything. Her band. Her friends Her music. Her persona. Herself. About the stage that felt like home until it didn’t. About craving the applause and hating the attention and then hating and craving all of it at the same time. About the slow death of becoming everything people wanted and nothing she could survive being.

She told them about her experience with addiction. Not as a spiral, but as a silence. A quiet gnawing. A disappearing. She said it felt like becoming a ghost with good lighting. Said it felt like sleepwalking into your own funeral.

She then told them about the girl with the voice like velvet—the one she loved more than anyone, and losing her hurt worse than anything. She spoke about what it meant to break something that had once felt unbreakable.

How it felt to love someone while the world was trying to swallow them both. How they had stood side by side, each unraveling in their own way, watching the other fade like breath on a mirror.

She talked about how your first love being your greatest loss wasn’t just something that happened to her—it happened to both. What it meant to be taught how to love by the very person she had to unlearn. How letting go of her wasn’t a decision, but a mercy.

She didn’t say a name. She didn’t have to.

The shape of her sorrow carved it into the silence. And everyone in the room knew exactly who she was talking about.

The glitter-drenched popstar. The girl in the front row of every headline, every stage, every magazine. The other half of the spectacle. The one they photographed beside her, draped in designer dresses and smiles, always camera-ready, always polished, always posed, always perfect.

They’d seen you everywhere—billboards, red carpets, award shows, airport lobbies. But they never really looked. Never stopped to wonder if those smiles held. If your fingers trembled under the table. If your voices cracked when the microphones were off.

If the two girls who lit up the industry like a supernova had ever been allowed to just love each other without the world clawing at their edges. The worst part was that, in the end, it got what it came for. It tore them apart.

When Ellie cried, she didn’t hide it. And when she looked up, everyone else was crying too.

She then packed in silence. Folded her clothes slowly. Asked to keep all the journals, even the ones filled with illegible scribbles and coffee stains and blacked-out pages. Especially those.

The guitar Joel brought still leaned in the corner. Still never strummed. She didn’t mind. Not yet. Not today. It would still be there tomorrow.

She wasn’t whole.

There were still wounds inside her that hadn’t fully healed. Ghosts that would ride with her wherever she went. She knew the moment she stepped out of those gates, the world would be waiting. Joel would be waiting. And whatever came next was still terrifying.

But for the first time in years, Ellie didn’t want to disappear.

And for now, that was enough.

The sky was gray when she stepped through the front doors of the facility. Not stormy. Not bright. Just muted, like the weather had softened itself in reverence for this exact moment. Her face was fuller. Her steps were sure. Her hands didn't tremble.

Joel was leaning against the hood of his truck.

He hadn’t changed. Same flannel, same boots, same belt buckle weathered from decades of grit. But he looked older. Or maybe just more human. There were new lines around his mouth, his eyes. A kind of soft tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. A quiet sorrow that never said its name.

Their eyes met.

And then Joel opened his arms.

It was slow. Gentle. He didn’t step forward, didn’t call her closer. Just waited.

And Ellie—God, Ellie walked into them like they were the only thing left on earth. Her face buried into his shoulder. Her arms wrapped around him with more desperation than grace. A breath caught between her ribs and stayed there.

He held her back like he hadn’t let himself hope for this moment. Like it broke something inside him to finally touch her again.

One tear slipped down his face. He didn’t wipe it this time.

"You did it," he murmured. "You're here."

Ellie said nothing. But she didn’t pull away.

"We’ll go slow," Joel said softly. "Whatever you need. Whatever it takes. Just take the next breath, alright?"

Ellie didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t need to. She knew he’d pick a place. Somewhere off the grid. Somewhere no one would find her unless she was the one that wanted to be found. The kind of quiet only Joel Miller could make safe.

They pulled up to the cabin just before dusk.

It wasn’t big. Not modern. No white marble countertops or cold glass walls. Just a low-roofed wooden house with ivy crawling along the porch and a chimney puffing soft smoke like it had been waiting for her all this time.

She walked inside.

It smelled like rosemary. The floors creaked. A fireplace cracked low in the corner. Vinyls lined a shelf in the living room. An owl mug sat clean beside the sink. A blanket was folded on the couch.

And in the back corner—a room made of music. Soundproof panels. A mixing board. Three guitars on the wall. Her old amp. A drum kit.

She didn’t go to it, but she almost cried when she saw it.

She set her suitcase down in the bedroom. Looked at the bed. Sat on the edge of it like it might vanish beneath her. Like this was all too peaceful, too good to be true.

"You can stay as long as you want," Joel said. "And if you want to go—you say the word. No questions. No fight."

"You don’t owe me anything," he added. "Not one damn thing. But I’m so proud of you. I hope you know that, kiddo."

Ellie looked at him then. Her eyes rimmed red, but dry.

"Thanks for not giving up on me."

"Couldn’t. You’re my daughter."

She looked away, biting the inside of her cheek.

That night, she slept. Really slept. Her body surrendered without a fight—no twitching limbs, no cold sweats, no ghosts dragging her down into dreams she couldn’t escape. Just sleep. Heavy and whole.

And when the morning came, soft and slow, when sunlight spilled like honey through the cracked window, when a birdsong threaded its way through pine needles tapping gently at the glass—Ellie breathed.

Not a gasp. Not a fight. Just a breath. Steady.

Alive.

Twelve months bled into one another like watercolors—soft, pale, undemanding. In the quiet corner of a three-covered stretch outside Jackson, the house Joel had bought felt more like a memory than a place. There were no city lights. No interviews. No sold-out shows. Just the creak of old wood under her feet and the scent of firewood lingering on everything they owned.

Ellie woke with the sun. Not to vomit or sweat or claw at invisible ghosts. She simply… woke. She’d blink at the ceiling and listen to the silence for a while. Let it wrap around her like a second blanket.

Most mornings, Joel would already be up. Coffee brewed. A single mug left steaming on the counter with her name scrawled in permanent marker across the ceramic. They sat together on the porch and watched deers move through the trees.

They didn’t talk much. But it wasn’t awkward. It was restful. The kind of silence that never demanded to be filled.

She wrote and drew in the mornings. Scribbles and stream-of-consciousness poetry. Things she remembered. Things she didn’t want to forget. The exact placement of Dina’s freckles. The curve of Jesse’s laugh. The way your voice sounded in the morning and how your legs looked when crossed. What her own name looked like when she wrote it in red ink.

Afternoons were for painting. Joel cleared out the back shed and gave her the whole thing. She painted on cardboard, on loose wood, on the back of half-rotted cabinet doors. Portraits. Shadows. Skies that didn’t exist. A girl that always ended up looking like you.

She ate. Three times a day. Joel made sure of it. Sometimes it was good—herbs from the garden, toast burnt just right. Other times it was just food. Fuel. But she ate. Slowly. Quietly. With gratitude.

Her body began to remember itself. The bones softened. Her hair grew longer. Her eyes lost that yellow tint.

And Joel… Joel never pushed. He didn’t ask questions he didn’t need answers to. But he was always there. Always nearby. Fixing the porch steps. Sharpening tools. Sometimes he’d sit beside her while she painted and said nothing for hours. Sometimes he’d hand her a book and mutter something about it being “not too bad.”

And sometimes—on those rare, quiet nights when the fire cracked just right and her chest didn’t feel like it was splitting in half—she’d lay her head against his shoulder and close her eyes.

Their bond grew back the way moss grows. Slow, delicate, unspoken.

She would catch him looking at her sometimes with that ache in his eyes, the kind of sorrow only fathers can carry. And she would nod. Just a little. Just enough to say, “I’m still here.”

But the guitar stayed untouched.

He’d placed it on a stand in the studio—lovingly built and filled with warmth and light— but Ellie never stepped inside. She passed by sometimes, paused at the doorframe. Looked at it like a wound that hadn’t scabbed. But couldn’t even touch the doorknob.

Because music didn’t belong to her anymore.

It belonged to the version of her that had died under a spotlight. To the girl who collapsed in a green room with your voice in her head and heroin in her veins. It belonged to the wreckage and the worst version of herself.

And every time she tried to remember what it felt like to strum, she tasted blood and bile and screaming.

So she let it stay behind glass.

Sometimes—on the rarest nights—when the sky went purple and the pine trees whispered things that almost sounded like forgiveness, she wondered if this was real.

If this house, this life, this quiet was just a hallucination her dying mind had conjured in a hotel room somewhere. If she was really just dead already, and this was what came after.

But then Joel would call her name, soft and simple. The way he used to when she was a kid. She’d look over her shoulder and see him leaning against the kitchen doorway with a flicker of warmth in his eyes. And the air would return to her lungs.

The night air settled over Jackson like a held breath. Just cold enough to bite at the edges of skin. The porch creaked gently beneath them as they sat—Joel with his elbows on his knees, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. Ellie beside him, hoodie up, one foot tucked under the other.

The sky above was clear. Stars sharp. The kind of sky that reminded her how far away she was from the world. How far away she was from Jesse and Dina. How far away she was from you.

Joel exhaled smoke, watching it twist into the dark.

“You sleepin’ alright?” he asked finally.

Ellie shrugged. “Sometimes.”

He nodded, like he expected that. Crushed the cigarette into the ashtray on the railing. Another long silence.

Then—quiet, almost too quiet to catch:

“Ellie…”

She turned to him slightly. His face was shadowed by the porch light, but she saw the way his jaw clenched before he spoke again.

“You don’t have to answer this, but…” A pause. A breath. “Why didn’t you do it?”

She blinked. He didn’t look at her when he said it.

“Those nights you spent locked in that hotel room.” His voice was gentle, but firm. “You could’ve. God knows you had enough reason. Enough pain. But you didn’t.”

Ellie looked back out toward the trees. Her hands were in her sleeves, fingers curled into fists.

“Every day I thank whatever’s up there that you didn’t.” He continued, his voice rough and bare. “But I still… I still think about it. Wonder what gave you the strength.”

Her throat felt like sandpaper. But the words came anyway.

“I wanted to,” she said. “I thought about it all the time”

“And I tried.” She swallowed. “A couple times.”

The wind shifted. The trees rustled like they were listening.

“But every time I got close…”

Her voice caught.

“Her face came back.”

Joel turned then. Really looked at her. Ellie was staring down at her knees. Eyes glassy. Mouth tight.

“I kept seeing her, I kept hearing her voice,” she whispered. “The last time. Crying. Begging. And I thought—I can’t do that to her again. I can’t be the reason she breaks twice.”

Joel didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

“I didn’t survive for me. I survived for her.”

Her voice cracked on that last word.

Joel felt it like a punch to the chest.

He thought—God. He’d seen a lot in his life. Too much for only one person. Wars waged in cities and kitchens, grief stitched into the fabric of every year. Love that rotted under pressure. Love that left. Love that wasn’t really love at all.

But this?

This kind of love—this raw, surviving thing that crawled its way through wreckage and blood and spotlight and distance, and still had enough breath to whisper her name—undid him.

He had never seen anything like it. Not in his youth. Not in the world. Hadn’t even believed it could exist—something so unwilling to die, blooming out of the kind of ruin most people never crawl out from.

He looked at her. Really looked.

And there she was. This kid—his kid, not only by blood, but by fire and stubbornness—wrapped in bruises and a kind of aching devotion that still burned in her chest.

She hadn’t made it out unburned. But she’d made it. And it wasn’t faith or hope that had kept her alive.

It was love. Not the clean kind. Not the kind with fairy tales and forgiveness. The kind that shattered you and still refused to let go. The kind that whispered through inside her mind and said don’t. The kind that looked like her.

And for the first time in his life, Joel Miller believed in something he didn’t have a word for. He only knew that it looked like Ellie. And that it sounded like a girl who still loved her, even after everything.

His voice was thick when he finally said,

“You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Ellie didn’t answer. Just lit her own cigarette and took a slow drag.

It started to become a kind of ritual.

Not planned. Not spoken. Just something that happened—every few nights, when the moon was sharp and the woods were quiet, Ellie and Joel would sit outside on the porch. Two chairs. A pack of smokes. Coffee gone cold.

And then they’d talk.

Not always about the heavy things. Sometimes it was about the deer tracks Joel had spotted near the tree line. Sometimes Ellie would mutter something dry about the government, and Joel would scoff like he hadn’t been the government at some point. Sometimes they’d sit in silence for an hour before a single word was said.

But when the heavy came, it always came honest.

“You ever think about music again?”

Ellie didn’t look at him. She was staring out at the trees. Smoking slowly, the cigarette cupped in her hand like it was sacred.

“Sometimes,” she said. A beat passed. “And then I stop thinking real quick.”

Joel learned, over these months, that Ellie didn’t move for pressure. She moved when she was ready. And sometimes, when the dark was soft enough, she was.

“It just… it brings me back,” she admitted, eyes still fixed forward. “To everything. The tour. The blood in my mouth. The drugs. The lights that felt like they were trying to kill me. The silence that came after.”

Joel didn’t speak.

“And also, she…she was my muse,” Ellie said, quieter now. “She was in the best things I wrote. The songs that people liked the most… every chord I played right. She was there. And now it’s like… I don’t know how to do it anymore. Like I forgot the language.”

Joel breathed in through his nose. Nodded.

“I read some of your journals,” he said gently.

Ellie stiffened.

“Only the ones you left open,” he added. “Didn’t go snooping.”

“You’ve still got it in you, kiddo. You’ve just buried it under the grief.”

Her throat clicked as she swallowed. Still wouldn’t look at him.

“Music’s a way out,” Joel said. “And a way through. It’s how you’ve always spoken. Even when you didn’t have words, you had that.”

Ellie closed her eyes.

“That girl you loved? I think she’d want you to make music again. For her. For you.”

That broke something. Not enough to collapse her. But enough to shift the weight.

She glanced at him. Eyes tired. Voice like gravel.

“I don’t remember how.”

Joel didn’t speak. He stood instead. Went inside. When he came back, he had it in his hands—her acoustic.

He held it out.

“Then we remember together.”

Ellie looked at it like it might bite her. Her breath caught.

“I can’t,”

“I’ll start,”

And he sat down, resting the guitar on his knee like it weighed less than memory. His fingers moved slowly, stiff from age, but so familiar. He strummed a slow, soft chord. Then another. The air shifted.

He played the opening notes of Wayfaring Stranger—old, worn, rooted in some deep Appalachian ache. Ellie’s breath hitched.

He nodded toward the space beside him. It was quiet.

Then she moved. Sat down. And her voice came.

Shaky at first. Rusted from silence. But real. Raw.

“I am just a poor… wayfaring stranger…”

Ellie didn’t cry. But when they finished—when the last note dissolved into pine trees and wind—she leaned her head on Joel’s shoulder.

Because in that moment, a piece of her soul returned.

A flicker. A chord. A bridge. A breath.

That night, Joel had gone to bed early.

He’d kissed her temple in passing, ruffled her hair like she was still thirteen, said something about needing to catch the sunrise. She smiled without answering, waited until his door clicked shut. Waited another twenty minutes, maybe thirty, counting the creaks in the old floorboards and the rhythm of his footsteps fading into sleep.

Then—quietly, carefully—she got up.

Her socks barely made a sound on the wood as she moved through the darkened house. The kitchen light above the stove still glowed like a nightlight. Outside, a late snow had started falling, brushing the windows with flurries that looked like static on a screen.

Ellie finally opened the door. Because tonight, something had shifted like thaw after a long, bitter winter.

The studio was still warm from the afternoon sun. The insulation held the heat. Her breath didn’t cloud the air. The soundproof panels still clung to the walls, dark and padded. The guitars hung where Joel had mounted them. The desk lamp was on, casting a low golden glow across the mixing board. And there, on the shelf, were her journals.

She walked to them.

Chose the one she hadn’t touched since she closed it, worn soft at the corners. The one with the sketch she’d done on day twenty-eight. Your back, your shoulders, that mole. The one she’d captioned with a line she didn’t even remember writing until she saw it the day before:

A kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.

She sat. Flipped through pages of grief and ink-blotted apologies.

And she let herself feel it this time. The ache. The missing. The love.

And it wasn’t kind. It was raw. She remembered the way your voice cracked when you told her she was a liar. The way your hands trembled when you let her go. The last kiss.

Tears streaked down her face in silence. Her shoulders shook. Her chest cracked open, soundless and shaking, and she let the pages in her lap blur with salt.

Then—slowly—she pulled the guitar down from the wall. The acoustic one. Her first. The one Joel had taught her to play on.

Her fingers hovered for a beat. Then she strummed.

The sound came out warped, soft, imperfect.

But it came out.

She flipped through the pages. Pieced together verses from scribbled corners, from margins, from half-abandoned choruses. A line about her being hungry for your love with no way to feed it. A line about being too young to hold on and too old to break free and run. A line about you being the tear that will hang inside of her forever.

She built a melody. And when it felt right—when the bones of the song finally locked into place—she turned on the mic. The red light blinked once. Twice. Then held.

Her voice wasn’t what it used to be. It trembled. It cracked. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t powerful.

But it was honest.

And when she finished—when the last note hung in the air like smoke from a blown-out candle—she didn’t say anything. She just sat there. Breathing.

Then she saved the file.

lover_you_shouldve_come_over.wav

And after that, Ellie didn’t stop.

She lived in the studio like it was a second body—unwashed coffee mugs on the desk, blanketed in flannel shirts and cables. She slept on the floor most nights, curled up in half-buttoned clothes, a pencil still tucked behind her ear, dried ink smudged across her cheekbone like warpaint. She dreamed in melodies. Woke with her fingers still curled in phantom chords.

Sometimes she forgot to eat. Sometimes she forgot what month it was. Joel started leaving sticky notes on the fridge with things like Eat today or It’s Wednesday, dumbass.

All the songs were acoustic at first. Bare. Unadorned. Like bones washed up on a beach.

She wrote them from the wreckage—pages torn from old notebooks, grief tucked into the margins of rehab journals, fragments of lyrics she scrawled years ago when her hands still smelled like blood, whiskey, stage smoke and the perfume of five different groupies.

The studio felt wrong without Jesse and Dina.

Once, it had been chaotic—Jesse cracking jokes while playing the drums way too loud, Dina blasting bass lines over vodka-fueled all-nighters, all three of them arguing about reverb like it was life or death.

Now it was just Ellie.

Well. Ellie and Joel.

He sat in when she needed him. Plucked chords while she rewrote verses. Nodded or shrugged when she looked for approval. Sometimes he’d grunt out a melody while tuning and it would always be perfect, and she would curse him out like it wasn’t the best thing that happened to her all week.

They recorded Wayfaring Stranger together one night.

It was storming hard—rain on the roof like applause from ghosts. The cabin lights flickered once. Joel didn’t flinch. They sat with two old mics hissing soft static, the smell of rosemary in the air, guitars balanced in their laps.

Joel’s voice was cracked and low, worn-in like a denim jacket. Ellie’s was thinner, rawer, but sharp—cutting through the quiet like a blade through fog.

After the last verse, she lowered her headphones and frowned.

“That mic sounds like it’s dying, man.”

Joel kept tuning, didn’t look up. “It’s vintage.”

“It makes me sound like I’m stuck in the ‘70s.”

“You are.”

“I’m not! I’m—” She stopped. Tilted her head. “Actually… yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

She didn’t fight it anymore.

Joel’s music—his bare-bones honesty, his refusal to dress things up just to make them easier to swallow—it started to seep into her own. The way he played. The way he said something real and didn’t care if it sounded pretty.

She used to resent that. Spent years trying to polish the edges of his influence off herself. Now she understood. Now it sounded like home.

Then one morning, Joel walked in and said, “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s your birthday. You're twenty-five now.”

She’d forgotten.

She hadn’t left the cabin in over two years. Hadn’t seen anyone but Joel. Her hair was longer now, almost reaching her shoulders, uneven at the ends from the times she hacked at it with kitchen scissors. She never let it all the way down, always tied it up in a bun or a half updo. It wasn’t the messy mullet from before—it was softer now. Grown in. Like it had survived something.

Joel dragged her out. Said they were going for coffee in Jackson.

Incognito. Baseball caps, oversized jackets, sunglasses too big for their faces. He called her “Josh” the whole time. She scowled but didn’t correct him.

She clutched something in her coat pocket the whole time. A folded, yellowing page. It had phone numbers scrawled across it—names and addresses she’d written down when she was sixteen. Just in case she ever needed to reach someone. A page she never thought would matter again.

But now, it felt like a compass.

“Can we stop at a payphone?” she asked quietly, her voice raw from too many takes and not enough talking.

Joel raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions. Just handed her some quarters.

The booth was cracked and rusty. It smelled like old pennies and rain. She shoved the page flat against the glass and started dialing.

She called Jesse first.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

She almost hung up.

“...Hey,” she whispered. “It’s me.”

A silence. Then: “…Ellie?”

And then: “Holy shit—Ellie? Are you okay? Are you—”

“I’m alright.” She smiled, just a little. “I’m doing good, actually.”

“Jesus. Jesus, we thought you—Dina said—fuck, Ellie—”

She heard the shudder in his breath. The tears. She told him she was alive. That she was sorry. That she didn’t call because she didn’t know if she ever could.

He told her he’d been working with a few bands—nothing major, nothing that stuck, but enough to keep his hands busy and his heart half-healed. The Fireflies name still opened all the doors, even if it felt weird saying it out loud without her there.

"People still talk about you, you know. All the damn time."

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that.

“Sometimes,” he admitted, voice cracking, “I think about that show. The one where your amp blew out mid-set and you didn’t even flinch. Just screamed the whole damn chorus ‘til the crowd lost their minds.”

They cried together. Quietly. Like people who’d already cried a lot in private and didn’t need to explain why anymore. Then laughed about how fucked up everything was.

Then Dina. She picked up on the third ring.

She didn’t even said hello. She didn’t have to. Her gut feeling told her who called.

“…Ellie?”

Ellie nodded before realizing that it didn't translate through a payphone. “Yeah. Hey.”

The silence stretched for a second—then snapped.

“You asshole!” Dina was already crying. “You selfish, unbelievable—fuck. I missed you so much!”

Ellie laughed through her own tears. “I missed you too, D.”

Dina told her she’d been in Europe for months—spinning records in sweaty clubs, working late-night DJ sets in little places where no one knew her name or history. “I dyed my hair pink. I ate shit on a Vespa. I’ve been healing, I guess. Or fucking around. Same thing.”

Ellie grinned. Of course Dina was the one who turned grief into glitter.

“Sometimes I play Fireflies tracks,” Dina added, softer now. “Not full sets. Just… when it feels right. And every time I do, Ellie—” She stopped, breathed in. “The crowd goes still. Then they go wild. Like they’re remembering something holy. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in our shows. Tears. Screaming. People grabbing strangers just to scream the lyrics together.”

That made Ellie’s stomach drop. Not because she wasn’t proud. But because it felt like looking in a mirror at someone who didn’t exist anymore.

The world hadn’t let go of her. But she didn’t know if she could ever go back to it.

“You still mean something to them,” Dina whispered. “You still mean something to me.”

Then—Ellie pulled in a breath. Deep and jagged, like it might get stuck on the way out. Her fingers found the last quarter in her pocket.

She didn’t need the crumpled page for this one.

Your number had never left her. Not when she was bleeding backstage. Not in the grey mornings in rehab when her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not when Joel found her slumped against the studio wall, whispering lyrics like prayers to a God that couldn't even listen to them.

She could’ve dialed it blindfolded.

The rotary clicked under her fingers.

She pressed the receiver to her ear like it might hurt. Like maybe hearing you would split her open in a way she would never recover from.

It rang. Once. Twice. Then—

“The number you have dialed no longer exists.”

Static. Dead air. A silence so absolute it felt like the biggest punishment she had ever received.

Her hand hovered over the receiver. Then she slammed it down hard and tried again. Faster this time. Desperate.

“The number you have dialed—”

No. No, no, no.

Her stomach caved in. Her lungs forgot what to do.

She didn’t move. Not for a full minute. Just stood there in the booth, wind pushing against the glass, her face slack and still. The receiver hung in her hand.

Her heart didn’t break loud. It didn’t explode. It sank. And when the tears came, they didn’t fall like before—not in storms, not in grief, not in the animal sobs of withdrawal.

A single tear at the edge of her cheekbone. Another clinging to her jaw. She didn’t wipe them away. She just let them slide, slow and steady, as if maybe they carried part of you. As if maybe they could make up for all the words she didn’t say.

She just wanted one second.

Just one second where she could hear your voice again.

She wanted to know if your hair was still the softest thing she had ever touched. If your laugh still cracked in the middle. If you still sang harmonies under your breath without realizing.

If you hated her. If you missed her. If you ever thought of her. If she haunted your music the way you haunted hers. If you still love her the same way she does.

She wanted to tell you she made it. That she didn’t die. She almost did, but she didn’t. That she didn’t want to anymore. Not since she started writing again. Not since she remembered who she was underneath the noise.

She wanted to tell you that you saved her.

Even if you didn’t mean to. Even if you wouldn’t care anymore.

She left the booth with her hands trembling from everything she did and could no longer undo.

Joel was waiting by the truck. He looked up when she approached, coffee gone cold in his gloved hands. He didn’t ask why she spent hours on that payphone or why she was crying.

When they reached the cabin, Ellie didn’t take off her coat. She didn’t speak. She just dropped her bag by the door, kicked her boots off half-heartedly, and went straight into the studio.

She sat down at the console and opened a fresh journal. Not one of the old ones—the wrecked ones with pages water-warped from blood and tears. A new one. Clean. Blank. Terrifying.

And she wrote pages and pages of lyrics.

She picked up the bass for the first time in over a year. The strings felt foreign beneath her callouses. Still, the weight of it grounded her—solid, real, unyielding.

She let it hum beneath her fingers. Slow at first. Then louder. Then louder still.

She played until her fingertips ached and stung raw, until the studio felt full again. Then she turned to the drum kit in the corner—still coated in a layer of dust like no one had dared touch it.

She didn’t know what she was doing. Didn’t care.

She wasn’t chasing perfection. She was chasing pulse.

She needed noise. She needed proof she was still here. She needed to fill the space before it swallowed her.

By morning, she had added basslines and makeshift drums to nearly every track. They were rough. Unpolished. Nowhere near what Jesse or Dina could’ve done.

But they were hers.

Joel found her in the studio one evening, back turned, sleeves rolled, headphones slung around her neck, mouth gently moving with the melody in her head. The soft glow of the monitors bathed her in blue, and he stood in the doorway for a moment too long, just watching. She didn't look twenty-five.

She looked twelve and thirty and ageless all at once.

He cleared his throat.

“You done?”

Ellie blinked, startled out of whatever place she'd been floating in, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Think so.”

Joel stepped in, boots thudding against the wood. The place smelled like dust and coffee and burned wires—the scent of something born too fast and too bright.

“Mind if I—” He gestured toward the speakers.

She hesitated. Just a beat. Then reached over and hit play.

The room filled with her voice—unmistakable. Still raspy in places, sharp in others, but deeper now. Weathered. Like a field after fire. Still growing, but forever changed.

The first tracks bled in gently, acoustic at its core, but layered—drums like a distant storm, a bassline humming beneath it like a heartbeat.

And then—

Guitar.

Electric. Clean, furious, aching.

It slid in like it had been waiting all this time.

And Joel froze. Because that guitar wasn’t just good. Wasn’t just decent. It was her.

Not the kid who used to play for him on porch steps in Jackson. Not even the version of her who’d burned up on stages, who'd screamed into microphones like it could keep her alive and made magazines call her one of the greatest.

This was something else. This was someone who had crawled through ash and come out holding fire in her hands.

Some song sounded like heartbreak wrapped in honey. Others punched like fists through drywall. Others had violins and beats and sounds she found on the mixing board. And then came some solos—raw, wild, effortless. Like those fingertips still held the meaning of that second language she spoke when her lyrics didn’t find the right words.

She was holding the Les Paul again. The black one. The one she used to sleep next to during tour season, always afraid someone would steal it. It looked heavier now, older, like it had waited too. The final and most important piece of herself finally came back.

When the last song ended, Ellie exhaled like she’d been holding her breath the entire time.

Joel didn’t look at her. He just stared at the speaker, then shook his head a little.

“Jesus, kiddo.”

She glanced up, uncertain. “What?”

He turned to her. His voice cracked just once. “That’s the most heartbreakingly beautiful goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.”

She blinked.

“It’s so… you. Not you tryna be what people expect. Not you tryna prove anything. Just... you. In every chord. Every line. Your voice—hell, it sounds like it grew up with you. Got scarred with you. Got clean with you.”

“You don’t have to say that just ‘cause I’m your kid.”

“Ellie.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not sayin’ this ‘cause I’m your dad. I’m sayin’ it ‘cause I’ve heard a hell of a lotta music in my life, and none of it comes close to this. You got lightning in your blood. I ain’t just proud. I’m lucky. I got to watch a genius figure herself out.”

Ellie let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Genius, huh?”

Joel smirked. “Yeah. Turns out I gave birth to one.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

They both laughed. And then she stepped into him, forehead against his chest, arms curling around his waist.

“Thank you, Dad.”

He hugged her back, tightly. Like he’d been waiting for this moment longer than she had.

They stood there for a long time. No music playing. No words. Just the hum of everything that hadn’t been said over the years.

“So… what now?”

Ellie chewed her lip. Looked at the floor. Then finally back at him.

“I wanna come back.” Her voice was soft, but steady. “I wanna release the album. Independently. I mean, I doubt the label would touch me again. Not after everything.”

Joel tilted his head. “You let me worry about the label.”

“What?”

“I’ll handle it. When you’re ready.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You just keep doin’ what you do. Finish the tracks. Wrap it up right. When the time comes, we’ll put it out on your terms.”

“You’d do that?”

Joel shrugged like it was nothing. “Damn right. You think I’m gonna let the best thing I’ve ever heard rot on a hard drive in this cabin?”

Something in her face cracked open. Not sadness. Relief.

“They will hear it, El. One way or another.”

And for the first time in years, future didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like a door. She looked back toward the Les Paul, still slung against the chair like it belonged there.

Like it had been waiting.

But now, she was ready.

It was early, just after nine. The air still smelled like frost and wet asphalt. Ellie stood in the cereal aisle of the Jackson general store, her hoodie pulled low over her brow, fingers wrapped around the handle of a red plastic basket. She had a list Joel made folded in her back pocket: milk, eggs, bread, apples if they had the good kind.

Joel had said it like a reward, “You’re ready. Just keep your head down.”

So she did. Josh. Quiet. Hoodie, sunglasses, sleeves pulled low over the tattoos that might give her away. Nobody recognized her. It felt kind of surreal, like pretending to be someone else was easier than being who she was.

The checkout line was slow, but Ellie didn’t mind. She liked watching people. A mom trying to control a sugar-high toddler. An old man counting coins like they were magic. The soft beep of the scanner. Life in motion. Life that wasn’t hers.

Then the cashier glanced up at the small, dust-covered TV mounted above the register. Volume low. A red banner on the bottom of the screen.

BREAKING: Eight-Time GRAMMY Winner Y/N Confirms Romance with Star Quarterback Abby Anderson

The cashier smiled, bagging a box of cereal. “I’m so glad that girl went through all that and still came out on top,” she said. “Good for her.”

Ellie turned to look. Just a glance.

A mistake.

She had never felt her stomach drop like that in her entire life.

Not when the tour got canceled. Not when the pills ran out. Not even when she first realized she was in love with you.

This was different.

This was a freefall. No warning. No parachute. Just gravity dragging her heart straight to hell.

You.

You in a long velvet gown the color of midnight, standing beside Abby Anderson in a black suit with her hand on the small of your back. A camera caught you mid-laugh—head thrown back, eyes closed, glowing. The kind of laugh she used to get out of you when she whispered something filthy in your ear or caught you stealing her hoodie in the middle of a shoot.

But now—you looked different.

God, you looked different.

Your hair was darker. Longer. You stood taller, somehow. Not in heels, but in presence. Like the world didn’t get to touch you anymore unless you said so. There was something else too—an energy she couldn’t name. A kind of light that used to come from her. From the songs. From the love.

Now it came from somewhere else. Someone else.

The basket dropped itself from Ellie's hands.

It hit the ground with a clatter—milk carton bursting open, Cheerios rolling across the floor like gold coins. The cashier called something after her, but Ellie was already outside.

She barely made it to the truck. Door open. Head between her knees.

And then she threw up.

Right there in the parking lot gravel. Acid and coffee and guilt.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and tried to breathe, but her chest was caving in. Not fast, but slow—like it had been waiting for this collapse.

She sat behind the wheel for twenty minutes before she could stop shaking.

Then she cried. Not loud. Not violent. A quiet, stunned kind of weeping—like the body trying to process a pain it didn’t see coming.

She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe the way you looked. Couldn’t believe the world had been spinning like that without her. That you had became even more radiant and beautiful than she remembered—and she'd always remembered you like a wildfire.

She couldn’t believe she’d missed all of it. That while she was drowning in rehab and hollowing herself out into songs, you had survived. You had won eight grammys. You had become someone new. Someone braver. Someone who laughed like that with someone else’s hand on your back.

She leaned her head against the steering wheel.

She remembered how she used to trace every freckle on your shoulder like it was scripture. How you used to mouth the words to her songs before they were even finished. How you used to ask her what she saw in the stars when she couldn’t sleep.

And now she didn’t even know what time zone you lived in.

Ellie didn’t even park the truck properly. Gravel spit behind her tires as she slammed it into gear and killed the engine outside the cabin. She didn’t bother locking it. Didn’t bother breathing.

She threw the door open so hard it bounced back. The screen creaked, the wood groaned, and there was Joel—sitting at the kitchen table, tuning his old acoustic like nothing had happened. Like the entire goddamn universe hadn’t just exploded. Or at least, that's how ellie reacted.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” she hissed. “What the actual fuck,—why didn’t you tell me?!”

He didn’t look up. Just kept turning the peg. Calm. Steady. “Tell you what?”

“Don’t play fucking dumb with me!” she snapped. “She’s with someone. You didn’t think that was something I should fucking know before I threw up outside the fucking grocery store?!”

Joel let out a long breath, one of those fatherly ones that said I’ve been waiting for this. He finally met her eyes.

“Ellie, don’t blame me for something you didn’t wanna see.”

She flinched.

“I’ve been just as disconnected from the world as you. We’ve both been ghosts in this cabin. You haven’t asked about her. Not once. You think that’s coincidence?”

Her fists clenched at her sides. Her jaw was ticking.

“You had months! You could have—”

“What?” he interrupted, his voice calm but firm. “Ripped the Band-Aid off for you? Showed you the picture and held your hand while you cried?”

Joel softened, his shoulders sagging. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. He never was.

“I didn’t keep it from you, kiddo. I just... didn’t go looking. Same way you didn’t. ‘Cause we both knew it’d hurt like hell when you saw it.”

Her throat was closing again.

“You don’t have drugs to drown it anymore,” Joel said gently. “Now you just have to feel it. Go to that studio. and don’t come out ‘til your voice is hoarse and your fingers are bleeding and you feel even a little bit better.”

Then added:

“You’ve got to learn how to go through your feelings. Not around them. Not under them. Through.”

Ellie didn’t say anything else. Just nodded once—sharply—and turned away.

The studio door slammed behind her like a warning shot.

She didn’t hesitate. Walked straight to the mic stand, flipped on the switch, and yanked the pop filter off like it insulted her.

She took a breath. One, two, three.

And then—

“ABBY ANDERSON YOU FUCKING BLONDE BITCH—”

The mic popped from the force of it.

“I’M GONNA FUCK YOU UP! I’M GONNA RIP YOUR STUPIDLY BIG FUCKING ARMS OFF AND USE THEM TO PLAY GUITAR BETTER THAN YOU EVER COULD—”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU AND THEN TEAR YOU APART AND VOMIT YOUR GUTS AND THEN SHOVE ‘EM BACK DOWN YOUR THROAT— YOU STUPID FUCKING QUARTERBACK BITCH—YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO THROW A BALL—”

Her voice cracked. She coughed. Then screamed again.

“YOU THINK JUST ‘CAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING JAWLINE AND A PANTSUIT AND AN ARM AROUND HER WAIST THAT MAKES YOU WORTHY? SHE WAS MINE, YOU FUCKING JOCK STRAP, SHE STILL FUCKING IS AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW—”

Her knuckles were white on the mic stand. Her voice went hoarse halfway through the next sentence.

“You don’t even know her,” she gasped. “You don’t know what she sounds like at 3 a.m. when she can’t sleep. You don’t know how she takes her fucking coffee. You don’t know that she sings when she’s nervous and cries when she’s mad and tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s about to lie and—”

And for the first time in almost three years, Ellie let herself mourn.

Not just you. Not just Abby. Not just what she saw. But all of it.

The missed years. The songs she never sang to you. The poems she burned. The way she’d clutched her sobriety like a gift she didn’t know what to do with. The way she thought maybe—just maybe—you were still holding her somewhere in your heart.

Joel didn’t sleep that night.

He heard everything through the studio wall—every scream, every screech of distorted guitar, every thundering kick drum and rattling snare. The bass bled through the floors like an earthquake held at bay. It wasn’t music, not at first. It was fury in waveform.

Ellie had started with a scream. He heard it cut the silence like a blade—sharp, ragged, gut-deep. And then came the noise.

Something harder than anything Joel had ever known. Harder than Slipknot. More brutal than Judas Priest. Louder, darker, filthier than anything she’d played before. Like metal had swallowed electronic and spit it back out in flames. There were no lyrics for a while. Just shrieking static, guttural breaths, beats that hit like punches, and one hellstorm of a guitar that sounded like the devil himself was grinding his teeth.

Then silence. Long, unsettling silence.

Then it started again. A different track. This one still metal—but now it was a song. A real song. Drums and guitars and layered vocals screaming over themselves, a wall of sound so thick Joel could barely tell where Ellie’s voice ended and the instruments began.

She had to go through it. And this—this was her going through it.

He made coffee at midnight and sat by the window with the lights off, listening. Hours passed like waves.

Around 4 a.m., the tone shifted.

The third track started and Joel didn’t need lyrics to feel the grief in it. Her voice was still screaming, but it was breaking, too—splintered and raw, almost childlike in its desperation. There was no rhythm. Just pain.

The fourth was slower. Quiet. A heartbeat on bass, distant guitar like wind through broken glass. And Ellie’s voice—barely a whisper now—singing something that sounded more like an apology than a song.

The fifth was melancholic. But still powerful. It had piano, brittle and off-key. And one line that sounded like it had been wept into the mic:

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be the star in somebody else's sky. But why, why, why can't it be—

Why can't it be mine?

That last word stretched long, then the note broke in a painful scream.

Joel waited another hour, just to be sure. Then he stood, stretched his aching back, and walked to the studio.

Inside, Ellie was sitting on the floor, knees tucked to her chest, fingers resting on the neck of her black Les Paul like it was a lifeline. Her face was blank. She hadn’t slept. She didn’t look up when he entered.

“What did you do?” Joel asked gently, voice low.

She didn’t answer at first. Just stared at the wall. Then, after a long pause, her lips parted.

“I made five songs.”

“That makes thirty. Album’s supposed to release in two months, right?”

She nodded.

He reached over, gently took the flash drive from the interface, and plugged it into the old studio computer. The screen flickered, files loading.

Custer. A Match Into Water. Twilight. Undressed. Black.

He listened to them all. Quietly. No commentary. No judgment. When the last track ended, he leaned back in the chair and exhaled.

“Did I just listen to the five stages of grief?

“Yeah. They’re in order.”

He looked at her, not as her mentor, not even as her father—but as someone who knew what it meant to be broken and still build something out of it.

“You made it.”

"Yeah." She scoffed bitterly. “But do I look like I feel better?”

Joel shrugged, the corner of his mouth lifting. “No. But you made it through your feelings. And that’s what matters.”

Another pause. Then—

“I’m proud of that.”

Ellie looked at him for the first time. Her eyes were bloodshot, her skin pale, but there was something behind it—something still alive.

“Are you gonna add them to the album?”

“Yeah. They’re going in.”

Two months after the studio lights in Jackson dimmed, after Joel made the calls and opened the doors she thought had rusted shut, Ellie flew to New York .

It was strange being back—the metallic taste of smog, the haunted trace of fame hanging in the air like a perfume she didn’t want to wear anymore. But the studio Joel had found for her was perfect. Private. No flashing lights. No label execs breathing down her neck.

Just a producer who’d been given the raw files and said, after the first track, “This doesn’t need much. It’s already bleeding.”

They touched the recordings gently—leveled the vocals, pulled back the fuzz, let the breath between words stay. They didn’t try to smooth her edges. They let her sound jagged. Real.

And then one morning, without a countdown or a photo or a press release, without so much as a tweet from her long-dead accounts, Ellie Williams released her first single. With her own name. The name she wasn’t afraid of, not anymore.

It dropped into the world like a bomb in a library.

No promo. No interviews. Just one link. One song. No explanation.

And the world collapsed.

Within twelve hours it was number one in sixteen countries. Within twenty-four, it was the top-streamed track on every platform. People played it in clubs and churches and funeral homes. They called it sacred. They called it the second coming of Jesus.

And all of it takes us here.

To you.

Your breath left your body like a blade had been driven straight through your sternum—slow, silent, clean. No gasp. No warning. Just the kind of pain that doesn’t scream because it’s too old, too deep, too familiar.

You stared at the screen in Rachel’s hand.

#1: Lover, You Should’ve Come Over – Ellie Williams

And your world cracked open.

Your fingers—those same fingers that once traced the shape of her spine like it was sheet music—trembled violently as you handed the phone back. Not a word. Not a whisper. You didn’t wait for Rachel’s face to fold into sympathy, didn’t hear her call your name, didn’t care how loud the room suddenly felt.

You walked through it like a ghost already halfway gone. Past the laughter. Past the questions. Past the life you had rebuilt with such careful and wounded hands.

You made it to the car before you could shatter.

The door slammed shut behind you and the silence inside rang louder than any applause you’d ever received. Louder than the Grammys. Louder than the sold-out stadiums. Louder than Ellie's voice at its prime.

The keys slipped into the ignition with muscle memory. The city rushed around you, its usual chaos blurring at the edges—streetlights dripping gold down your windshield, a world still spinning like it hadn’t just gutted you. Again.

You took the stairs instead of the private elevator because you needed the punishment.

Each step a question you couldn’t answer. Why didn’t she call? Why now? Why? When? How? Why? When? How? Why? When? How? Why? Why? Why?

You unlocked the penthouse like you’d done a thousand times. Like you hadn’t spent the last three years turning it into a mausoleum. You opened your bedroom door with hands that had once held her. Locked it behind you with the kind of finality that made silence gasp.

Everything was exactly the same. The bed still made the way she used to do it—crumpled, uneven, like someone had loved and left in a hurry. The chipped mug still sat on the desk. Her hoodie was still in the drawer. You told Abby it was just an old favorite.

But you were a liar.

You sank down onto the bed, and the mattress sighed under you like it had been waiting a lifetime to catch you in this moment.

Three years of silence. Three years of holding your breath. Three years of wondering if she was dead in a hotel bathtub or recovering or in a deserted island or lying on some stranger’s floor with a smile that wasn’t yours. Three years of clawing your way through grief while the world watched and speculated and fed on the pieces.

And now she was just here. No context. No warning. No apology.

And all the feelings you thought you had buried—beneath Abby’s calmness, beneath champagne and shows, beneath the chaos of returning to the spotlight—came crawling back like they’d been living under your skin this whole time.

You didn’t leave your room for a week.

The curtains stayed drawn. The phone stayed off. The only thing you ate was a handful of grapes you didn’t remember buying and some cereal, and the only time you spoke was to whisper “Ellie” in your sleep like a secret your soul never stopped keeping.

Everything felt exactly like those weeks after she left—when the world went mute for her and louder for you and every morning felt like a nightmare you couldn't wake up from. You thought you’d moved on, that you had grown, that you had gotten better. That no sorrow would ever be bad enough to keep you in bed again. But grief doesn’t age. It just waits.

The days passed like a open, bleeding again wound. And then it was Friday.

And you had dinner with Abby.

Because you always had fucking dinner with fucking Abby.

So you got up. Got in the shower. Tried not to cry. Failed. Got out. Tried not to look in the mirror. Failed. Tried to do your makeup like nothing had happened. Cried. Removed it. Started again. Cried again. Removed it. Started again. Until it stayed, barely, through the trembling of your hands.

You wore the black dress she liked. The one that fit too well and showed too much cleavage and said too little. You showed up on time. You smiled. You pecked her lips. You laughed at her jokes—too loud, too long, too late.

When she slid the velvet box across the table, you already knew. Diamond tennis bracelet. Flawless cut. Another gift you didn’t ask for and couldn’t wear without thinking this doesn’t belong to me. But you said thank you. Let her put it on. Let her beam like she’d won something.

Later, at the hotel, you let her undress you. Let her kiss you. Let her believe your moans are real. Let her fill the silence where your soul used to be. Let her touch your body while your heart sat elsewhere.

And before you knew it—

Her strap was buried deep inside you. Abby’s breath was hot against your throat, shallow and frantic, like she was trying to chase something she didn’t realize had never been hers to chase. Her hands gripped your hips tight—anchoring, claiming, desperate—like if she held on hard enough, she could keep you here.

And for a single second, you closed your eyes.

And she was there.

Not a thought. Not a memory. A presence. Immediate. Intimate. Crushing.

Her face flashed behind your eyelids like lightning.

Her eyes—green and wild and sharp, burning like fire. Her hands—calloused and careful, etching into your skin like they’d carved your body from the inside out. Her voice—all smoke and wreckage, echoing through your chest like a song you will never stop humming.

She filled the dark like a storm surge, rising fast, drowning everything else.

Ellie. Ellie. Ellie. Ellie.

And then Abby moved. Shifted just enough. Angled herself in a way that once used to make you see stars—back then, back with her.

And your body betrayed you.

A single wrecked, loud enough word.

It rose from somewhere deep—below thought, below shame, below breath.

It wasn't your mouth who said it.

It was your heart calling out the name of the only one who ever owned it.

“Ellie!”

Time didn’t slow—it stopped.

You froze.

Abby stilled.

The air turned solid. Heavy. Like the word had cracked through the drywall, the ceiling, the night. Like the word had struck both of your spines, straight and sharp, paralyzing something deep inside.

Then, without saying anything, she pulled out.

Rose to her feet like she was finally waking from a dream she didn’t want to admit was never hers.

And started getting dressed.

Like this—you—had always been temporary. Because you moaning that name—Ellie—wasn’t just a slip. It was the last drop. And the glass was already overflowing.

“Abby—fuck, fuck, I’m sorry! I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” she snapped, but her broad back stayed turned. “To moan your ex’s name while I was inside you? Fucking spare me.”

“I’m just—” you sat up, reaching for the sheet like it could save you “I’m going through a lot lately, and I—”

She spun around.

“Stop lying!”

You froze.

“You think I don’t hear you whisper her name when you sleep?” Abby’s voice trembled now, edged with a hurt so sharp it cut through the air between you like broken glass. “You think I don’t hear you crying in the shower? That I don’t see how you stare at the gifts she gave you like they are relics?”

Her eyes burned into yours, “You think I haven’t caught you reading her letters at three in the morning, fingertips tracing every fucking word? Or replaying your old videos together when you thought I was asleep?”

Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper, each word laced with accusation. “You think I don’t see how you choke up and cry on stage when you sing the songs you wrote for her?”

Every sentence landed like a blow, striking harder each time, the truth cutting deep into your bones.

And that's when it hit you: Abby had always known. Every single moment, every quiet sob, every desperate memory. She had just been waiting for this moment. For you to slip and finally say Ellie’s name out loud in front of her face.

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck happened between you two,” she said, anger rising up like bile, “But I am so goddamn done being treated like I’m stupid.”

“I care about you,” you whispered. “I really do.”

She stepped forward.

“But do you love me?” she asked. Her voice didn’t rise. It dropped. “Because I do love you. And you never once said it back.”

“I...I feel the same way.”

She stared.

“Say it.”

“Abby…”

“Say that you love me.”

“I—I care—”

“Say. That you. Love me.”

And then, brokenly—

“I… I can’t.”

The silence after was worse than screaming. Abby’s jaw clenched. Her nostrils flared. And for a second—just a second—she looked like she might cry. But she didn’t. She blinked too quickly, like she was trying to trap them before they reached the surface.

“You are so fucking pathetic,” she said, barely louder than a breath—but it hit like a punch straight to your chest. “Biggest popstar in the world, and you still can’t get over your ex.”

She let out a dry, humorless laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “We are so fucking done. Go and write a damn stupid song about it.”

You swallowed hard. Met her eyes with a calm that didn’t come from peace—it came from truth.

“Oh, Abby.” You almost smiled. Almost.

“I will never write a single song about you.”

And that was the kill shot.

Without another word, she grabbed her coat. Walked to the door. And slammed it shut behind her. The sound echoed through the room like an aftershock.

You didn't flinch. Just stood there in the wreckage—still naked, the bracelet still gleaming mockingly on your wrist, the name Ellie still burning in your throat like acid you couldn't swallow.

The sheets beneath you were soaked in sweat and guilt and the ghosts of everything you had tried to bury. The air in the room felt thick, sour, heavy with everything left unsaid, unhealed, undone.

And then it cracked. The numbness. The performance. The lie. A tremble in your shoulders. A shallow inhale. The whisper of something fragile beginning to splinter.

Then it broke wide open.

You collapsed back onto the bed like your spine couldn’t hold the truth anymore. Your knees curled into your chest, arms wrapped around yourself like maybe you could contain it—but there was no containing this.

You cried.

Not for Abby. You barely thought about her now. Her voice, her touch, her anger—all of it already evaporating, disappearing into the static.

You cried for Ellie. For your Ellie.

The one who held you like her life depended on it. The one who touched you like you were the last song she’d ever play. The one who called you baby in the dark, who kissed you with apologies on her tongue, who broke and rebuilt you with the same pair of hands a million different times.

You sobbed for every second you spent convincing yourself you were fine. You weren’t. You never were.

Because you still loved her. With every part of you. With every scar she left. With every lyric you wrote, and every lyric you never dared to write.

And no matter how many cities you conquered, no matter how many stages screamed your name, no matter how many diamond gifts Abby clasped around your body—you never moved on.

And now she was back. Back.

Her name trending in every country. Her voice spilling from every speaker like a memory you never asked to remember.

And she hadn’t called. She hadn’t written. She hadn’t even fucking tried. Maybe she never would.

That was what broke you most. Not her silence. But the fear that it might last forever.

That she had healed. That she had closed the door you kept propped open with grief.

You screamed into the pillow. Bit down so hard you tasted blood. “Fuck you, Ellie!” “Fuck you for coming back and still staying gone.” “Fuck you for writing a song and not sending it to me.” “Fuck you for loving me and ruining me and leaving me.”

You cursed her. And then you cursed yourself. “Fuck me for waiting.” “Fuck me for still loving you.” “Fuck me for pretending I ever stopped.”

Tears soaked the pillow. Your wrists shook. Your breath came ragged.

You wanted her to disappear again. You wanted her to knock on your door. You wanted her to scream your name back.

You hadn’t listened to the song.

Because if it was about you— If her voice cracked in that familiar way, if she said the things you never stopped needing to hear, if the guitar curled up into that shape only she knew how to play when her fingers were on your skin—It would kill you. Utterly. Unforgivably. Like the day she left.

And if it wasn’t about you? If she had given that voice, that intimacy, that love and pain to someone else? That would kill you in an even slower, impossibly more merciless way.

So you cried until your body gave out. Until your limbs went numb. Until your voice went hoarse from whispering the name that wouldn’t stop haunting your lips and your soul.

And a week later, Ellie released the album.

No warning. No press tour. No album rollout meticulously planned by agents in pastel offices. No teaser posts, no pre-saves, no comeback photoshoots in designer jackets that never felt like her. No features. No thank-yous.Just a thirty tracks posted at midnight.

The Shape Of What I Lost — Ellie Williams

The title alone was enough to break the internet.

No one had heard from her in three years. Just speculation, whispers, one single grainy shot of her walking into Joel’s truck with her hood up. Some thought she’d quit music. Others thought she was dead. Some hoped she was. Fame was like that. Fickle. Devouring.

But the truth was simpler. She hadn’t vanished. She had been bleeding. Recovering. Building something unbearable and beautiful out of everything she could no longer say out loud.

When the album dropped, the planet collapsed. Twitter imploded. TikTok went silent for a full hour. Journalists pulled all-nighters trying to write about something they didn’t understand. Critics used words like “devastating,” “seismic,” “a once-in-a-generation exorcism.” People stayed up all night listening. And crying. And relistening. And crying again.

But Ellie didn’t care.

She didn’t care that it was number one in thirty-two countries by sunrise. Didn’t care that it broke records previously held by people she used to idolize. Didn’t care that everyone was calling it a masterpiece. Because the only thing she cared about—the only number she was waiting for—was one. One stream.

Yours.

She didn’t care if the album was played a billion times. If that billion didn’t include you, it meant nothing. Because it was for you. Every bridge and breakdown and backmasked lyric. She didn’t even try to be subtle. She wanted everyone to know. She wanted you to know.

That she had never stopped thinking about you. That she had never stopped writing about you. That she had never stopped loving you.

But she hadn’t listened to your album either.

She knew it existed. Joel told her over coffee a week ago, voice low like it might hurt to say out loud. He said it was called Supernova. Said you dropped it two years after her disappearance. Said it was brutal. Brilliant. Said it sounded like someone trying to build a cathedral out of ash. She never asked to hear it.

Because the thought of you pouring your voice into songs she would never be able to respond to—of hearing her name in a melody meant for closure, or worse, not hearing it at all—was something she didn’t think she could survive.

So she stayed away from it. The same way you stayed away from hers. Two people too afraid to open the door, even when the key had always been each other.

Until one night.

You couldn’t sleep. The air in your LA penthouse felt sharp, like memory had a scent and it was everywhere. You lay on the floor of your bedroom, the same room that had held your rebirth and your ruin, clutching your phone like it was going to detonate.

In the same hour, across the country, Ellie was parked in Joel’s old truck. The windows fogged. The night holding its breath. The city lights flickering like your name spelled out in Morse code.

You both pressed play. At the same time. Without knowing. Without planning.

Thirty songs each. Thirty lifelines cast into the dark.

You listened to The Shape of What I Lost alone, in the dark, your body curled under the weight of the silence you had built around her name. The moment the first track started, something inside you snapped—not cleanly, not even loudly. It broke in slow, silent fractures, like a mirror spidering beneath a fist.

And then there she was.

Her voice was raw, unfiltered, unfinished in the most intimate way. It wasn’t studio-perfect. It was real. It was midnight and sweat-soaked sheets and breathless arguments and love too big to name. You heard her unravel in real time—angry, apologetic, addicted to you and terrified of hers. She didn’t hide behind metaphors. She let the truth bleed straight through the verses.

She sang about the way she left. The way she never stopped dreaming about you even when the drugs made dreaming unbearable. The night she almost didn’t wake up. The days she didn’t want to. The guilt that wrapped around her ribs like wire. The things she never said, and the way it ruined her voice when she tried to say them too late.

She sang about what addiction took from her: the music, the meaning, the way she could no longer hear a melody without seeing your face at the edge of the stage. She sang about you. In screams, in whispers, in sounds that didn’t even feel like language anymore.

And across the country, she was sitting in the dark, too.

And when she finally pressed play on Supernova, she exhaled like someone about to break a lifelong silence.

You came back in pieces. Your voice, your breath, the way you used to talk in the morning before you remembered the pain. She heard her own name buried in the harmonies—disguised, bent into rhyme, tucked inside the melody like a secret you still weren’t ready to say aloud. But she knew it. She recognized the shape of it. The ache of it. And she realized: every song you had released since her had been a love letter you were too proud, too shattered, too human to send.

And now, hearing it, she wept.

In the truck. One hand on the wheel. The other pressed to her mouth like she could hold the sound in, like crying out loud might summon you by accident. Each lyric was a wound she’d forgotten she had. Each chorus a reminder of the love she once held like a match between her fingers.

But what was the point? you were with someone else now.

Meanwhile, you were falling apart in your bed. Your face buried in your hands, the sheets damp with tears that had waited years to be cried. Your body curled like it had been struck. You weren’t just crying—you were keening, the kind of sound that only comes from love that was never buried properly.

Every line she sang brought you closer to the edge of yourself. Because now you knew. She had never stopped loving you. She had never stopped writing about you.

But what was the point? she never reached out.

You had both lived in silence, and that silence had been filled with thirty songs. Each.

Two albums, born in isolation. Two solitudes. Two hearts that beat like they were trying to find their way back through lyrics alone. Sixty tracks total. Composed in built in studios. Written in grief, carved out of silence. Sung through cracked voices and saltwater lungs.

Released not with fanfare, but into a void. At a time when the world had stopped looking for your faces. When the lights had dimmed on stages you once ruled. When both of you believed—quietly, privately, bitterly, that the world had already moved on.

Forgotten you. Forgotten her. Forgotten both of you. Forgotten what you were together.

But the songs remembered, and they never stopped waiting. And for the first time in three years—you were both listening. To the truth. To each other. To what was never lost.

And maybe it was too late. Maybe too much had happened. Too many years. Too much silence.

But for those sacred, fragile two hours, you were both listening

To each other.

And to the love that never died, only waited to be heard.

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taglist (tysm for supporting, hope you enjoy <333): @st0nerlesb0 @willurms @vahnilla @mancyw1214 @rxreaqia @laceyxrenee @antobooh @annoyingpersonxoxo @haithone @lofied @sunflowerwinds @xojunebugxo @reidairie @piscesthepoet @elliewilliamskisser2000 @pariiissssssss @mxquelo @elliesbabygirl @xx2849 @kiiramiz @mikellie @brooks-lin @lovely-wisteria @marscardigan @elliesanqel @lovelaymedown @gold-dustwomxn @ilovewomenfr @seraphicsentences @mascspleasegetmepregnant @raindroprose23 @creepyswag @elliesgffrfr @kirammanss @liztreez @catrapplesauces @livvietalks @furtherrawayy @thatchosen1 @kanadadryer @littlerosiesthings @eriiwaiii2 @nramv @redlightellie @elliepoems @sabrinathewitchh982 @shady-lemur @jubileexoxo @l0velylace @look-me @adoringanakin @daughterofthemoons-stuff @st4r-b3rries @liasxeatt @desiretolive @rios-st4rs @miajooz @hotpinkskitties

࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ Damn… Collide Nation, are y’all.......breathing...? I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the hardest chapter I've ever written; I immersed myself in documentaries, interviews, and extensive research because I desperately wanted to portray how genuinely heartbreaking and devastating addiction truly is. know this chapter was intense—maybe even shocking, painfully raw.

To anyone sensitive to these themes: please know I approached this with absolute care and respect, ensuring it remained realistic, grounded, and never exploitative. Your well-being matters most to me, so my DMs and inbox are always open if you need someone to talk to. I’m here for you. ♡

see ya'll May 30th for the FINAL part, stay tuned ;)

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literaryvein-reblogs · 6 months ago

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Word List: Psychology

more psychological concepts as reference for your poem/story

Absent grief - a form of complicated grief in which a person shows no, or only a few, signs of distress about the death of a loved one. This pattern of grief is thought to be an impaired response resulting from denial or avoidance of the emotional realities of the loss.

Being love - (or B-love) in Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology, a form of love characterized by mutuality, genuine concern for another’s welfare and pleasure, and reduced dependency, selfishness, and jealousy. B-love is one of the qualities Maslow ascribes to self-actualizers.

Cyclopean eye - a theoretical eye, located on the midline between the real eyes, that has access to the functions of both eyes and is used in descriptions of space perception and eye movements.

Dream ego - in the analytic psychology of Carl Jung, a fragment of the conscious ego that is active during the dream state.

Epiphany - a sudden perception of the essential nature of oneself, others, or reality.

Family mythology - the shared stories, norms, and beliefs within a family system. The mythology can be used to deny trauma or pathology within the family or to ascribe meaning to events in ways that suggest their inevitability or importance.

Guilt culture - a trend or organizing principle in a society characterized by the use of guilt to promote socially acceptable behavior. Guilt cultures emphasize both self-control in the face of temptation and self-initiated responsibility for one’s actions if transgressions should occur.

Hedonic treadmill - a metaphor for a hypothesis proposing that people’s happiness tends to return to a preexisting baseline level after positive or negative life events have occurred. According to this concept, positive and negative events may produce short-term shifts in mood, but these shifts tend to erode in a relatively brief period of time. This process of adaptation is thought to be responsible for the persistence of mood states over time, often in the face of considerable efforts to change them. Although there is good evidence for this hypothesis, research has demonstrated that people do not always return to baseline after the occurrence of mood-changing events.

Jactitation - (or jactation) extreme restlessness marked by frequent movements and tossing about.

Leaving the field - the act of removing oneself from a situation when confronted with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, insoluble conflicts, or intensely frustrating problems. It may involve physical withdrawal, escape into psychogenic illness, or some other behavior, such as distraction or changing the subject during a conversation.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Part 1 2 3 ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

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lovscb97 · 6 months ago

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tags: nerd!chan x cheerleader!fem!reader, angst angst angst, mentions of jealousy and self doubt, inner turmoil on y/n’s side (forgive my girl she’s trying her best), mentions of other idols (enhypen, aespa, stayc, etc), alcohol usage, more angst…, slight inclusion of depressive feelings and thoughts, confrontation, arguments, confessions, kissing, fluff, brief grinding/dry humping, oral (m. receiving), brief throat fucking, car sex, mentions of virginity loss, unprotected sex (plz don’t i beg), creampie, just sweet lovemaking, use of nicknames (baby, channie, pretty girl, etc), chan being a sweetheart (when is he not), etc

wc: 15.76k

add. notes: it is finally here!!! the long awaited pt. 2 of nerd!chan!!! thank u guys so much once more for all the love u gave to the first part i did Not expect it to gain that much traction to the point u guys wanted me to expand on the universe of it but i am grateful nonetheless <3 i’m also very sorry it took so long i just could not bring myself to write the whole thing in one sitting as it is decently long so thank u sm for waiting as well.. this fic is honestly my baby n while it was very frustrating to work on at times, i hope u all enjoy it n will give it lots of love for me :]

nerd!chan pt. 1 / nerd!chan headcannons / drabble #1

. . .

it’s been a few days since you last saw chan after your “encounter” in the locker room. granted how that might be primarily because you’ve been avoiding him like the plague ever since, but you suppose he also hasn’t done much to try and meet you. you’re not even sure why you’re doing this, and if you’re being honest, some part of it leaves a sense of dread lingering at the back of your mind, your thoughts swirling with what if’s that consist of wondering if he’s finally had enough after the way you walked out on him the previous time you guys were, err.. entangled, to say the least. but, you know; you know you’re not at liberty to feel this way, not when you’re the one who’s imposed these rules on yourself and whatever means of a relationship you’ve both got going on. it’s not your right to police how chan acts around you after you constantly push him away. you think it probably never was to begin with.

regardless of the consequences that you’ve reaped, you decided to forego the situation you’re stuck in and throw yourself into the one solution that always seems to find you when you’re rock bottom in the barrel— alcohol. your cheer girls had tried dragging you out once more to another party thrown by some guy called jake, and initially you’d declined, far too stuck in your own negativity to even consider going out and letting loose at this point, but karina insisted on you tagging along, practically yanking you to you guys’ shared dorm room and dolling you up in the cutest outfit possible that had even your low spirits lifting.

that is, until now.

you’d both arrived to the occasion half an hour prior to the incident, your friend basically pulling you in behind her and forcing you to socialise with people she knew even if all you contributed to the discussion was a small smile and greeting. however, at some point, you lose sight of her. it doesn’t alarm you much considering karina goes around on her own to do her thing a lot, so assuming she must be busy chatting it up with some guy, you shrug and make your way towards the kitchen to fix yourself a drink. and it’s when you’re in the middle of tossing back the red solo cup filled with bitter liquid and letting it burn as it goes down your throat, wincing despite the tinge of sweetness to it when it happens, no less when you see it—

chan.

but, not just chan, no no.

chan with another girl.

it’s immediate the way your hand which is gripping the beverage in it tightens on instinct, and you feel a surge of emotion wash over you that you can’t identify, or rather you don’t want to identify it. arrays of questions swirl in your mind at the sight in front of you, ranging from ‘what is he doing here after claiming he hates parties?’ to ‘did they come together?’. the last of your queries almost makes you want to throw up, the plausibility that chan was invited here by another woman leaving bile forming at the back of your throat. still, you pause momentarily to consider the possibility that this is a mere coincidence, that you’re just misunderstanding the scene playing out in front of you and that this is all a big joke and chan is going to turn around to leave at any point now.

but, then your eyes land on the way she caresses his arm, batting her eyelashes up at him and watching the way her actions cause his ears to tint red, the very same ears you’ve been responsible for making blush every occasion that you find yourselves together. and suddenly, it’s like everything in your world is spinning. the floor seems to be moving, the music fading out and everyone passing around becomes a blur, because your only focus is on chan.

your chan. your chan who isn’t yours.

it’s like he senses you looking at him too, because he stops mid-sentence out of the blue and turns his head in your direction, leaving your gazes to lock with each other’s. it has his eyes widening, and you don’t know whether that’s from simply seeing you or seeing the fact that you’re standing in the middle of the kitchen alone with trembling hands you hadn’t even noticed were shaking. you try so desperately to look away, to avert your stare from his brown orbs that seem to be swirling with something you can’t quite put your finger on, but it doesn’t work. he’s so.. captivating, dressed in casual clothes and his signature glasses that remain perched on the tip of his nose, the same nose you’ve kissed so many times in your heated state of affairs. you’ve always known chan is beautiful, though you’ve never admitted it, but something about today solidifies it in your mind even more, makes him look ever so mesmerising, ever so alluring, and ever so.. distant.

you feel like someone has dumped a cold bucket of water on top of your head when the last word resonates in your mind, and you somehow rip your eyes off of the boy standing across the room to avoid impulsively doing something you might regret, instead opting to go look for your friends. a cacophony of taunts torment your brain as you busy yourself in the futile task, varying from insults thrown against you for being so stupid to think this could ever work out to questions about why you’re doing this even if you don’t know the response to them, or rather you do but don’t want to answer them. you don’t know whether chan is still looking at or for you, and some sick, twisted part of you wishes he is, wishes that he’s so wrecked by the idea that he’s hurt you even though you have no right to feel that way.

allowing yourself one last glance to where he was previously situated to satisfy the lingering emotions inside, you turn around, confused when you don’t find him there until a loud voice calls out for him throughout the booming of the music in the room, making your head snap in its direction. it belongs to who you presume is his friend, changbin or whatever you recall from a study session turned to a late night conversation chan had initiated to get to know you better. he’s yelling something incoherent that you can’t make out through the noise levels of the house, and you’re about to shake your head and resume your previous activity when you notice chan being dragged onto the dance floor, no less by the girl who you’d found talking to him.

your heart instantly sinks into your chest at the picture in front of you, burning against your ribcage as the pounding in your head increases by the minute. chan’s smile is radiant, spread wide across his face as he tries to awkwardly mimic the gestures being made by everyone around him. if you were in a different predicament, you would’ve found it endearing regardless of whether you would’ve let yourself relish in that realisation or not internally, but right now, all you can focus on is the fact that it’s not you. it’s not you who’s making him laugh so bright, it’s not you who’s dragging your hands across his to place them on your waist, and it’s not you who’s captivated his attention in the moment, even if you so desperately wish it was.

“y/n?”

a voice drags you out of your mind, and you shake your head to find karina looking at you in worry, her hand coming up to gently place itself on your shoulder. she questions if you’re okay a second later, and you muster up a smile the best you can and nod, despite the churning in your stomach only growing worse at the existence of what you’d just witnessed a few meters away from you. “what’s up?” you decide to ask your friend instead, sensing the way she doesn’t seem to buy your response reassuring her you’re fine, but even so, she decides not to push you, instead pursing her lips and pointing her thumb behind her.

“heeseung and his friends are going to play a round of beer pong. wanna join them?” the last thing you want to do is indulge with other people, instead wishing you were cooped up under your blanket to wallow in your self misery all alone, but the way karina looks back at you with distress in her eyes, her pretty face contorted in concern for you only pushes you to put up a front, not wanting to alarm her any further. “yeah, let’s go. i wanna get wasted.” you grin with everything in you, and it seems to be enough with the way your friend beams back at you, taking your hand in hers before whisking you away to wherever the game is taking place. you still cast one last glance back behind your shoulder before she drags you away though, hoping to catch sight of chan once more, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

you think maybe that’s best for now.

. . .

it’s one in the afternoon when you wake up the next day, a dull throbbing present in your head as you clutch it with one hand, groggy eyes attempting to adjust to the light streaming through the barely drawn curtains of your dorm room. you slowly sit up and lean back against the pillow underneath that’s probably caught remnants of your makeup on it after last night, especially considering the fact that you hadn’t even bothered taking off the outfit you wore yesterday before crashing out in bed. giving yourself some time to get used to your every day surroundings, you take a peek over to the other side, noticing karina’s bed to be empty. she’d probably gone for classes, you think to yourself, cursing when you realise you had most definitely missed your own.

grabbing your phone off the nightstand, you unlock it, ready to shoot a text to your friends asking for any notes they’d taken in the lecture, only to find the messaging app already open. you scroll through your group chats in confusion, flicking through the several photos or videos people had taken and shared in hopes of remembering why you’d even left off on this. it wasn’t like you’d sent any embarrassing messages in them, the only evidence of your own responses being from two days ago. you try rack your brain for the last possible memory of last night, recalling yourself stumbling through the door and into bed, drinking with sieun and sunghoon during the game before that, and then opening your phone to record drunken voice notes to send to—

oh fuck.

“no, no, no, no, no, please.” you mumble to yourself in panic, eyes widening with horror as you frantically swipe out of the group chat threads and check your last sent texts. you flick furiously through the notifications in your phone, trying to find the one chat you’re looking for until the name you’re searching pops up. you close your eyes, covering your screen to try and calm down your nerves, praying to whatever entity is up there that your memory is mistaken and that you indeed did not do what you think you did. after a short minute, you take a deep breath, cracking your vision open as your fingers twitch. you hesitantly move your thumb that’s blocking your desired end goal out of the way to take a look at last, and—

“shit!” you swear with a yell, tossing your phone aside in favour of cupping your face in your hands and screaming into them out of frustration. you hadn’t even bothered to listen to the voice notes knowing they’d just consist of spewed gibberish the same as the texts, and ultimately what makes this entire ordeal all the more worse is chan’s lack of a reply. rather, he’d left you on seen, the realisation of it dawning on you as you flop back in bed and roll to the side to curl yourself up into a ball as if it’d provide some sort of comfort, mindless thoughts rushing into your brain at the very same.

what does chan think of you now? what did he think of you when he got those texts? was he annoyed? did he want to cut you off forever and finally drop you for good? maybe he laughed about your pathetic attempts to gain back his attention with the girl you’d seen him with yesterday. the idea only makes you want to throw up, although you can’t tell if it’s because of that or your splitting hangover. so, in an effort to drown in your self pity anyways, you yank the covers of your blanket over your head, trying to lull yourself back to sleep now that you’ve already missed out on your attendance.

unfortunately, your attempts don’t last long, the device you’d flung to the edge of your bed ringing with your roommate’s call shortly after in which she scolds you for still not having woken up. you bite back the answer that threatens to escape you when she proceeds to go on a tangent on how this is probably because you’ve been looking so dull lately, not having it in yourself to open up to your closest friend about the fact that you’ve secretly suppressed all your innermost feelings about somebody outside your social circe in fear they’d rise to the surface and force you to do things you’d never do sober.

karina eventually ends her rant with urging you to come to the building at least to meet up for lunch, convincing you in your very much hungover state that you need something in your stomach, to which you begrudgingly agree. dragging yourself out of bed to put on some simple clothes and trudging outside the door in all your miserable glory is a task in itself, but you manage somehow. you can’t help but grumble to yourself as you parade the halls of the student accommodation with only one goal in mind— avoid chan at all cost.

fate, however, is not on your side, it seems.

because the minute you step out and about underneath the midday sun, your eyes fixated on the cobblestone path underneath your feet which leads to the university buildings located right outside the student housing, you stop dead in your tracks, stumbling upon a certain scene—

the certain scene in question being chan with his very same arm candy from yesterday.

your breath hitches in your throat at the sight, and it’s like you’re glued to the ground, unmoving as if you’ve turned static and become bound to the floor. chan doesn’t seem to have noticed you yet from your spot that’s metres away from him, too busy focusing on conversing with the girl to even look up and catch his surroundings. you wonder if that’s because she’s his girlfriend, or someone he’s interested in given the fact that he seems so engaged with her and how you’ve caught them together so many times by now (twice, actually, but in your head it seems like a much bigger number), and in all honesty, that just makes everything all the more worse.

you don’t even understand why you’re so upset about this. you wanted chan to not cling to you, or a better way of putting it instead is that you weren’t ready for him to do so. you wanted to save him the heartbreak that would come from becoming entangled with you, warning him right at the start implicitly in the way you ran from him that you weren’t going to share anything deeper than whatever you guys had. in some twisted way, you think maybe that was your idea of trying to be a good person when you knew you weren’t. even so, the fact that he could become attached to you alongside your lack of an ability to commit to you guys’ messed up relationship was terrifying. you were aware it would leave him hurt in the end, alone and stuck onto you, and that scared you in ways you’d never been.

it also scared you to think chan might see something more in you, might find something worth sticking around for; that in turn, he’d manage to change the perspective you have of yourself due to the fact that he was so.. so good. too good, maybe. because the crux of it all is that you two are from such different worlds, with different needs and different lives that just so happened to become mingled amongst each other. you found him by chance encounter, not having even known his name a few months back, and now you’re here, shamelessly tormented by the fact that the boy you didn’t want to hurt is unknowingly hurting you despite the fact that you have no right to be hurt by him. you knew from the start mixing up with someone like him didn’t make sense. it never would make sense. you’d always thought that these circumstances would be the cause of chan’s own downfall, that he was just running in a losing race.

oh, how the tables have turned, you think.

“see you around, channie.” you hear from the corner, the voice snapping you out of your inner dilemma in mere moments as you come to realise it belongs to ‘that’ girl. you think your heart rate physically spikes when you watch the way she winks at him, gently touching chan’s arm before brushing past him to walk away. part of you feels relieved that she’s gone, but another part of you can’t ignore how your stomach swirls in disgust at the way she behaves around him, or rather the way it flusters him in return. you don’t miss the burning red of chan’s ears or how he shakes his head to try recover out of it, especially not because of how it makes you feel disgusted. it’s so much so that in the midst of everything, you don’t even realise his head is springing up in your direction until his eyes are locked with yours once more, just like the night before.

white, coarse shock flashes through you, and you’d think your frozen body would finally listen when you see chan making his way over to you. instead, you stand there like an idiot, akin to a kicked puppy even with the way you’re sure your emotions are written clear as day on you. it’s only by the time that he’s almost face to face with you, an unreadable expressing playing on his face and the proximity of your bodies sending you reeling that you feel like you regain control over yourself, not daring to waste another second before you’re turning around on your heel and stepping away.

chan’s voice calls out for you in instant at your actions, and you desperately try to ignore the way your name sounds falling from his lips, swallowing a lump down in your throat that threatens to break the dam nearing explosion. it’s only when you hear his footsteps speed up and a warm hand grab your arm that you stop in place for what feels like the nth time this week, feeling like you can’t go on any further. you’re so tired of running, of detaching yourself from the situation and moving out of the picture that something in you just feels so defeated. so, you slowly turn around to meet his gaze again, heaving a breath that you don’t intend to come out of your mouth at the way he’s looking at you.

“sorry. um,” chan sighs, clearing his throat as he pushes back his glasses which are sliding off his nose. “hi?” he starts, not sure where to begin. you can tell he’s tense with the way he’s fiddling with his fingers and slightly tapping his sneaker clad foot, and you wish you could ease his nerves despite the fact that you’re equally as nervous, wishing you didn’t have to face him at all today, much less so soon. “i just, uh.. wanted to ask how you are.”

“‘m good.” you respond meekly, eyes falling on your feet, or the bushes, or the speck of dirt on the floor, or just fucking anywhere that wasn’t chan’s tender gaze which makes you feel messy and confusing feelings. “how are you?” you weakly offer, risking a glance at him as he nods and says the same, which only makes you feel like your heart is about to burst with the way he’s so concentrated on your face. his expression is still unreadable, and you’re not sure what’s burning through his mind right now, although if you had to take a wild guess, you’d think he’s probably wondering how the fuck he’s supposed to bring up your stupid behaviour, and it’s much to your dismay that your suspicions are confirmed with his next sentence.

“listen, i—“

“please ignore what happened. i was drunk, and it didn’t mean anything.” you quickly blurt out, cutting him off before he can say what he was going to. you’re not even sure if he was going to bring it up because you don’t give him the opportunity to do so in fear it’ll mortify you further than you already are, so much so that you don’t seem to notice the way the look in his eyes falls, that slight glimmer of hope dying down just as soon as it had appeared. “you can just leave it be, honestly.” you add on, the next words on your tongue slipping before you can stop them.

“i’m sure your girlfriend will be happier if you do that.”

it’s venomous, the tone that you speak in, sounding bitter and hurt despite the fact that you know you’re being petty. chan just blinks at you in return, opening his mouth, closing it and then opening it again as if he’s trying to find the right words to say. he doesn’t really know what to say, not when you’ve given him so much to process in so little time. “y/n,” he eventually lets out, and you have to physically shut your eyes to compose yourself from the way he sounds so soft as he addresses you. when you open them, he’s deep in thought, stare fixated on the space between your shoulder as if it’ll help him come up with an adequate response to this fucked up situation.

“i don’t think i should move past it.” chan swallows, his voice slightly trembling if you strain to hear it. something in you burns when you realise he doesn’t even bother to correct you about calling the previous woman you’d seen him with his girlfriend, and now you’re left wondering if there really is something deeper brewing between them. your stomach plummets at the potential, so much so that you can feel hints of irrational anger rising to the surface in you, and before you know it, you’re seeing red. “what the fuck does that even mean?” you spit out in your mild fit of rage that’s just begun, and chan’s eyes widen at you use of words.

“i-i mean, you’ve been avoiding me this whole time, and i just wanna know if it was something i did from last time, or if—“

“god, you just don’t know when to quit, do you?” you continue to snap, trying desperately to ignore the fresh sting of tears threatening to leak. you know this isn’t what you want to say, your heart speaking something different that it’s been trying to tell you for ages now, but the phrases tumbling out of your mouth are anything but the truth that yearns to be shared with probably the one person who would choose to understand and listen to it.

“this was nothing to begin with, and it never will be, chan. i said what i said ‘cause i was wasted out of my mind, it doesn’t mean jackshit. so, you can go ahead and do whatever the hell you want, and i’ll do the same.”

you don’t even realise the gravity of your words until you’re done, finally meeting chan’s gaze which only makes you want to let out the sob you’ve been holding back this entire time. instant regret floods your system at the way his shoulders slump and eyes appear emotionless, and before you can think to take it back, to tell him how everything you just said is a lie and that you’ve been trying to ignore whatever you feel towards him all this while, he flashes you a smile. it’s small, and you can tell it hides unspoken emotion in it, but you don’t question nor point it out, too stunned to even process it.

“i understand. i’ll leave you be from now on.” chan says quietly, his voice broken and dull. the lump in your throat sits at the back, ever so present and persistent as you try to swallow it away whilst watching his defeated frame turn around and walk off in the opposite direction. a desire deep inside of you itches to scream after him, to run over and yank him into your arms at last, but your pride overshadows it. you know you’ve done what you need to, your mind trying to convince you of the very fact because this is what’s best for you; it’s best for you to not continue mixing with chan in order to stop hurting both him and yourself, although it seems it’s too late for that by now.

moreover, even with that previous acceptance, you still feel uneasy, like something in you remains unresolved. part of you knows exactly what the truth is, but you refuse to acknowledge it. you think you’ll never know when or if the time for you to do so will ever come. so, with a heavy heart and so many unsaid thoughts, you turn around and trudge your way back to the dorms, shooting karina a quick text about feeing under the weather to eat before getting beneath your covers to lay down. a million thoughts buzz in your head as you try to sleep, desperately wanting to evade reality, yet your efforts do little to satiate the noises in your mind.

it’s only when you feel the fresh roll of a single tear against your cheek that you truly come to understand just what’s happened. you know you’ve pushed chan away for the millionth time by now, yet something about this instance feels different. maybe it’s the fact that you stuck around to see the pain in his eyes, or maybe it’s how he still tried to reach out to you despite your avoidance of him. maybe it’s even the way he’s finally found someone who probably loves him the way he deserves to be— openly, something you could never dare to give him despite your blatantly obvious jealousy. your very admissions make the weight in your heart heavier, the knowledge that you’re jealous, that you’ve been jealous this entire time only solidifying the fact that you care. you care so fucking much to the point it’s been eating you alive, and that’s all it takes for you to break before you’re full on crying, body shaking as you cover your face in your hands. one lone thought remains in your mind in the midst of your tears, the thought that chan may have not been yours to begin with, but now?

now, he’s definitely never going to be.

. . .

“l/n, what’s the matter with you today? keep up, you’re falling behind!” your coach’s frustrated voice cuts through the evening air once more as you squint, the stadium lights behind her highlighting her form that’s menacingly staring at you with hands on her hips. a loud sigh leaves your lips, causing you to clutch the plastic of your cheer tassels tightly in your hand as you try and ignore the stares coming from your girls. this is probably the fifth time you’ve messed up the routine for everyone today, an event highly unlikely for you in normal occurrences, but after having spent a few days since.. that, you can’t seem to get into the zone and focus on anything anymore.

practise drones on for another hour, filled with more groans and scolding from your instructor directed your way in specific until she finally gives up and dismisses everyone for the day. she grumbles something about how you guys should just come back tomorrow in the morning prior to the game instead and stomps off to her office, leaving you with a pit in your stomach because you know this is all because of you. there’s silence that lingers in the atmosphere once she’s gone, and no one dares to speak up, instead opting to stare at you through stolen glances as you heave a breathe. tossing your equipment aside, you move to go fill up some water, chugging it down in hopes that quenching your thirst will get you to snap out of the haziness that’s currently fogging your mind.

“hey.” a voice greets you from behind, and you whip your head back to find yunjin and giselle standing there. crumpling the paper cup in your hands, you fling it into the nearby bin, mustering up a smile as you nod at them which pushes giselle to bite the gun. “you okay? you seem kind of.. off today.” she questions in worry, causing you to shrug.

“yeah, sorry. i’ve just got a lot on my mind, i guess.” you huff out a laugh, although there’s nothing but annoyance laced in your tone. your teammates exchange looks between them at your words, and yunjin steps forward to place a hand on your shoulder. “we get it, the big game is nerve-wracking for us too.” you hum, her voice offering the same encouraging dialogue to you droning out in your head as reality fades away and your inner monologue with yourself begins once more.

what was the actual point of all of this anymore? were you even in it for the long haul? did you really want to continue giving it your all even after knowing you’ve lost something that means so much to you? you realise belatedly now that everything around you has become superficial, and that none of it seems to matter in the grand scheme of things except for.. well, him. even the concept of going to parties, getting wasted, missing classes, being on a team with the rest of the girls, it all feels endlessly futile now. that’s not to say you haven’t had fun this entire time, but something in you feels like it’s finally come to terms with what’s surrounding you. the ringing in your ears only gets louder by the minute as you try to will it away, and it genuinely seems like the alarms in you have finally woken up after months of staying dormant.

“sorry, yun, but i have to go. i’ll see you two later.” you mumble, and before either of them can protest, you’re turning around and walking off, the evening’s cool air following you closely behind.

you don’t even say hi to karina when you reach your dorm room, ignoring her greeting as you toss your shoes to the side, but she seems to pick up on what’s going on after seeing the longing look in your eyes. she doesn’t question it either when you lock yourself in the bathroom, simply going back to reading her book as if nothing had happened, and you’re honestly grateful for that realisation when you start the water. once the tub is all filled up, you strip down naked and dip your body in, closing your eyes at the warm sensation which envelops you after slipping in.

even still, the hug your bath seems to wrap you up in doesn’t take away from the heaviness of the day that continues to wear you down, almost like what happened over the course of this week is dragging your tense muscles with it. your chest still feels tight and the voices in your head remain muffled, like they’re being deafened by white noise that hasn’t stopped increasing in pitch ever since you came to terms with how you’re feeling. how you’re feeling. you swallow at that.

it feels like hours pass by the time you finally heave your soaking wet limbs out, bundling yourself up in a towel to dry yourself off before creaking the door open. when you step out, you notice karina’s side of the room to be empty, checking your phone to see if she’d messaged you, only to find texts from her saying she’d gone down to the dining hall with her classmates. you shoot her a quick reply back, adding some obscure emoji so she knows not to worry too much and then proceed to flop down on your own bed, frowning when you feel the still remaining dampness of your hair hit the pillow.

your eyes drift to your device which illuminates in the darkness of the room again, fingers moving to grab it as you unlock it only to flick through the rows of messages flooding in from group chats you don’t even know why you’re part of in the first place. some part of you feels empty upon eyeing them, watching the way everyone buzzes in excitement about the game tomorrow knowing you feel far from how they do. rather, it’s the opposite, some sort of twisted sensation washing over you as you scroll past all your notifications only to land on a particular chat.

“fuck.” you mutter to yourself, groaning whilst your eyes rake over chan’s contact name. you press on the profile photo hesitantly, biting your lip as it enlarges to give you a better look at what picture you’ve set for him; the picture you took of him.

you still remember it vividly— the both of you had gone down to the convenience store to grab a quick study snack, only to end up chatting over long gone cold ramen for hours on no end up until the point it had turned dark outside. you’d brushed off the dirt on your jeans after getting up from the stairs you two had sat on, turning around to face chan who was also about to stand but stopped at your request for him to pose for the camera. he’d gone red in the face when you teased him about how good he’d looked after snapping some photos of him, nervously scratching the back of his neck as he brushed off your compliment despite his giggles.

you’d been so busy pointing out the details of the photo that you hadn’t even noticed the way he’d laced his hand in yours, his palm soft against your cooler skin which caused the insides of your stomach to leap in a weird way. you’d ignored it of course, letting him enjoy his moment seeing as no one was around to catch you both anyways, but the blooming contentment you’d felt in your body remained until he’d walked you back to your dorm room, shyly flashing you a smile before placing a small kiss on your forehead. you rode out on that high for the next few days without even knowing it.

it’s only when your screen becomes wet with a few drops of your tears that you snap out of the memories, realising you’re crying once more. you use the back of your sleeve to wipe at your face, sniffling slightly all while trying to hold back the emotions that threaten to escape you yet again after having bottled them up for days now. your previous texts with chan stare back in your eyes as a sore reminder of everything, and you can’t help but scroll through them, reading back the silly messages you’d exchanged which only make you want to wallow in self pity even more.

was chan thinking of you the way you were of him? was he cooped up and unable to progress with his day because he was still hung up on how things had ended? did he care? did he.. ever care? did he care half as much as you did right now?

he did.

you realise belatedly that he cared, cared so much that maybe it was even more than you do right now or ever could and will. chan cared for you so deeply, so passionately in a way nobody else had the capability to do so in your entire life. he replaced the love you lacked growing up with his boyish charms and soft spoken personality, and he was willing to give up parts of him for your sake so as long as it meant you were happy.

he cared. he had cared.

he’d cared so fucking much and you’d thrown it away like it was nothing.

before you can even process your next actions, your thumb presses on the call icon next to chan’s profile. the ring goes out immediately, his nickname and photo appearing on your screen once more as you wait with bated breath. you don’t even know what you’re doing right now, you don’t think you ever have known to be honest when it comes to chan, but some irrational, impulsive part of you feels like it’s taken over, yearning to satiate the desires you’ve ignored for a long time now.

beep. beep. beep.

please pick up. please don’t pick up. please pick up. please don’t pick up. please—

“the number you have dialled is..“

it’s immediate the way you click off the call, bottom lip wobbling once you’re sure there’s no way anyone can hear as all your pent up frustration comes crashing down on you in an instant. a beat of silence passes as you exhale a shaky breath, which seems to be the beginning of the floodgates opening because by the time the air even leaves your mouth, you’re choking back a sob, much like you have been for these past few days. your heart tightens in a way that makes you extremely uncomfortable, and your hands shake as you try embrace yourself by hugging your knees to your chest so you can bury your face in them.

chan hadn’t picked up. he hadn’t picked up unlike all the previous times you’ve asked him to come over in the dead of the night to meet up with you just so you two can make out in the backseat of his car. he hadn’t picked up unlike all the previous times you’ve texted wishing to facetime with him because you’re bored of trying to do your assignments. he hadn’t picked up unlike all the previous times you’ve wanted him to let you know to ring you up once he’s arrived home safe after having driven you back to your dorm.

he hadn’t picked up unlike all the previous times because he was gone from your life once and for all.

. . .

the next morning arrives far too soon for your liking, and it takes everything within you to drag your body out of the solace of your bed which currently seems to be the only thing providing you any semblance of comfort in your dull times. you do your best to make small talk with karina as you both get ready for the game, your roommate chatting your ear off about something mundane and irrelevant that you suspect is her way of filling the uncomfortable air lingering around you that she’s picked up on. you’re grateful for her trying to compensate for your lack of a response, but even with karina’s support, your soul feels extremely hollow and devoid of any meaning still. you hum and offer simple quips to her regardless of your mind screaming at you to go non-verbal, and before you know it, you’re both out of the door with you dressed up in your cheer uniform despite not feeling the slightest bit prepared to tackle what the day is about to bring.

by the time you both reach the stadium, everyone has already filled out the majority of the seats, the loud buzz of excitement resonating through the surroundings as you rake your eyes over the large turnout. karina flashes you a smile before giving you a quick hug, assuring you that you’ll do great and disappearing into the crowd to find her own spot to sit down. you want to believe her words, you truly do, but all your mind is fixated on right now is how sheerly empty you feel, your thoughts still drowning you in negativity with the way they haven’t shut up since last night, or maybe even for the past few weeks if you’re being honest. despite whatever emotions and jitters you’re feeling though, you try shrug it off, breathing in deeply before making your way over to where the rest of your team has gathered.

it’s the same speech that you’re met with when you finally stand around the huddle that everyone has formed in, their bright grins and your coach’s encouraging ment making you feel guilty for not being as fully into this as everybody else is. despite the drawbacks, you beam anyways, participating in the pre-show ritual of putting your hands into the centre and laughing alongside your girls. you all separate eventually and stand in your positions, and it doesn’t take long before the event begins and you’re all starting the crowd off with the all too familiar chant of your university’s slogan that everybody joins in on.

the game begins and generally progresses with no major hiccups, and in the end, you do manage to pull off the routine you’ve practised multiple times seamlessly without any issues. your limbs burn, and your voice is hoarse by the time the band takes over, but you try your best to maintain your outgoing nature despite the inner turmoil that’s been brewing inside you for a while now. nonetheless, before you know it, halftime is over and both teams are on the brink of a match point stopping them from taking victory. everybody watches with their nerves at a full time high, and for a moment, your thoughts seem to fade as you focus on keeping the gathering of people upbeat and motivated to encourage the players, but it’s short-lived after the star player manages to score the winning goal once and for all.

upon the realisation that your team has won, everyone erupts in loud celebration and applause, some even standing from their seat to make their way down and join in on the crowd of players who have formed around the one who threw the last shot. your girls and coach all yell in joy, a few of them hugging each other after a successfully executed performance which leaves them jumping up and down. you stay to watch from the sidelines, happy for your team’s hard efforts despite your still heavy shoulders dragging you down from getting into the spirit. some of the girls try and grab you by the hand to bring you into the hug, but you politely decline, saying you need to catch your breath for a second as some meaningless excuse to avoid having to be surrounded by a large group of people for too long.

observing everyone feels bittersweet. you want to be as pumped up as everybody else is, want to join in and ride on the high of having tackled what was quite possibly the biggest, most important match of the season, but a part of you holds back. no matter how much you try drag yourself out of your low spirits, you can’t succeed, instead feeling the need to chew on your bottom lip with your rising inability to hide your emotions as you stand in the middle of the ground alone. you don’t know where karina’s sauntered of to after the news of today's game outcome, and you’re not even sure where the rest of the team is heading to now; you assume it’s to some nearby diner for further commemoration. everything in you remains the same, numb and drained of any potential happiness that could’ve been because of what you’ve come to realise is completely your fault.

with a deep sigh and a gradual acceptance that you should just head back to the dorms, you turn on your heel, tossing your tassels somewhere in the basket you’d picked them up from before slowly trudging your way in the direction of the student accommodation. your eyes feel glossy, and that weird lump you keep getting before you’re about to cry is back in your throat as you watch everyone whizz past you, clearly bustling in thrill that’s much different from how you’re feeling. you do catch a few glances on you, feeling people’s stares and knowing they’re probably wondering why a member of the cheer team isn’t out partying with the rest, but you can’t find it in you to care anymore. you don’t know how you ever did in the first place.

y/n.

your ears perk at a familiar voice shouting your name in the distance, goosebumps spiking on your skin at the way it sounds so similar to chan’s. you feel like you’re hallucinating at this point, just hearing things because of your growing infatuation with him that’s finally made its way up from the underlying surface, and that only prompts you to walk faster as you tug your arms to your chest. if you’re starting to imagine things, it’s best that you get out of here. so, with your eyes squeezed shut, you try carry yourself as fast as your legs can take you, the call of your name only growing louder regardless of how much you ignore it. you swear you’re going mad from the way each time it returns, it sounds even closer and identical to how chan does, springing up memories of when he’d called you by your name the previous times you’d spent together.

y/n. y/n. y/n.

“y/n!”

your eyes widen when you hear the same voice and footsteps jogging up directly right behind you, this time knowing for sure that it’s not just in your head and rather coming from a few meters away. your heart accelerates with the possibility of what that means, of what that would entail if it were true. it couldn’t be.

..could it?

you’re quick to spin around when the thought crosses your mind, your eyes raking over your surroundings to search for that one figure you’ve been looking for in everyone you’ve met for the past few months. your breath catches in your throat, and you whip your head side to side to try and find the source, but it’s only when your vision stabilises and settles on the emerging figure in front of you that you realise it—

chan.

it’s chan.

chan is here.

“y/n.” he breathes out when he finally catches up to you, his glasses slipping off the bridge of his nose in his haste to greet you. you don’t respond, mouth open and feet frozen in place with your mind rushing at a million miles per hour and so many different questions echoing in it. is this real? have you fallen into some delusional state of existence where you’re envisioning the one person you’ve needed for so long? is he just a figment of your imagination that’s been burning with his face for so many days now? you can’t believe it, you don’t want to believe it, you think you don’t deserve to believe it. you long to reach out to him and place your hand in his, to feel and see if he’s actually present and standing in front of you, but your body acts like it’s been caught up in utter shock, something chan seems to pick up on after your prolonged silence.

“g-good job on the game.” he decides to stutter out as a way of starting conversation hopefully, cursing internally at how his voice wavers before letting out a nervous chuckle. “you were really great out there, and i saw you lead everyone really well. you know, if i think about it, cheerleading is kinda an intense sport, ‘cause why were you guys jumping so high, and—“

“you came.”

chan blinks as if to process your words, his eyes softening immediately at the admission that’s slipped out of you when you cut his rambling off mid-sentence with two simple words. you look so shocked, and it’s with a proper glance at your face he’s getting after not having been able to see you well enough for a while that he notices the remnants of your bloodshot eyes and slight dark circles, all of which you’d tried to cover up with makeup. he thinks you’re still as pretty as ever like this, and his hand twitches with the urging need to take you in his arms. he wants so badly to hold you, but he hesitates, instead settling on two, even more simpler words—

“you called.”

that’s all it takes. all it takes is two words which inherently have no meaning unless you give it to them to set you free and rid you of the static in your brain, your orbs stinging with the all too knowing tears that slowly drop out of them as you let everything sink in. it may sound like the most mundane sentence on the outside, but to you, after weeks of uncertainty and these last few days filled with what you would honestly classify as the worst depressive thoughts of your life, they feel like the most uplifting thing ever.

chan’s gaze widens when he catches the sole droplet of salty water roll down your cheek, and he’s instinctively extending his finger to wipe it away until he realises what he’s just done. you don’t even get to speak as he splutters out apologies for touching you while looking around to see if anyone caught that. his actions make your heart ache, knowing it’s because of you that he feels so cautious, and before you can even think, you’re crashing into him. the sudden weight of your body causes him to stumble a little on his feet, but he manages to stabilise himself as you wrap yourself around him in his embrace, burying your face into his chest.

“‘m sorry. ‘m so, so sorry.” your voice cracks as you speak, muffled into his jacket to the point he has to strain to hear it. you keep repeating the same thing over and over again to the point it makes his frown deepen, and he’s instant in cradling you back in his hold, other people be damned because he’d be an idiot not to take care of you now of all times. he lets you mumble into his clothes as long as you need to, grip on your smaller figure tightening while he rubs your back soothingly. his touch feels warm and comforting, and you don’t even know how you’d gone so far without it, pulling back with a sniffle after a short instance so you can scan your eyes over his features.

he’s dressed in simple clothes today, but that same combo of his signature snapback and glasses he always has remain resting on his head and face. you don’t even know what it is about them, maybe it’s the fact that you’ve gotten so accustomed to seeing him in these things, or maybe it’s how you’re finally catching a glimpse of it all after having been away for so long, but the sight of his accessories that you know all too well only makes you cry harder. you try move your arm to wipe at your tears, but chan is quicker, the soft pads of his thumbs brushing against your wet cheeks as he cups your face in his hands. your bottom lip juts out shamelessly as he wipes the remnants of your emotions away, to which he just smiles.

“i’m sorry too.” he admits, your confusion urging him to elaborate. “i saw you called yesterday night, but my brother had my phone and wouldn’t give it back to me, so i couldn’t pick up. i debated calling you back too, but i wasn’t sure if it was just another drunken mishap, and then after you said everything that day, i-i didn’t want to risk bothering you, and..“ he trails off, biting his bottom lip. you swallow at his words.

“it wasn’t a drunk call.” you shake your head, voice still wobbly as you clear your throat. “chan, i..“ you struggle to find a plausible explanation, wishing you could say a hundred words and none at the same time. you want to tell him everything in your heart, all the fears you’ve had this entire time that you want to get over with his help, all the nonsense your brain has been spewing ever since you told him to walk out of your life, all of it. you want him to know every deep, dark secret you’ve kept this entire time, but you can’t seem to find the right way to phrase it all.

“i get it.” he offers a lopsided grin as if having read your mind, and it’s pathetic really how it instantly eases all your worries. “you don’t have to say anything, not unless you want to. but, y/n,” chan hesitates, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves. “there’s something i need to tell you before it’s too late.”

that makes you gulp, and you wonder for a split second if maybe this is the end. maybe this is chan finally putting himself and his needs first before you can even profess all the unsaid declarations of your feelings for him. maybe he’s become fed up with you at last and came to see you in person today to let you down easily, telling you sweet things and comforting you so you’d ease your guard and be more susceptible to what he’s about to say. maybe it’s finally time for you to let go before you could’ve even had a taste of what was to come, maybe this is the universe’s way of letting you know you lost your timing due to your insolence, maybe—

“i love you.”

…what?

your eyes practically bulge out of your head at this point, and for a while, you wonder if you really heard him right. it’s like your entire world seems to slow down around you too, your surroundings spinning even with you trying to stabilise your vision after what you’d just been told. everything feels like it’s fading into background noise, and suddenly your entire focus is only on chan; chan with his gorgeous face and honey-like voice that you’ve heard so many times letting you know the one thing you’ve longed to hear from him these past few weeks.

“i think— no, i know you’re it for me.” he continues to blurt out, his anxiety gnawing him at the back of his mind with the way you don’t say anything. “i’ve wanted to tell you for so long because i’ve been in love with you for a while now, but i didn’t because of what you said that day. a-and i know you told me not to bother you again, and maybe you’re not in the right mindset right now and i’m just imagining all of this, and you’re going to wake up tomorrow having changed your mind and we’ll go back to the way we were, and—“

chan’s words die down in his throat before he can even get the rest of his sentence out, a surprised yelp leaving him when you abruptly cut him off by pressing your mouth against his. he lets out a small noise of shock at the way you lean into him, but his hands wrap around you as if its instinct, caging you into his body when he eventually does reciprocate your actions. your lips are soft; they’re so warm and taste like your strawberry chapstick, but he doesn’t care that it’s probably staining his face, at least not when he’s finally got you with him, no less in the way he’s longed for ever since he met your drunk figure stumbling into the balcony with him that night at the party.

your head isn’t any quieter either, adrenaline coursing through your veins and heart impossibly beating out of your chest as you enthusiastically mould yourself to him. your fingers bunch up the jacket he’s wearing, and the way he’s kissing you makes your toes curl inside your shoes, but none of that matters when you’re here at long last with chan. chan, chan, chan. your chan. your chan who has never been yours but is now saying he is. your imperfect, awkward, nerdy chan who holds the door open for you and respects all your wishes regardless of how they make him feel. the realisation makes your insides twist in a way you think might make your legs give out on you, but chan is quick to squeeze your waist as a way of reassuring you that he won’t let you fall, and you can’t help the fluttery sensation in your stomach that passes with that.

when you both do pull away, it’s with much reluctance, and you can see the faintest hint of a pout on chan’s face decorated with the remnants of your makeup, but he doesn’t seem to care so you think neither should you. your eyes lock when he opens his, those same orbs you’ve felt such complicated feelings for reflecting back at you with unspoken tension and so much adoration. you think you might physically melt with the way he’s staring down at you, so lovestruck and completely in awe, but that’s exactly what gives you the push to say your next words—

“i love you so much.” you choke out, unexpected emotions washing over you as you finally admit what you’ve been wanting to say for so long. it feels liberating in a way you’ve never experienced, to be honest and real with him, but you think you could get used to it.

“how could i not love you, chan? you’re everything i’ve ever needed.” your voice comes out in a whisper, and chan feels his shoulders relax at that, relief flooding through his system when he finally, finally hears what he’s wanted to since he’s known you. “‘m sorry for pushing you away, ‘m sorry for hurting you, and i’ll try my best to stop running from what i want. so.. if you’ll still have me even after all that, i promise i’ll make it worth your while.” you look down at your feet, swallowing in fear that he’d think otherwise after being reminded of everything you did to him. you know you don’t deserve a second chance, but the thought of chan changing his mind after everything that’s happened feels way too cruel, although you think maybe that’s your karma.

“hey,” your ears catch his gentle voice speak up, dragging you out of your thoughts. before you can even look up, chan’s hooking his finger under your chin and making you do so, his beautiful face that you’ve fallen for throughout these past few months coming into your view. the way he’s staring down at you is so tender, so full of admiration that you genuinely believe you might pass out. chan has always looked at you like you hung the stars up in the sky, like he wants you and you only in every lifetime. but, seeing it now after his confession, seeing the way his gaze rakes over your features as if he’s trying to commit them to memory, you feel like you might cry again.

“of course i’ll have you, are you kidding me?” he huffs out in a laugh that pulls you back to reality, although it sounds more like him being in disbelief. “i’ve been dreaming of this ever since i even saw you.” he shyly mumbles, and you can’t stop the goofy grin that spreads across your face at his admittance. you want to jump in joy, to shout out your feelings for him from the top of the bleachers after finally having it all laid bare in front of you, but you can’t, so instead you settle on smashing your lips against his once more, cradling his face in your hands.

chan’s quick in responding this time, and you can sense the way he’s beaming when he moves his mouth in sync with yours. your hand slides up his chest to grip the edge of his jacket, and you swear you can feel the rapid thumping of his heart under your skin, wondering if he can hear yours too with the way you’re both pressed up to each other. you stay like that to the point your lungs burn, exchanging kisses and unspoken feelings amongst each other until you finally have enough (not really). your hand interlocks with his once you pull away and flash him a cheeky smile, the words already leaving you—

“let’s get out of here.”

. . .

by the time you and chan make it to his car, you’re already panting, lips bruised with the way you’ve been pushing them against one another’s for the past few minutes. it took long enough to even drag him to the parking lot, chan not being able to let go of you in favour of walking the short distance to the outdoor area where he'd driven and stopped. the morning sky that’s illuminated above you with hues of orange stretches out for miles, and if anyone’s up there looking down at you both, they’d probably see two young adults giggling amongst themselves as one of them presses the other up to the side of his vehicle. you feel butterflies erupt in you with the way chan slots his body against yours, his leg pushing its way through the gap between yours, and his mouth is on you before you can even speak.

“you look so pretty today.” chan retracts from you to whisper suddenly, his slightly foggy glasses once again sliding off his nose. you reach up and push them back with a mischievous glint in your eyes, and he swears he's never seen a sight so alluring in his life; his red ears are enough evidence of that fact. “so, am i not pretty every other day, mr. bang?” you tease, causing him to let out a chuckle. he missed this, missed the banter between you two that was the start of what could've been mistaken as a lighthearted relationship if no one bothered to correct the details of it. regardless of all the trials and tribulations it took to get you both to this point, he doesn't care, at least not when he finally has you in his arms, your top bunched up in his hands as he looks down at your precious face.

“nope.” he pops the ‘p’, thumb brushing against your cheek. “because those days, you're even prettier.” he murmurs, and you think if your heart races anymore that it might actually burst. the love and adoration that you’re experiencing for him right now, the love and adoration that you've been experiencing for a long time now, it all feels like a fever dream. you're finally able to do and say what you want to him, but you think the best part of it all is him reciprocating it. the way he gazes at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you, all of it— it's all so full of emotion to the point you fear that you can't ever give it all back. you'd be damned if you didn't try though.

“alright, romeo, pipe it down. you're gonna get all the ladies with that line.” you joke, and chan throws his head back to let out a laugh that makes your insides twist. you try to move your head away to hide the tint of pink that's rapidly spreading across your face, but he notices anyway, a large grin plastered all over his mouth that he doesn't even bother hiding anymore. he fumbles around with his keys a little until he finally finds the one that unlocks his car, instantly opening the door to the backseat to which you usher in at lightning speed, drawing another laugh from him.

“c’mere.” he sighs once he's in too, grasping your hand to tug you onto his lap somehow despite the cramped space. you let out a noise of surprise as he settles you over him, but your hands instantly move to his shoulders to stabilise yourself, finding the familiar position you've been in far too many times. “someone’s eager.” you let out breathlessly, unable to hold back the giggle that bubbles in your throat at the way he flushes red at your observation. his hands find purchase on your waist, the smooth feel of your uniform being bunched up in his larger fingers causing your heart to beat out of its chest.

“well, yeah, but.. also, i missed you.” chan confesses quietly. “i mean, i’ve been dreaming about this for so long and now it's finally real.” he mutters in disbelief, and you can't stop the pout that forms. your fingers trace along the soft skin of his face, moving past the outline of his jaw to his swollen mouth that you've probably kissed at least ten times by today. you don't hesitate to kiss it again, lips moulding perfectly against his as your eyes slip shut to revel in the moment. chan is nothing but full of sighs of content at your actions, and when you pull away, he swears he almost whines.

“i missed you too. so much.” you admit, full and honest because you had. you'd missed him so much to the point you'd have thought you were going crazy. you missed him every day you had waken up whether or not you wanted to be aware of it, and you'd missed him every night that you'd cried yourself to sleep. and yet, here he is now, sitting with you in his lap all the way in the back of his beat up car, telling you all these sweet words that make you want to do absolutely sinful things to him.

“missed talking to you.” you boop his nose, and he smiles at you, irrevocably down bad. “missed hugging you.” your arms wrap around his broad shoulders, and while you shudder at the visible idea of how much stronger chan actually is compared to you, you sign it off as a fantasy you'll have to indulge in someday later. “missed kissing you.” you mumble, leaning in to pepper a soft trail across his cheeks. “and, most of all..” you trail off, inching closer so you're at level with his burning ears before you speak—

“i missed tasting you.” your voice comes out in a low tone, and chan all but groans at the dirty admission. he shifts slightly underneath you as evidence of his discomfort, but you know that's only from the way you can feel him filling out his jeans. your hips purposely push down on his to grind against the slowly forming bulge tucked away behind his boxers, and he jerks forward, nails digging into the fabric of your skirt with a loud hiss leaving him.

“don’t— don’t do that.” chan gasps out, the sight of your glossy, doe eyes instantly having blood rush between his legs. he can tell you’re in the mood to play games, but he also knows that if he goes one more minute without having claimed you in any sort of way, he might actually die. “‘m literally on the brink of it, baby. please.” you bite your lip at his small plea, ignoring the way the old nickname falls from him as the faintest hint of a smirk forms across your features. you choose to rock your clothed core on his once more anyway, which makes chan toss his head back so rough that a slight thump resonates in the air after he hits the seat.

his gaze is hooded whilst he watches you hump your slowly growing wetness over his pants for the next few minutes, mouth parted as heavy exhales leave it alongside the rapidly rising tension between you both. one particular press of your probably damp by now panties on his bulge has him keening, which only makes you smile. “shit, you still love teasing me, huh?” he curses in question, breathy laughter escaping him at the sight of you nodding as his tongue pokes the inside of his cheek. the sight alone is so attractive that you can’t resist leaning in to capture him in another searing kiss, one that’s much hotter and heavier than the previous ones.

chan’s confusion is audible with the way he voices it out loud when you suddenly pull away, but any and all complaints die down in his throat the minute he sees you shuffle from his lap, biting back the groan that threatens to rumble through his chest at you sinking to your knees instead. you’re thankful that his passenger seat is adjusted forward to give you space to sit, likely being that way from all your previous activities, or maybe it could be from anybody else he brought in during the technically no contact period you both broke moments prior to this. hot jealousy bubbles under the surface at the potential of someone else getting to see him how you do, but you swallow it down in lieu of making the most of what situation you’re in now.

“pretty girl.” chan’s voice is merely a whisper, dragging you out of your thoughts as one of his hands caresses the flesh of your cheek, leaving you to nuzzle against it. he glances at you so softly regardless of whatever erotic position you’ve put yourself in, still in utter awe at the fact that you’re here, physically and in front of him instead of the daydreams he’s often found himself imagining of you. he can’t decide whether you look like the epitome of perfection with the sunlight streaming through his windows and highlighting your face, or the epitome of sin with the predicament you’re in which leaves you situated on the floor of his car between his legs; he chooses to settle on both.

your fingers graze his denim clad thighs, and chan retracts himself from brushing his thumb against the skin of your face to hurriedly undo the zipper of his jeans. you’re more than eager to help, assisting him in unbuttoning and shimmying them off despite the cramped space you’re both in. eventually, chan’s pants and boxers are pooling around his ankles, and his leaking cock awaits prettily for any sort of relief you may be able to provide it, the tip a slight shade of red as precum dribbles out. you’re quick to swipe it off, chan’s noises at you doing so falling on deaf ears as you bring the essence up to your mouth and lick it off. the familiar tinge of sweet and saltiness invades your senses, only making the uncomfortable stickiness between your own legs grow.

“you’re so beautiful, channie.” you say after popping your finger out of your mouth, small hands instantly moving to wrap around his length and squeeze just a tad, which has chan’s chest rumbling with a moan. “gorgeous face, gorgeous body, gorgeous everything. how could i have been so foolish to almost let go of it?” you wonder out loud, eyes flickering up to him when he buries his face in his palms, getting flustered at your compliments. “my shy boy.” you giggle at his actions, mesmerised by the way he twitches in your hold when you softly pump him up and down.

“been such a bad girl ignoring you, yeah?” you sigh in faux frustration, although a part of it is true. “no more of that, though. let me make it up to you.” you gather a wad of spit in your mouth before letting it dribble across his cockhead, smearing the saliva over it with your thumb once more. your ministrations have chan’s hips threatening to buck up in your hold, but he restrains himself, embarrassed at how worked up you’ve already gotten him without even having done anything really. “i promise i’ll make you feel so good.” you assure, eyebrows furrowing when he just shakes his head.

“no, y-you always make me feel good.” he stutters at the way your fingers squeeze just a bit harder from his words, and before he can even add anything else to his previous sentence, you’re leaning forward to wrap your warm mouth around him.

a loud groan shudders its way past chan’s lips at how you practically swallow him whole in one go, taking him in so deep that he can feel the way his mushroom head kisses the back of your throat just a smidge. you pull off a little to let your tongue slide out and lick around the underside of his dick, another hand coming up to fondle with his balls simultaneously. soon enough, his low grunts fill the air, only prompting you to hum around chan as the vibrations of your voice shoot up his body. “fuck, angel.” he manages to utter out, a deep moan slipping out when he dares to peek a glance at you, almost cumming prematurely from the way you look up at him through your lashes.

“wan’ you to fuck my throat. please.” you pull off of him to plead instead, rubbing the spit-stricken head of his sensitive cock against your swollen lips. the way you’re staring back at him with wide eyes, your wet muscle darting out to dip into his slit as he chokes on his own words makes him want to take you right then and there, but chan holds back, choosing to oblige your request with a shaky nod as he reaches forward to thread his fingers through your hair. you smile at him sweetly, enveloping his length back into your hot cavern of a mouth and pushing your nose flush to his pelvis.

this time, he feels his tip bump deliciously against the back of your throat, and it doesn’t take much longer for him to start slowly push himself in and out whilst gripping you in a makeshift ponytail. the sloppy sounds of your gagging fill the space of his car in an instant, and the mere sight of your tears welling up nearly sends chan toppling over the edge. he’s quick to take you off of him at that, and you’re about to protest to ask why he stopped when he cuts you off. “‘m sorry, angel, but if we don’t stop, i'll end up finishing like a teenage boy in your mouth.” you huff out a small laugh at his choice of words.

“i wouldn’t have cared, channie. that’s kinda the goal of sex.” you point out, rising from your crouched position with burning knees to settle on his lap once more as you wrap your arms around his neck. “yeah, but..” chan trails off, his breath hitching at the way he presses up against your clothed stomach, and you titter from how he seems absolutely awestruck at the sight of you in his hold. it’s so endearing that you lean forward to press a soft kiss to his nose, letting your lips trail across his cheeks, ears and jaw before finally landing on his mouth. chan feels like he’s going to go mad when you eventually retract from him. “yeah, but?” you remind him with a smug grin, watching him blink to gather his thoughts again.

“i-i want you to feel good too.” he mumbles shyly, averting his gaze elsewhere in embarrassment as you coo. you bring your fingers up to move his face so he’s glancing at you once more, his shining eyes locking with yours and making your heart swell.

chan’s love for you has always been selfless; he doesn’t seem to care for his own pleasure much when it comes to you and always insists on making you feel good over having himself do so. it’s one of the things you’ve grown so familiar with when being around him, and before he came along, the concept of someone being so giving had never even crossed your mind. you’re aware a part of it lies in the fact that you’re his first— first kiss, first time, first everything. it used to scare you before, making you feel like he was missing out on what everyone else could offer him by being stuck to you, but the minute the possibility of him having the experiences he shared with you with somebody else became a reality, you knew you could give less of a fuck about being selfish.

because right now in this very moment, or two hours from now, one day from today, a few weeks from this time, and in every lifetime to come too, you wanted chan. you wanted him on his good or bad days, wanted him through thick or thin, and wanted him even if you had the chance to choose from anybody in the world. he’d become it for you, and god, were you glad he felt the same way.

“it makes me feel good when you do, baby.” you remind him, flashing him a smile that makes his insides melt. “but, if you insist, then who am i to deny my pretty boy?” chan has to bite back the grin that threatens to spread across his face at your words. your pretty boy. yours. he’d wanted to be nothing more ever since you walked into his life and now he finally had it, the idea being so incredulously unfathomable to him that he doesn’t even register you taking off your top. it’s only when your fingers graze his cheek and you lean in for another kiss that he notices you’re now half naked and straddling him, a noise of pleasure leaving his mouth at the realisation which you swallow up. your lips slot against his so perfectly, almost like they’re two pieces of the same puzzle finally meeting each other, warmth blooming in both of you at the idea of being each other’s missing link.

“no, no, just lemme pull ‘em to the side.” you pull back and whisper when he lifts your skirt to yank down your underwear. shakily, you reach below and hook your fingers into the damp material, tugging it to one end and exposing your wetness that nearly drips out of you. chan has to hold back the dirty noises that bubble inside him at the sight of your soaked panties, but even more so when you grab his length and line him up to your entrance. both of you can’t stop your sighs of long deserved relief when his tip breaches your opening, barely sucked in but still nestled inside, and before chan can beg you to put him all the way in, you’re sitting down on his cock completely, biting your lip at the burning stretch.

“fuck.” is the only thing that you hear from chan once he’s fully bottomed out, looking up to see him staring down at where you’re both connected with blown out pupils. his gaze makes you burn up, involuntarily causing you to clench to the point your boy is digging his nails into your side, leaving crescents in your skin for you to wake up to tomorrow. “missed you so much.” chan’s voice is strained alongside the small laugh that escapes him, his hips slightly bucking up and causing you to whimper as the sound goes straight to his dick. he has to physically stop himself from fucking up into you, your warmth enveloping him in the best way possible.

“please move, princess. please.” he begs, pleas dripping with raw desire as he gazes up at you with wide eyes. it’s all the confirmation you need to slowly lift your hips up and lower them down on his, your warm walls clinging to his cock having the both of you moaning out loud at the feeling it provides instantly.

your movements are slow, deep and deliberate with how you rock your hips in a gentle grind against chan’s length buried to the hilt inside you. the angle of your bodies locked together allows his mushroom head to breach far inside you, and it almost feels like he’s all the way in your stomach. chan’s cock has always been girthy and heavy, a large vein protruding along the side of his shaft and leading to the bulbous tip of his dick. the first time you took him, let him feel what it’s like to not just fuck his fist, he almost tore you in half with his misplaced, rabid actions. but right now, with you riding him in the backseat of his car, the windows fogging up and no doubt giving away your scandalous activities, he feels even larger in you, especially with how he pushes up to meet you halfway.

“baby.” you mewl at a particularly well-placed thrust, preening at how his cockhead brushes against that spot tucked safely inside, and chan bites his lip at the way your face is contorted in absolute bliss. he brings one of his knobby digits up to wet it before trailing it down to press into your clit, and you almost fall forward from the sudden jolt of pleasure. “s’good?” he murmurs, continuing to rub tight circles on your swollen nub as you whimper in agreement, vision going crosseyed from how great your body feels at the moment.

sex with chan is always an experience to say the least. you still remember the time he lost his virginity to you, rutting inside your heat freely in his childhood bedroom at a study session gone wrong (or right even) with the headboard bumping into the wall. thankfully, nobody was home that day, and you got the privilege of being as loud as you wanted, an occurrence you didn’t expect to happen because well, everything was new to chan. you hadn’t anticipated him being able to make you cum at all, but he had anyway, drawing at least one orgasm from you with his mouth and fingers before he even slipped in. the entire act had been so.. domestic. the way he’d held you, let you use him, and how he’d kissed you so tenderly, it really should’ve dawned on you right then and there that there was no escaping this. chan had gotten you in the palm of his hand from the start contrary to what he thought; you just hadn’t been aware of it until now.

“i love you.” chan blurts out suddenly, drawing you back to reality as the confession falls so easily from his lips, and your heart races for what feels like the nth time today. it makes you fuck back onto him even harder, your actions become more fervent and desperate with how you lift your hips up to slam them back down on his cock. his car is probably rocking back and forth deliriously by now, and when you slap your hand against the glass to stabilise yourself, it leaves an imprint, but neither of you can find it in yourselves to care about that. “you’re the only one for me. always have and always will be.” chan pants out, his whimpers growing louder with the way your pussy tightens around him at his words.

“i love you.” you whine when he pinches your clit slightly between his fingers, feeling your slick juices dripping down the both of you and making a mess of his backseat. “love you so much, channie. you’re my one and only too.” chan shudders at that, wrapping a hand at the back of your neck to pull you in for a messy kiss. it’s a swap of dirty moans and spit, and chan swears he sees heaven when you slip your tongue inside his mouth to lick into it, the knot in his stomach growing closer to snapping.

“cum with me. please, baby, ‘m so close. cum inside me, please, please, please.” you pull away slightly to whimper, smashing your lips back on his to moan muffled against them. chan just nods rapidly at your pleading, feet planted flat on the floor to give him enough leverage for drilling up into you. the slight curve of his cock pistons into that same spot from before, and it isn’t long before your cunt clamps down on him with your high washing over you like a tidal wave. the tingling sensation resonates through your entire body, and you can’t stop lewd sounds from spilling out of you and into chan’s mouth.

chan follows close behind, balls tightening and limbs shaking as his cock twitches inside you. it barely takes him one, two thrusts until he’s painting your walls white in his release, warm cum oozing and almost leaking out of you with how much of it there is. curses and low grunts leave him, and it takes a minute for the two of you to calm down with how intense the spiking pleasure feels. you remain in his embrace until the ringing in your ears dies down, panting onto each other as sweat trickles down your back and his forehead. when you open your eyes, chan has still got his shut, and you lean forward to press a gentle smooch to the underside of his jaw, kissing it until he regains his composure and faces you.

“i think i died.” he sighs in bliss at last, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at his playful remark, yelping when his finger pokes you in the side for your attitude. “better than your other side pieces, huh?” you question breathless, still worn out and tired from your previous activities. chan stares at you in pure confusion as you give him a pointed look like it’ll remind him of the girl you’d seen him with countless times at the party or outside your dorms, and it takes a while until the lightbulb in his head goes off, orbs wide before he’s bursting out in laughter. “it’s not funny, she was all over you.” you grumble at his reaction, crossing your arms across your chest.

“baby, that was just a friend’s ex who was trying to make him jealous. i barely know her.” he explains with a wide grin on his face. “although, it looks like she got to you instead.” chan chortles when you slap him lightly on the shoulder at his words, having the time of his life as you flush bright pink in embarrassment after having gotten worked up over nothing. “still, she didn’t have to call you nicknames and flirt with you.” you try and defend yourself which only makes chan shake his head before cupping your face and pressing a short kiss to your lips.

“‘m all yours, pretty girl. don’t even worry.” he reassures, eyes so full of love that it’s hard to argue against him anymore. you still choose to pout anyways, and he takes that as an invitation to lean in and push his mouth back to yours. each kiss you exchange makes you melt little by little, and by the time chan is pulling away, you’ve forgotten all about what made you mad in the first place. “so,” your ears perk up when he speaks again, and you look down to find his expression filled with slight hesitation.

a beat of silence passes as chan struggles to find the words to say what he wants, choosing to busy himself in fiddling with the ends of your skirt that you’d failed to take off in your frenzy to claim him. you tilt your head to the side in expectance, but your eyes soften as he heaves out a breath that seems to be filled with deep emotion. instinctively, you take his hand that’s playing around with your clothes and intertwine your fingers, squeezing and dragging it up to nuzzle your face into the back of his palm lovingly in hopes it may calm him down. your little plan works, and before you can even speak up yourself to just ask what’s on his mind, chan beats you to it.

“um, what does this make us?” he mumbles quietly, swallowing the small lump that’s forming at the back of his throat. chan doesn’t want to return to whatever it was that you guys had going on prior to what happened just now between you two, and even though you’ve both declared your feelings for one another countless times by now, it’s still unclear where everything stands, or rather where you stand. he wants you to be his, completely and fully so he can show you off to everyone, but fear gnaws him at the back of his mind that maybe that’s not quite what you want. despite what you’d said while entangled with him, he finds it hard to believe that you’d crave for the same relationship he wants, and he prays that he’ll hear the answer from you that he’s yearned for ages by now.

on the other hand, you simply blink at his words, letting them sink into your head. it’s only when they fully register that you break out into a small smile, heart sinking at how chan looks away with worry evident in his eyes. you know you’re the reason behind his reluctance to want more with you, and that it’ll take some time for him to understand your feelings are on par with his and have been for a while, or may even be further ahead at this point, but you’re more than willing to fix that, regardless of how long it takes.

“channie,” your voice comes out soft and sweet, and chan resists the urge to tear up at the way you call his nickname with so much love. he gulps when you tilt his face to look at yours, shoulders relaxing instantly when he sees you beaming back at him. it’s insane to think how a simple happy look from you makes him feel lighter on his own feet, but with the way some of the anxiety brewing inside him seems to fade away after having gotten a glimpse of your smiling face, he thinks it’s far from implausible.

“if it’s okay with you, and if you’ll have me once more,” you take a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves before saying the next of your sentence. “then, i’d love to be your girlfriend.”

chan’s world seems to slow down at your words, the sentence you’d just uttered seeming to have cast some sort of spell on him. it’s like everything in his surroundings fades away into silent noise or sightless objects, and he can’t stop the way his mouth falls open slightly. you want to be his girlfriend? his girlfriend? you, the absolute love of his life, the one person he never thought he could have, want to be his officially? he looks up at you dumbfounded as if you’d just presented the most disbelieving offer of all time, although he supposes you kind of have done that honestly.

“i mean, it’s fine if that’s not what you want.” your voice drags him out of his thoughts, leaving him blinking as you start to blurt out more stuff in your nervous haze. “i’m aware i behaved stupidly and pushed you away for no reason, and maybe you said everything in the heat of the moment, and now that we’re done with it all, you’ve changed your mind and want nothing to do with me, and—“

now it’s chan’s turn to cut off your rambling, his body surging forward to capture your lips with his again, and it doesn’t take long before you’re succumbing to his touch much like the previous instances you’ve melted into him, eyes slipping shut as he cradles your face in his fingers delicately. his entire hold on you is gentle, like you’re a piece of expensive china that might break if he even so as much makes a sudden move. the way he embraces you is filled with tender, all-consuming love, and you think you might start crying once more if he continues with his actions.

“is this real?” he whispers against you, still in complete shock when you nod slowly as an answer to his question, a disbelieving laugh leaving him as he shakes his head. “you’re mine now? like you, the girl of my actual dreams?” his questions have you visibly relaxing, and any and all doubt physically leaves you as you smile back at him in approval, laughing when he hugs you tightly to his chest. “i’m so fucking lucky.” chan breathes out in content, leaving you to simply bury your flustered face into his neck at the way he sounds so utterly in awe.

“ah, wait, no.” he suddenly starts, pulling back to look at you. his curls stick messily over his eyes, and you move to brush them back under his signature hat to get a clearer look at the features of the man you’ve fallen so deep for. “i have to ask you properly to commemorate the occasion.” he purses his lips, mustering up a serious expression that basically makes you simper, far too blinded in love to even point out or make fun of how silly he’s being. because that’s just chan. your chan.

“y/n l/n,” chan clears his throat, taking your hand in his and holding it over his rapidly beating heart which you can feel thumping under your palm. “will you do the honour of letting me be your boyfriend?” he asks, eyes twinkling when you giggle, so enamoured that you can’t resist leaning your forehead against his, nodding instantly.

“i’d love nothing more, bang christopher chan.”

. . .

comments and reblogs are always appreciated! <3

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botanicalsword · 3 months ago

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Astrology Observations • Signs, Aspects, Behaviour

Appearance / personality observation

Strong Aries energy - often have fair, youthful skin, big bright eyes, and a hint of baby fat

Strong Leo energy - tend to come off as calm and sophisticated, with a balanced facial structure, often sporting a small face and a slightly pointed chin.

Strong Sagittarius energy - people usually have a tall, statuesque presence, with long faces and legs, and their features are bold and radiant - the vibe of a confident woman

Strong Capricorn energy - their moto “You have to endure the toughest hardships to rise above the rest" even their connections are built through this kind of hard-earned experience

Strong Aquarius energy - really value their personal space in any relationship. They need to take breaks now and then to breathe and enjoy their own world. They have a wide range of interests.

Sun, Moon, and Mercury in Pisces - a strong intuition You can pick up on subtle shifts in others' emotions and anticipate their thoughts, making you incredibly thoughtful and warm-hearted.

Inner planets, and Jupiter are all in air signs with no water signs and no trine /sextiles - they come off as pretty straightforward, they are smart and quick-witted, but maybe not as gentle. They tend to focus heavily on logic and reasoning, sometimes overlooking emotions and human connections. This can give you a cool, decisive vibe, making it easy for you to stand out as a leader or a big personality in any crowd.

Air + water signs - sensing what others are thinking and feeling, choose to express that through a gentle and caring way or rational, but also depends on their personal style.

Air + water + fire signs - enhance their ability to manage any negative or repressed emotions, giving them a great sense of humor and a strong magnetic charm - not only empathetic but also engaging and lively in their interactions with others.

Aspects in Natal Chart

Lots of sextile or trine aspects in the chart - need stability If they find themselves in tough situations, it can be hard for them to get motivated and rise to the occasion. It takes time to build up that drive. If they pick up bad habits, shaking them off can be quite the challenge.

Lots of square or opposition aspects - suit for various challenges in life They constantly remind themselves to climb higher and push through obstacles. they become more resilient, learning from failures and setbacks, and ultimately growing stronger in the process.

♡

Mars-Pluto - not pushovers. Even if they seem to tolerate, compromise, or hold back in the moment, they often look for opportunities later to reclaim their sense of justice. They hold grudges and can be quite obsessive about certain issues. This energy can manifest as impulsiveness / confrontations

Mars-Neptune - soften a person's aggression, making them come off in a more subtle and gentle way. feel like they're low-key provoking you or stirring the pot, but you can't quite pin it down they can also be super forgiving, turning their frustrations into empathy and compassion instead.

How to make them feel more at ease & What they are into

Venus in Gemini - they’re all about curiosity and having fun. They get attracted to people who can keep things interesting and enjoy good times together.

Venus in Cancer - they really thrives when they’re in a caring and nurturing relationship. They love partners who are gentle and make them feel safe and secure.

Venus in Virgo - they appreciate practicality and thoughtfulness in relationships. They are drawn to partners who are reliable and detail-oriented. They value acts of service and small gestures that show care. They need you to be attentive, show your reliability, and engage in meaningful conversations.

Venus in Leo - they love being admired and want to feel like a superstar. They’re drawn to partners who shine in social situations and make them feel proud to be with them.

Venus in Scorpio - they’re into mysterious and passionate people. They like partners who have a unique vibe and stand out from the crowd.

♡

Moon in Taurus - values stability and comfort in their relationships. They prefer to avoid drama and complications.

Moon in Libra - they needs a partner who gets them, gives them space, and is willing to share the load equally.

Moon in Scorpio - they crave emotional depth and want a partner who can meet their emotional needs and keep things intense.

Moon in Sagittarius - they looks for a partner who values their independence, has their own opinions, and doesn’t rely too much on them. They feel comfortable, when others encourage their independence, share new experiences, and keep the relationship fun and light-hearted.

Moon in Aquarius - they value individuality and freedom in their emotional lives. They need space to express their feelings and may approach emotions from a more intellectual perspective if you want to connect with them, embrace their uniqueness, encourage their independence, and engage in stimulating conversations.

Moon in Pisces - they are sensitive and empathetic. They crave emotional depth and connection in their relationships. They appreciate partners who are compassionate and imaginative. If you want to make a Pisces moon feel special, be empathetic, share your dreams, and create a magical atmosphere together.

>> Relationship • Connection between Composite and Natal Chart (Based on Observations) >> Life Purpose ✧ Lost in Life? revealing the direction we've been searching for (In-depth)

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missadangel · 2 months ago

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MAKE HIM DISLIKE LOVE YOU

Harry Castillo x Reader (The Materialists)

Chapter 6: Truth or Dare

prev chapter series masterlist next chapter

Chapter Summary: “What about me?” asked Pride. “Shut up,” replied Jealousy. Lust laughed hard. You finally get that you can’t run from your feelings anymore, but what the hell? Or are you too late?

Warnings: 18+ (smut, MDNI) kinda romantic comedy stuff, fluffy, angst, lying, soft and caring Harry Castillo, Lucy as his ex, John as Lucy's ex, wealth, expensive gifts, drinks, money, cars, language, sexual tension, oral sex, p in v sex, kissing, slow burn, power imbalance, I might have missed some warnings; I will update them in due time.

Chapter Word Count: 12,5k, oops I did it again!! HOT (SMUT) CHAPTER ALERT! , feelings!!! fluffy, rom-com, lust, passion, jealousy, dirty talk.

authors note: Thank you all for your support, asks, comments, reblogs and likes. I appreciate each and every one of you! Love you all!

Getting out of bed in the morning was a total struggle. The memories from last night felt like a heavy weight, making you feel crushed. You thought you knew how you felt, but then again, you weren’t so sure. Why did everything have to be so complicated?

You definitely needed to talk to someone, or maybe even see a therapist.

But you couldn’t chat with Zoe yet; you’d come home late the night before, and now you had to rush off to work. Perhaps you could catch up with her when you return later that evening.

Zoe was still sprawled out on the couch, her ankle too painful to even rise for a bathroom break. You made her a sandwich before heading out.

As you walked to the subway, you found yourself scrolling through relationship advice sites on your phone. You knew it was a bit silly to seek guidance online, but what could it hurt to take a peek? After sifting through a bunch of silly sites and endless ads, a social Q&A platform caught your eye. One question stood out:

"How am I supposed to tell him I love him too, but I'm not ready?"

Ah just what you were looking for.

You scrolled to read all the answers.

clickcrazecreations

It is okay to not return the statement, to say “thank you but I'm not ready”, to tell the person that you are not ready to be shackled by their love and affection.

But that wasn’t your issue—you were ready;-almost ready- that wasn’t the real problem.

wanderlustchronicles

Seriously, think twice! If you can't answer, it might mean you're not really in love, girl! It's okay to move on and find someone who makes you happy!

Hey! Who said you didn’t love him? And you knew he made you happy.

oprahwindfury

Wait, you found a guy who told you he loved you first, and you couldn't reply? Seriously? In this day and age with dating being tough, that's wild! You need a good kick in the ass. You bet I will.

That comment scared you a little and made you feel weird. Why did she sound so angry?

hopelessromantic

Is he handsome? I'll say yes to him. Give me his number.

What the heck? Those online comments were really getting on your nerves.

fartnroses

It’s pretty simple, come on! Follow your heart instead of... No, I’m not talking about that squishy thing!

You were just closing the page when you realized the most sensible comment.

agnespire

Love requires Courage. Take a hard look at your fear of saying these words to him. Then, if you love him, tell him so. Good communication is key in a relationship. This means pushing yourself into situations that may not be so comfortable at first. It’s called growth. Grow together. Share your feelings. Honor your feelings for him. Most of all, confront fears you have about anything and everything, and acknowledge that all negative emotions stem from fear. Kill it! Choose Love.

Choosing love.

Maybe it was that simple.

Courage.

Maybe that's exactly what you need.

The elevator bell chimed as Oliver stepped into Harry's apartment on the 72nd floor. His phone rang just then, and he answered it while scanning the room for Harry.

“Damn gossipmongers, they don’t waste any time. Get that story taken down from every site and warn them we’ll sue their asses if they keep running with it,” he said, fuming as he ended the call. His eyes continued searching for Harry, darting toward the bedroom but finding it empty.

He ventured into the living room and discovered Harry in the last place he expected: sprawled out on the couch, one leg dangling over the side. Whiskey bottles littered the floor, and the heavy scent of alcohol mixed with something else—cigarette smoke.

What the hell?

He’d quit smoking almost a decade ago.

This wasn't good.

Oliver leaned in and gave Harry a gentle nudge on the shoulder. “Harry? You okay?”

Harry mumbled something incoherent. Oliver leaned closer, trying to catch it, and realized he was murmuring your name.

Sighing, Oliver stood up. “Seriously, Harry! Wake up!” This time he poked him a bit harder.

Harry blinked awake and sat up, coughing as he tried to shake off the grogginess.

“Cigarettes? Really?”

“I have my reasons,” he replied, still half-asleep and grumpy.

Placing his hands on his hips, Oliver surveyed the scene. “Dude, last night... I thought you and her had it all figured out, but apparently not.”

“Harry! Ollie!” Maria called out as she rushed in from the elevator, her eyes widening in shock. “Sweet Jesus!”

“Good morning to you, too,” Oliver said, smiling sheepishly.

“What the hell happened here?” she asked, grimacing as she took in the chaos. “I thought…”

Oliver shook his head. Maria sighed in frustration.

Harry, nursing the terrible headache from his night of heavy drinking, pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose and temple. His hair was a mess, and he was still in the same tuxedo pants with his bow tie nowhere in sight.

“That dress. Isn’t it—” Oliver pointed to the black dress Harry was loosely holding, not even realizing he was still clutching it.

Suddenly aware, Harry sheepishly placed the dress back on the couch.

“The dress she gave back,” Oliver concluded, looking astonished.

“Are you kidding me?” Maria said, staring at him in disbelief.

Harry frowned, holding the dress back up to his nose. “Smells like her, okay?” he murmured, looking like a kid with his favorite candy.

“That’s fantastic! Bravo!” Maria clapped her hands together mockingly. “Who are you, and what have you done to my buddy Harry?”

Harry, ignoring the banter, picked up a pack of cigarettes and searched for any left inside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Oliver snatched the pack from his hands.

“Give it back!” Harry barked.

“Stop it! You’ve been clean for years; you can’t start again now.”

A tug-of-war began as Harry reached for it again.

Maria crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “You guys are acting like kids fighting over a toy.” She glanced at her watch. “Just so you know, it’s Monday,” she added, putting extra emphasis on her point.

Oliver suddenly froze.

“Give me a break today,” Harry whined, seizing the moment to grab his cigarette pack. He pulled one out and stuck it between his lips. “Where’s that damn lighter?”

“Harry, it’s 7:40 a.m.”

“I’m in no shape to go to work. Just email me the presentation details, and I’ll get to it when I’m feeling better,” he said, finally spotting the lighter under the pillow.

Oliver yanked the cigarette from his lips. “Dude, it’s Monday, and the housekeeper’s coming to clean your place at 8 o'clock. You get what I mean?”

“Oh, so now you get my point, huh, you geniuses?” Maria mocked.

Harry stiffened and murmured, “I can’t let her see me like this.”

“Can’t let her see you like this? She shouldn’t see you or any of us here, man! The whole thing will be revealed!”

“Well, it was bound to happen. Let it be,” Maria chimed in.

Harry squinted at her and stood up, but dizziness swept over him. “Whoa, I think I’m still feeling the effects of last night’s drinks.”

“How much did you even drink?” Maria scolded.

Oliver grabbed his arm and glanced at Maria. “Come on, help me out. We need to get this big guy out of here.” “Are we really going to kidnap him from his own apartment? Seriously?” she whimpered, but she slipped under Harry’s other arm to assist him. “Ugh, you smell like an ashtray, hermano.”

They made their way to the elevator, and Oliver pressed the button. “You hold him up, and I’ll grab his things.”

“Get that dress out of sight!” Harry called. “She can’t see it.”

Oliver nodded and dashed back inside.

“Are we in high school or something? I’m a 42-year-old mother; I’m too old for this. You need to come clean to that girl already,” Maria muttered.

“Stop whining. You’ve been in worse situations. Have you forgotten how many times I’ve pulled you out of a mess?”

“Hey, that was when I was in my 20s! Plus, I’ve never been as pathetic as you!”

“Yeah? Who was the one crying on that married ship captain’s doorstep for hours? I got slapped in the face by his wife because of you.”

Maria swallowed hard, averting her gaze. “You really do have a good memory for a drunk.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” Oliver said as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button.

When they hit the ground floor, they rushed toward the exit, but when Oliver spotted you approaching through the glass door, he froze again. “She’s coming! Turn around now!”

“There’s no other way out,” Maria snapped.

“The other elevator!” Harry pointed.

“That makes sense,” Oliver agreed.

They hurried to that elevator and hit the button. Luckily, it was on that floor, and when the door opened, they slipped inside. Oliver grumbled as he pressed the buttons in a frenzy.

Unaware of everything, you stepped inside the apartment. Just as you turned to look in that direction, you heard the elevator doors closing. Oliver, Harry, and Maria breathed a sigh of relief as you walked straight to the staff's quarters to change.

Oliver kept his finger on the door-close button, waiting.

“I think we’re safe,” Oliver grinned.

“What a morning,” Maria muttered.

Then someone called the elevator to the tenth floor, and it started moving.

“What are you doing, man? We need to get out of here now!” Harry grunted.

“What can I do? I can't keep pressing the button every second!”

When the elevator arrived on the tenth floor, the doors opened to reveal a little boy frowning at them, school bag slung over his shoulder. "Were you the ones keeping the elevator busy? That’s so wrong."

Harry and Oliver shared an awkward glance, embarrassed.

“Sorry, little buddy,” Harry forced a smile.

“Going to school, huh?” Oliver asked nervously.

“Well, I was, but now I’m going to be late thanks to you!” The boy sniffled, shaking his head. “Drunks, seriously.”

Maria covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. The little boy stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.

After an awkward ride down, they finally stepped outside. Maria turned toward her car and said, “All we needed was to get scolded by a little kid. Thank you, Harry, for this wonderful morning."

“I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous,” Oliver laughed.

“Come on, get in, you big babies,” Maria said, pressing the key fob to unlock her car.

“Where to?” Harry asked, opening the door.

“To get scolded by another kid.”

“Your place?”

“Well, if you can’t stay in your own house, what choice do you have? Get in, sneaky ass.”

Before hopping into the car, Harry glanced up at the top floor of the building—his apartment. A sense of sadness washed over him, knowing you would have to clean up the mess he left behind.

“Oh, my God…”

As you stepped into the apartment, the sight—and the smell—caught you off guard. What on earth had happened here? Did they throw a party last night or something? Clearly, the owner had his share of trouble, maybe he was not so innocent after all.

First things first, you rushed to the windows, flipped the hidden lever, and let some fresh air flow through. Taking a deep breath, you grabbed a big garbage bag and started clearing the floor of empty bottles and cigarette butts from the overflowing ashtray. As you cleaned, your curiosity kicked in. It couldn’t have been a wild party; only one couch was askew while the others remained untouched and tidy. The kitchen showed no signs of food; just a multitude of empty glasses scattered around.

You scanned the room—no lipstick on any glasses, no hair on the floor, so it was obvious no woman had crashed here. Maybe the two guys just shared a few drinks and chatted? Or maybe the owner just got dumped or something.

You smiled yourself and shook your head.

"Just do your job, girl. It's none of your business," you muttered.

Meanwhile, Harry sat in Maria's living room, staring blankly at the screen. "What are you, Sherlock Holmes?" He smirked.

"Is she suspicious?” Oliver asked.

“She was at first, but I think we're good,” Harry said, flopping onto the couch.

“For now,” Maria chimed in, pouring herself a glass of water. “But she’ll figure it out sooner or later and give you a good kick on the-- Oh, is someone awake?"

Maria’s daughter, Mia, came into the room, spotted Harry, and smiled. “Uncle Harry!”

Harry sat up and patted her head. “What’s up, darling? How’s it going?”

“Fine, but are you sick or something?” she asked with concern.

“Just a bit tired,” he replied, stretching out on the couch.

"Or hangover?" she grinned.

Harry chuckled. "Smart girl."

“What’s up, sweetheart?” Oliver said, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Same old, school stuff,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Mia, eat your breakfast; I’ll take you to school,” Maria said, pointing to the plate on the counter.

“You skipped work, so I should get to skip school too, right?” Mia muttered.

Maria frowned, “Who said we skipped work, smartypants? Now hurry up, or you’ll be late!”

Mia huffed but sat down. “If you didn’t skip work, why are you both here while everyone else is working? And why’s Uncle Harry in Dad’s shirt?”

Maria chuckled, “Because he got kicked out of his own apartment.”

Mia took a big bite of her toast and looked at Harry inquisitively. “Oh! Did you leave your key inside? Mom did it once.”

“Thanks for bringing that up, kiddo,” Maria said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, we’re late! Just eat that on the way,” she added, grabbing her school bag and urging Mia to finish her juice.

“Good luck at school,” Harry waved as Mia headed toward the door.

“Catch you later, princess,” Oliver called back.

Mia waved goodbye, and as Maria followed her out, she turned back to Harry. “You’d better be in better shape by the time I get back, Romeo,” she warned before closing the door behind her.

Oliver turned to Harry, “She’s right, man. You need to pull yourself together; you look worn out. Even a shower didn’t lift your spirits. Want me to whip you up something to eat?”

Harry let out a deep sigh. “No, thanks. I don’t have an appetite.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes. “Okay, that has me worried. There’s definitely something you’re not saying.”

“Well, I couldn’t say it in front of Maria, but I’ve got an issue,” Harry finally admitted.

“Yeah, I can see that. But it looks like you’ve got more than one thing going on,” Oliver said, grinning. But then he noticed the seriousness in Harry’s face and softened. “What can I do? Just tell me what you need.”

Harry huffed, swallowing hard. “I need her.”

“Dude. Tell me something I don't know."

He huffed again.

"Okay, she’ll come around if you just give it some time—”

“You don’t get it,” Harry snapped, sitting up to face Oliver. “I...really...need...her,” he emphasized, his breathing steadying as he spoke.

Oliver frowned, sensing the weight of his words. “Go on,” he urged gently.

“Every thought I have revolves around her. That night in Paris haunts me…her skin, her scent, her...”

Oliver raised a hand to stop him. “Whoa. I get it, man. No need to go into detail.”

“The memories consume me, and they’ve left me in a real bind,” he said frankly. "It's like a unique kind of erotic film that continuously plays in my mind, and she is the only actress. But I can't do anything; I'm just watching in awe."

“Can't do anything? But, I mean, come on. You—surely you’ve tried—”

“Everything. From the erotic to the pharmaceutical.”

Oliver chuckled, unable to help himself. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny, but this is just bizarre, man. It’s oddly romantic too,” he said, laughing again.

“I guess it's because I’ve never faced rejection before. All I can think about is her. Maybe that’s how my body reacts, and maybe I’m—”

“In love.”

A short silence hung in the air. “Yes, I am,” Harry admitted.

“Well, If you ask me, you haven’t really tried everything yet,” Oliver suggested.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, curious.

“Listen, it doesn’t have to be about hooking up with her to solve your mechanical issues, you know? There are plenty of women out there who would be interested—like through escort services or sex workers.”

“No, never!” Harry barked. “I can’t cheat on her. Do you even hear what you’re saying?”

“Cheating? Is she your wife? You’re not even dating! That’s not cheating, man.”

“It wouldn’t even matter. It wouldn't work. I can’t think about anyone else. I just want her, only her.”

“Alright, but I’m out. You’re asking me to help with something I can’t fix. Plus, that girl you "want" is super stubborn. It’s definitely not going to be easy.”

“Yeah, thanks for the heads up,” he grumbled.

Oliver stood up, shrugging. “Try to get some sleep. Maybe that’ll help clear your head.”

Harry nodded and flopped back on the couch, opening his tablet to check what you were doing. Oliver shook his head when he caught sight of the goofy smile spreading across Harry’s face.

Once he stepped into the garden, he pulled out his phone and called Maria. “Hey it's me. Listen, Harry's got a bigger problem than we realized. I think you need to step in now.”

After finally wrapping up the cleaning of the apartment, thoughts of Harry filled your mind as you stepped outside. He had been on your mind all day, especially since he hadn’t reached out with a text or call since last night. You couldn’t shake the feeling of how much you missed his playful messages.

The nagging worry that you might have upset him echoed in your mind, driving you a bit crazy.

But how could you express your feelings when you weren't fully ready?

When the moment to speak your truth arrived, you wanted to pour your heart out.

You shouldn’t have brushed it off as if it didn't matter, right?

As you walked down the street, the happy couples around you caught your attention, casually dropping “I love you” into their conversations. In the past, you would have thought little of it, but now it felt like a constant reminder of what you were missing. Another couple strolled by, murmuring those same words. Then, on the subway, a woman sat next to you, holding hands with her boyfriend or husband. And there it was again—“I love you.”

Feeling unworthy, you got up and told the guy that you would get off at the next stop anyway, nudging him to sit next to his partner. You felt like you didn't deserve to be there next to them, especially when you couldn’t even tell the man you loved that you loved him back.

They seemed to express their feelings so effortlessly, while you struggled, so you decided it was better to step aside as a form of penance.

Yeah, you were really losing it.

When another cheerful couple boarded the train, and more declarations of love surrounded you, you reached your breaking point. You hopped off at the next station, even if it meant getting off three stops early. The heaviness of guilt was the last thing you needed, yet it hung heavily on your shoulders.

It felt as if your mind was caught in a tug-of-war, much like a dull quiz show.

Congratulations!

You've won yourself a lengthy walk home as a consolation prize!

Once you got home and recounted last night’s events to Zoe, her reaction was immediate. “He told you he loved you, and you did what? Just walked away?” she exclaimed. "Girl, are you crazy? You’re in love with him, for fuck sake! Call him right now and say you want to talk."

From the corner of the couch, you frowned at her. “I told you I’m not ready yet.”

Zoe rolled her eyes as if you had just said the most absurd thing. "If John told me he loved me, you'd be surprised how quickly my panties would fall down."

You grimaced. "Ugh, slutty much?"

"Stubborn much?" she shot back. “Don’t come crying to me if you lose him to someone else because you overthink everything.”

You let out a huff and stood up. “I’m heading to my room,” you muttered. “Good night.”

"Think about what I said! Tell him you love him before it's too late, you silly!"

Ughhhhh.

It was as if she was inside your head. You knew that if you didn’t speak up, other women would be swarming around him like a pack of hyenas.

You flopped onto your bed, feeling as though you were collapsing under the weight of it all, and sighed deeply. Checking your phone, you noticed there were no messages. You opened Instagram, scrolled through his comments on your photos filled with heart emojis, and couldn’t help but smile, even giggling like a little girl. Then you clicked on his profile and browsed through his pictures one by one. That’s when your heart began to race.

Thump, thump, thump.

Perhaps it was simply your body’s instinctive response.

Screaming.

It certainly seemed to convey your feelings more effectively than your words ever could.

You turned off your phone, placing it face down on the nightstand.

It was time to come clean.

You missed his messages, longed for the sound of his voice, craved his smile and his touch, and you knew that if this dragged on for another day, you’d toss your pride out the window without a second thought.

The next day?

The next day was even worse. You had hoped for a cheerful morning message from him, but when you picked up your phone and flipped it over to check the screen, all you found were a few advertisements—nothing from him.

Frustrated, you sat up in bed, seething with anger.

Why were you so upset?

Why did this feeling of abandonment weigh on you?

Your emotions took a turn, and frustration morphed into remorse.

Great!

In a fit of anger, you snatched your pillow and flung it against the wall. Just then, Zoe opened your door and stumbled in.

“What on earth is going on here?” The pillow landed at her feet. “Hey, do you want me to injure my other ankle too?”

You jumped out of bed and grabbed her arm, checking her ankle. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

“I think so, but you definitely don’t seem okay.”

“I’m fine,” you mumbled.

“Yeah, right. You’re just great,” she teased. “And this pillow must be flying in from all the happiness.”

“Alright, that's enough. I need to head to the hotel,” you muttered as you opened your wardrobe to get ready.

“Oh, by the way! While you’re out, can you grab some ointment from the pharmacy?”

You rolled your eyes as you put on your pants. “Let me guess, you’ve used it all up, haven’t you?”

“What else am I supposed to do? I want to heal fast; I’m so over staying at home.”

"You gotta take it easy, sweetie. Just be patient."

“Well, I’m not as patient as you are, sorry.” She shot back with a grin.

"Just like that, and nobody got a clue, and the wedding went off without a hitch."

You were chatting with Bruno about how you managed to save the wedding cake at the last minute.

"Ah, cara mia, you’re great. Taking risks is crucial if you want to grab those chances. Being brave and going for it, no matter how it turns out, is what really counts, even if you mess up at the end," Bruno said proudly. He leaned over the counter and winked at you. "Just kidding, but seriously, try not to mess it up,” he added with a chuckle.

You laughed, but his words lingered in your mind, making your smile fade.

Being brave and going for it, no matter how it turns out.

Wasn’t love worth that risk?

Absolutely, it was worth it.

He was worth it.

Lost in your thoughts, you finally heard the waitress calling your name. “Huh? Sorry, what was that?” you asked, pulling yourself back to the moment.

“I was just saying that Mr. Finnegan's girlfriend and her friends are here, and she wants to see who made the dessert — which is you,” the waitress replied.

“Oh look, my assistant is on her way to becoming a chef,” Bruno said, grinning as he continued slicing the cheese.

“Or on the path to getting fired,” you muttered under your breath.

You were quite sure that Lucy didn’t like you at all.

As you walked into the dining room, you couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh when you saw Lucy and the two women sitting across from her. Lucy flashed a tight smile that didn’t do much to ease your discomfort. The other women were giving you the once-over, evaluating you from head to toe.

“Here’s the person who made this delicious dessert, ladies,” Lucy announced, with a fake smile.

“But isn’t that the waitress who danced with Harry Castillo at the wedding?” one of the women said, looking totally shocked.

“Aren’t you that maid?” the other woman added with growing astonishment. “The one who hacked our system, impersonated someone else, and embarrassed us in front of all our customers? How many faces do you really have?”

“Seems like she’s trying to snag both Castillo and Finnegan,” one of them remarked, glancing at Lucy with a knowing look.

"A gold digger for sure."

All three women were looking right at you, as if you owed them some kind of explanation. Even the people at the next table were tuning in, throwing you judgmental looks that only made your embarrassment and anger worse. You gripped your apron tightly, feeling the heat rise in your cheeks.

Just then, Maria entered the dining room, her eyes narrowing at the scene unfolding before her. She shared in your anger.

One of the women pushed her plate away with a grimace and said, “I can’t eat this. It’s making me feel sick.” With a little shove, the plate slid off the table and hit the floor. “Oops! Well, lucky we’ve got a cleaner around. What are you waiting for? Clean this mess up!"

You shot her an incredulous glare; this was too much.

“Looks like someone’s itching for a fight,” Maria muttered as she strode confidently towards their table. “That’s not a cleaner, that’s a maid, you illiterate bitch,” she snapped.

Everyone shifted their attention to her, including you.

“Maria—” Lucy froze, taken aback.

The woman looked annoyed and shot back, “Who the hell are you talking to?”

Ignoring her, Maria turned to the other woman, the matchmaker. “It wasn’t her who hacked your system; it was Melanie and her minions. Why are you taking your anger out on this girl? And what kind of system collapses at the slightest breach? Everyone should steer clear of this matchmaking company,” she declared, her voice rising for all to hear. “If their tech team is so incompetent they can’t protect customer credentials, consider what they’d do with your credit card info! Scammers would be the best-case scenario.”

Trembling with fury, she hissed, “And who even are you—”

“Me?" She adjusted her hair in a swift move. "María Elisa Rivera Armada,” she replied coolly, crossing her arms defiantly.

A hush fell over the room; they clearly recognized her name, her connections, and her influence. The two women exchanged nervous glances before rising to leave.

“I’d better go,” one of them muttered under her breath.

Other one joined her.

Maria stepped in front of them, her expression serious. “Are you really going to leave without apologizing to her?”

Both women turned to you, quickly avoiding eye contact. “We’re sorry,” they mumbled.

“Look at them,” Maria shot back, clearly disappointed. “You were loud enough to throw insults but now I can barely hear you.”

Lucy opened her mouth to say something but held back, choosing to steer clear of a fight with her. The women repeated their apologies and hurried out.

Maria took Lucy by the arm as she stood up. You couldn't hear over their conversation while you helped the waitress clean the floor.

“I didn’t confront you earlier for what you did to Harry, because I was caught up in my own divorce and dealing with depression." Maria said to Lucy. "But let me make this clear: if you ever mess with her again, I’ll step in before Harry ever does. Got it? Just a heads up, the crazy bitch is in town and ready to kick some ass."

Lucy narrowed her eyes defiantly. “I didn’t say anything she hasn’t done. Besides, I really don’t care if Harry likes her; I just want her to stay away from Alan.”

Maria laughed cruelly and leaned in closer. "Maybe it’s Alan who needs to keep his distance from her, don’t you think? Why don’t you go and tell your boyfriend about it and see how he reacts?"

Lucy’s face flushed with anger as she stormed out of the room.

A soft murmur spread among those eating; some must have known Maria. Unbothered, Maria took a seat in the chair left vacant by Lucy and looked at you. “Don’t just stand there like a scarecrow; come sit,” she said.

“I could have handled them too, you know,” you muttered as you settled at the table.

Maria pulled Lucy's untouched dessert plate towards her. “Oh, darling, you shouldn’t have to stoop to their level. You’re too good for that.” She glanced at you and winked. “You’re like an angel; keep that up.” Then she took a big forkful of dessert. “Oh, this is fucking delicious.” She took another hefty bite.

You chuckled. "Bon appétit, Mrs. Rivera. By the way, thanks for that; I wasn’t sure how to respond. I mean, I’m used to getting scolded, but those accusations were a bit much."

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. It’s been a while since I’ve acted like that, and it felt so good,” she said with a laugh.

“You were really cool,” you replied with a smile.

"I should be a bit tough on you too, you know. You deserve it," she said, eyeing the dessert.

You were taken aback. "Me? Wh-why?"

Maria shot you a serious look. “Oh, you know very well.”

Silence hung between you for a moment as you averted your gaze and sighed.

“Look, I’m not great at lying, and I’m pretty upfront, even when trouble’s on the horizon. So here’s the deal,” she said earnestly.

You nodded, sensing what was coming next.

“Listen,” Maria sighed. “I’m not going to beg you like 'He loves you—just tell him you love him back, please'. No. Let’s just cut to the chase. Are Harry’s feelings mutual or not? I need to know. Is there any hope? Because he’s like my brother, and I can’t bear to see him suffer like this. Do you understand?” she added, her tone sincere.

“Maria, I don’t want him to hurt either, but is he okay? He hasn’t called me for days,” you replied, worry creeping into your voice.

Maria smiled softly.

“I don’t really know what to do anymore. I never meant to hurt him; I would never intentionally do that,” you admitted, lowering your head.

Maria’s smile turned into one of satisfaction. She had found the answer she sought. “He’s fine,” she said coldly, wiping a bit of cream from the corner of her mouth. “Well, he will be; I’ll make sure of it as his friend.” She stood up suddenly. “But I wish you had been there; by his side, it would’ve made everything much better. But again, it’s all right.”

You stood up too, trying to grasp what she meant.

“Remember. No one is irreplaceable, not even you.”

You frowned slightly. “That’s a bit—”

“Bitchy? It’s just my protective side coming out. Harry is family to me, and I tend to be overprotective of my family.” She leaned in and spoke in a lower voice. “Here’s a warning for you: you’re on the verge of letting him slip away, so you’d better act quickly.” She winked at you before turning on her heel, leaving you in awe as you watched her walk away.

Maria hopped into the car waiting for her, Oliver was in the driver’s seat, giving her a curious look.

“Well?”

“Good news, she’s totally in love with Harry,” she said with a grin.

“Then she’ll tell him, right? That’s awesome!” he replied, looking relieved.

“Hmm, I don’t think so. Not anytime soon, anyway.”

“What? Why not?”

“She just needs a little push.”

"Alright, we need to bring them together. Should I arrange a date?"

Maria rolled her eyes. “What’s it like in that little head of yours, Ollie? You men are really simple creatures."

Oliver frowned. “What does that even mean?”

“Never mind. I’ll handle it,” she said, pulling out her phone to text.

“How? What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to give her a little nudge, get her emotions going, and light that fire.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Jealousy, Ollie. Jealousy.”

Oliver leaned in to take a look at her phone. “Stella? Oh boy, Harry’s not going to like this.”

“As long as he doesn’t find out, we’ll be fine. So you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

“But what if she ends up hating Harry instead of feeling jealous? How can you be sure?”

Maria shot him a glare. “My seventy-year-old grandmother divorced my grandfather out of jealousy after fifty years of marriage. It’s one of the most primitive and powerful emotions a human can experience; it activates everything within you. Trust me—our little cat will turn into a tiger.”

It was yet another dreary morning, and you had to admit—another day without his good morning text was not going well at all.

Then there was Maria's comment. She must really have a knack for manipulation.

What did she say again?

“No one is irreplaceable.”

Did Harry actually say that, or was it her idea? No, Harry wouldn’t say something like that.

Would he?

Who knows?

He hadn’t been around for three days; maybe that’s what he thought now. You rolled over in bed, burying your face in the pillow and letting out a frustrated growl.

Why did it hurt so much?

It just made you mad. You felt like there was nothing you could do, like it was too late. You hated that feeling.

The door swung open, and Zoe peeked in. "If you're going to smother yourself, you should probably put your head under the pillow instead."

You shot her a glare. “Oh really? Why don’t you come show me how it’s done?”

She let out a wicked laugh. “So, you still haven’t called him, huh? Babe, you’re way past the ‘he should call first’ phase, don’t you think?”

You sprang up, fired up. “Don’t start on me too, Zoe! I’ve got enough people coming at me!”

She narrowed her eyes at you as you stormed out of the room. “Who else is coming at you? Although I shouldn’t be surprised! Your stubbornness must be famous!” she shouted after you.

When you got to the hotel, things just went downhill from there. You were so distracted that you messed up a bunch of things, and Bruno had to tell you to head home early. You were actually relieved because you really weren’t feeling up to working. On your way back, all you could think about was Harry. You typed out a ton of messages but ended up deleting them all before hitting send. You were itching to get the scoop about his house from Oliver so you could figure things out. You were desperate to see him. You couldn’t tell if he was just playing games or if he actually wanted you to chase after him.

But you knew you had to do something.

Just then, waiting at a red light to turn green, your phone buzzed.

Mr. Ol’man sent you a photo.

You opened the message quickly, and your heart raced as you did so without thinking.

Once upon a time, you used to have pride.

You saw the photo he sent you and froze in the middle of the crosswalk.

There was Harry, enjoying drinks in a bar with a super-hot, blonde woman, clinking glasses and laughing at the camera.

Laughing.

Happy.

With a woman.

In a bar, drinking.

Harry.

The man you loved.

The man who told you he loved you a few nights back.

Suddenly, the blaring horn of a car jolted you back to reality, realizing you were still standing in the street. You hurried across and leaned against a nearby wall to catch your breath. Your heart was pounding now, but it was all anger. It felt like fire was coursing through your veins. Then you got another message, and it only stoked the flames.

“Sorry, I sent it to you by mistake. I meant to send it to Stella.”

Stella.

Oh, come on! Seriously?

You felt a wave of anger and hurt, your body shaking as if jolted by a live wire. It took you a minute to think straight. This had to be some sort of game. There was no way it was real. It was just his way of messing with you. But what if it wasn’t?

No, you couldn’t think clearly; your mind was clouded. One emotion dominated your thoughts, taking control of your entire being.

Jealousy.

You were furious and incredibly jealous.

Tears of anger streamed down your face as you walked aimlessly down the street. While wrestling with what to do next, another message pinged on your phone.

It was from Maria.

“The King Cole Bar. Better hurry, sis; this skank’s all over Harry.”

That was the last straw.

You had to go there.

But how? You knew that place was fancy; there was no way you could walk in looking like you were right then, or in any of your clothes, honestly. In that moment, you did something rash, something that felt immature, and you’d probably regret later, but anger and jealousy took charge.

You didn’t care about the fallout.

You called her on your phone, the one saved under “trouble.”

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” you muttered under your breath. Sharing a limo with Melanie and Nate, and unintentionally overhearing their steamy chatter was too much to bear.

“God, just end my misery,” you thought grimly.

“Hey, we skipped our program for you tonight,” Melanie hissed. “How about a little gratitude?”

“So you two are together now? That's more disgusting than the most disgusting thing I can think of.”

“You really,” Melanie grunted.

Nate's hands were all over her. “Never mind her, baby, she's jealous of us.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh yeah! I'm dying of jealousy!”

“Maybe not us, but you're insanely jealous of your boyfriend,” Melanie giggled. ‘’I see what you are doing, that's a lame excuse.”

“Mind your own business,” you barked.

“Exactly, honey, let's mind our own business,” Nate licked her neck.

Ugh, you looked away and ignored them, feeling nauseous.

At least Melanie, annoying as she could be, had brought you a dress and shoes.

Of course, it wasn't for nothing.

You promised to talk to Jack about her in return.

The limo pulled up near the bar and you got out. No, you jumped out, because the two of them were getting into it. You hurriedly told the limo driver to get lost, the two of them didn't even look back, they were too busy.

You sighed as you read the name of the bar from the elegant logo above the black entrance door. “This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever done,” you muttered. People were looking at you with interest when they passed by the bar. Oh that's right, Melanie and her dress sense, she liked to look like a little slut.

So the red halter dress you were wearing was not so short but a bit revealing, with a deep slit on your right side that shows off your thigh with every step. You felt like a neon sign flashing, “Look at me!”

Thanks a lot, Melanie.

Did it really have to be red?

You tugged at the tight black jacket, trying to cover yourself up, but it wasn’t working. The doorman checked you out, grinning as he happily welcomed you inside.

As you stepped in, all eyes were on you, and you felt your cheeks heat up.

Just perfect.

You chose the corner table and sat down immediately, trying to ignore the stares. You covered your face with the menu and looked around.

Where the hell were they?

The stares were becoming increasingly uncomfortable. After all, you were stunning, dressed to impress, and scanning the room as if you were searching for someone special. Who could say what thoughts were running through their minds?

Finally, you spotted them—Maria, Oliver, and Harry sitting at the bar. But where was the woman from the photo he sent? You looked again. There were no blondes in sight—just a couple with other people, none that looked like her. What’s going on? Just then, your phone buzzed. It was a text from Maria.

“Looking for Stella? That photo was from last year, honey.”

You shot her a quick glance, and she winked at you with a sly grin.

Seriously?

Had she played you?

Maria nudged Harry to look your way, and the moment he turned, you quickly looked away.

The instant Harry noticed you, he nearly choked on the whiskey he was sipping, looking utterly stunned.

But honestly, you couldn’t care less; they had all been playing games with you, and you felt like a total fool.

You got up in a huff and tried to leave, but as luck would have it, you bumped into a guy. Of course, he was holding a glass of scotch, and the impact sent it splashing all over you—on your jacket, your chest, everywhere. The cold liquid, still icy, made you shiver when it hit your skin. Some even dribbled down into your expensive bra—the one you had saved up for.

Just fantastic.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he said, looking younger than you, his eyes glued to one spot—your breasts. You were the one who bumped into him, but he was the one needing to apologize, yes he should. He grabbed a napkin from the table, still staring at your chest like he was talking directly to it. “Can I wipe that up, p-please?” he asked, way too eager.

Seriously, was he a fucking teenager or what?

You instinctively pulled back, trying to cover yourself with your arm. “No thanks,” you replied tersely.

In that moment, three things happened at once. Maria dropped her bag right on the guy's head, Harry yanked your wrist and pulled you behind him, and Oliver stepped up next to you, giving that guy a fierce look.

“Are you a creep or what?” Maria shouted.

“How dare you touch her?” Harry barked.

“Who the hell are you people?” the guy shot back.

“I’m her boyfriend, so what?” Harry replied.

“And I’m her sister,” Maria jumped in.

“And I'm her brother,” Oliver added.

Wow, here's your saviors.

That’s when you figured it was your moment to mess with them. “Excuse me, but I don’t even know you guys, so you can sort this out on your own,” you said, not bothering to look at them. You couldn’t help but enjoy the shocked looks on their faces as you turned and headed for the exit.

“Where do you think you're going?” Harry yelled after you. He bumped into the guy, causing him to stumble, and ran after you.

Once you stepped outside, you purposely took off your jacket, making sure your wet top was on full display. “My jacket is ruined,” you said, glancing up at Harry.

People walking by stared, even whistling. Harry growled, took off his own jacket, and wrapped it around you. “You think that's funny? Are you playing games now?”

“Look who’s talking,” you shot back, frowning. “You messed with me, so we’re even now.”

He raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. “Messed with you?”

You gave him a swift kick with your high heel, aiming right for his leg, and he groaned. "Ahh, what the-"

“You made a fool out of me; I won’t forget that.”

He bent down, rubbing his leg where you kicked him. “What are you talking about?” he asked, gritting his teeth.

With a sigh, you took your phone from your bag and showed him the photo and text that Maria had sent.

Harry’s face went from surprised to narrowed. “Maria… Now that makes sense. She took my phone and kept telling me not to call or text you.”

Just then, Maria and Oliver came out of the bar and walked up to you. Harry turned to her, clearly angry. “How could you do that?”

“Hey, I was just looking out for you! I had to step in a little, but guess what---it worked!”

Then he looked at Oliver. “You’re in this too?”

“I told her not to,” Oliver replied, sounding nervous.

Maria glared at him. “You sold me out, you cabrón.”

“Come on, I told you this wouldn’t end well,” he said.

You turned to Maria, upset. “You tricked me. Seriously, how could you?”

“Come on, you two are totally into each other. And you girl, you are dying to be with him! Just admit it!”

“Don’t you dare show your face around me again,” you said, eyeing Harry. “You too.” Then, you turned on your heel.

“Stop right there, sweetheart; you are not going anywhere,” he said, blocking your path. “We need to talk, and this time you’re not running away.”

You looked at him, surprised. “I’m not running away,” you mumbled. “If you want to talk, fine, but not out here; I’m freezing.”

He nodded, “Come here,” he said softly, putting his arm around you. “Oliver, give me the car keys.”

“Are we heading to your place?” you asked.

“No!” Harry snapped, making you jump a little.

“Not there,” Oliver added, looking uneasy.

“Oops,” Maria giggled.

What the hell was that?

You shot them a skeptical glance. “Seriously? Are you living in some kind of secret Batcave or what?"

Harry chuckled. “Very funny. The thing is, we can't go to my place because…”

“Because?”

“There’s a bit of an insect invasion,” Oliver chimed in. “The house is being fumigated, so…”

It seemed like a weak excuse, but perhaps it was the truth; you decided to stop probing. “So, where are you staying now?” you asked.

“Just at the hotel, of course,” Maria replied casually.

“Right, the hotel,” Harry mumbled.

“I’ll drive you there; you’ve had too much to drink, you can't drive,” Oliver said, heading for the car.

You turned to Harry, catching a glimpse of something strange in his expression but didn’t dwell on it. The thought of being alone with him was actually appealing.

Fuck all your pride and stubbornness.

Yeah, it was definitely time to follow your heart.

“Memories, huh?” you mutter as the elevator smoothly ascends to the top-floor suite.

Harry's gaze was locked onto you, his breath coming in steady but heavy bursts. “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied, tilting his head slightly to the side.

Was he checking out your ass?

It didn’t really matter; he could look all he wanted, and honestly, you wanted him to do more—like touch you, everywhere.

Right, why wasn’t he?

What was he waiting for?

Oh right, those damn cameras.

As you walked into the room, he clasped your hand tightly. When you reached the door, he pulled the card from his pocket, swiped it, and the door swung open. “Ladies first,” he said with a gesture, inviting you inside.

His voice was a bit shaky, making you bite your lip to keep from giggling. He followed you inside and closed the door with a firm click, almost as if he was making sure you were alone. You took off his jacket and handed it back to him, trying to keep a straight face. “Thanks for the jacket—”

And he lunged at you. He threw the jacket angrily and wrapped his arms around you, pulled you to him and captured your lips with his mouth. He kissed you passionately, longingly, hungrily, like you were his oxygen and he was underwater in a sea of lust.

“Harry," You breathed trying to break the kiss, but his lips closed in on yours again before you could utter another word. You sighed softly against him, your arms instinctively wrapping around his neck. As your hands slid down to his biceps, you clung to him, feeling the undeniable strength beneath the fabric, lost in the intensity of the moment.

"I thought we were just going to talk," you said mockingly, tilting your head to the side. His gaze remained fixed on your chest.

"Later, baby. With you dressed like that, I might not be able to concentrate. You look exquisite," he breathed, his voice laced with a seductive tone that made you weak in the knees.

A smile broke across your face, “You’re looking quite handsome yourself.”

And he truly was, his black long-sleeved shirt clinging perfectly to his well-defined frame.

The atmosphere crackled with an electric tension the moment his gaze settled on you. You craved to keep him focused solely on you, yearning for his eyes to linger endlessly. Those captivating brown eyes, glimmering like precious jewels, seemed to caress every inch of you, leaving you breathless and wanting more.

"Your dress is soaking wet," he said breathlessly, his hands gliding over the damp fabric, brushing against your breasts. They instantly hardened at his touch, which they had been longing for. You bit your lower lip.

"It's not just my dress," you whispered slowly in his ear.

He darkly chuckled, fire licking at your veins from the heat of his gaze, “Is that so? So you’re saying that If I touch you, I will find you ready for my cock?” he asked, grinning.

“Why not find out for yourself?” you teased.

His hand suddenly found itself trailing a path towards your bare legs to between your thighs, making you gasp. Holding on to his strong arms, the feel of his fingers trailing over your skin was a wonderful, delicious shock that left you breathless.

“Playing with fire would be dangerous, you know,” he growled low, so low, it reverberated through your chest. And through the partition of the dress, that slit that split mid-thigh, he caressed up your leg, towards your hip.

You almost mewled.

Almost.

“I'm not playing,” you murmured, half panting.

He chuckled again, that dark, seductive glee escaping from him in agonizing, tantalizing waves. “You decided to be a good girl then?” he stared at you, eyes molten pools of lust. “It surprises me you acquiesced, given how stubborn you are. Hmm, maybe I should reward you,” he whispered while his hand still deliciously trailed a lazy path over and around.

Who was playing now?

It sure wasn't you.

You were already past the playing part, you were dripping.

He knew, of course, he fucking knew, without even having to touch...

But he did touch, sliding his hands under your dress down to your wet panties, his fingers pushing them aside, there it was; he could feel your lips, drenched and ready.

You bucked against his palm, aching for more but he deliberately pulled away.

You frowned in response.

Damn.

He chuckled delightfully, looking at his fingers coated with your wetness, “My darling kitty, you’re completely soaked. So you were being honest, after all. Such a good girl. Are you hoping for a reward?”

“Just give it to me already,” you urged, gripping him tightly and pressing yourself against him, ignoring the feeling of a deep blush spread across your cheeks.

“Oh, I will, sweetheart,” he said with a sly smile. He spun you around, pulling you firmly against him. Before you could even process what was happening, his strong arms enveloped you, and you felt his chin just above your ear and his clothed cock pressing against your thighs; you could feel beneath the fabric; it was hard, painfully hard, and you gasped. "You drive me so fucking crazy. I want so bad to slide into that sweet wet pussy and feel it all tight and hot around me while I pound into you.” He purred, “But first, there’s something I want you to do.” He touched your lips, then chin, tracing his fingertip down the line of your throat, over the hollow of your collarbone, down to the swelled curve of your breasts. His other hand had already slipped under the slit in your dress and found your dripping pussy once more, you bit your lower lip hard. The hand at your sex continued to tease you, lazily circling your entrance.

Fuck.

You shuddered under his touch and words, your back arched, eyes rolling, moaning softly.

"Will you do what I want, baby?” he asked as if you might protest.

“Whatever you want,” you whispered, eyes closed and completely surrendered to him, it was all too much and you were helpless in the face of this torture, you were melting.

He had to do what he had to do already, he had to do it before you lost your fucking mind.

His other hand grabbed your head from behind and he tilted your head to the other side this time, you tilted your head back towards his other shoulder. You couldn't do anything, you had no choice but to let him play with you like a toy. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered in a demanding tone.

It took you a second to figure out what had just happened, then you opened your eyes and frowned. “What the hell? Are you really trying to seduce me into saying that?”

"You left me no choice. Now say it, come on, I'm waiting."

In that moment, your stubbornness flared up because he had pushed you, forcing you to say that. But those wonderful fingers stroking your pussy so incredibly slowly, damn it, it made you stop thinking.

“Say it,” he said, sounding a bit impatient this time. He grabbed the strap of your dress and pulled it down to your waist. "I know you love me, so spill it. I’m not letting you leave this room until you do."

You turned your head to him, "Wait, what did you say? You can't do that."

“Watch me,” he said, yanking the dress down off your waist until it fell to the floor. “Now, darling, you’ve got two options,” he said, pulling you closer. You tried to struggle, but there was no breaking free from his grip. “The easy way or the hard way.”

“I get the easy way, but what’s the hard way, Mr. Castillo?” you scoffed.

He smirked, turned you around, this time you faced him. You deliberately took a step backwards, he was unbuttoning his shirt as he stepped towards you. “So you're taking the hard way?” he said huskily and kept walking towards you, and you kept going backwards.

Until your back hit the wall.

He leaned in, one hand against the wall next to you while the other gripped the strap of your bra. His gaze was intense as his fingers played with the lace. Then, feeling impatient, he quickly reached behind you, found the clasp of your wet bra, and undid it in no time. He kept his eyes locked on yours as he lifted your bra and tossed it on the floor. You could feel your face getting hot, and you bit your lip.

After that, he bent down to your level and lifted you by your hips. Your bare breasts rubbed against his bare chest, you both moaned. “Say it,” he said again, his breath hot on your skin.

But instead of answering, you held on to him, letting your hardened breasts torture him some more.

He growled in frustration and picked you up, carried you into the bedroom and threw you on the bed roughly making you gasp. You crawled backwards as he hurriedly took off his pants, your heart pounding in your throat, excited to see him completely naked.

Your gaze remained locked on his, biting your lip in anticipation.

But he was still lingering while taking his underpants off.

Finally.

You let out a happy sigh, taking in how breathtaking he looked. Impatiently, you shifted to the edge of the bed, grabbed his hand, and pulled him closer to you. He leaned over and let you pull him down on the bed on top of you.

“Getting a little impatient, are we?” He smirked at you. “You can speed up the process, you know,” he said pinning you to the bed with his weight, putting one knee between your not yet fully spread legs and grasping your wrists.

“Oh come on, this is getting ridiculous,” you muttered.

“But it’s so much fun,” he breathed out before lunging for your mouth, pulling deep, hungry kisses that leave you both panting harshly.

Proving in a way that he was an amazing kisser and hot as hell.

Needing to taste every inch of your flushed skin, he continued up the sharp line of your jaw, your wrists slipping from his grasp.

He let out a hot breath over your ear before running the tip of his tongue down the shell of it. A shiver ran up your spine, and you bit down on his shoulder, pulling a groan from his throat. You soothed the spot with your lips as your hands roamed his body, his muscles rippling under your fingers.

He made his way down your throat, kissing and nipping and swirling his tongue in all the right places, leaving goose bumps in his wake.

Next, the tip of his tongue traced the underside of your breast in a teasing, feather-light sweep, breathing out as he hovered above the peak of your nipple, almost touching it. He waited until your eyes locked and paused just for a moment before he dived down and captured you in his mouth roughly, sucking hard as he expertly used his lips, teeth, and tongue.

“Oh god,” you let slip out on a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, chest now heaving from the sudden onslaught. He let you slip slowly from his lips but added a quick kiss to the sensitive flesh, making you jump. Your fingers run through his curls as he lowers his head further.

“You’re so beautiful baby,” he hummed.

Without warning he ran the flat of his tongue over you again, causing your hips to buck.

You were on fire.

You were whimpering.

You needed him needed him so fucking bad.

“Harry…” you moaned when he finally spread your legs and made a slight contact with your clit.

Working you with his tongue, he placed lazy open-mouth kisses over your breasts. He teased your entrance with the head of his cock while sucking your nipples hungrily, relentlessly, making your eyes roll back with pleasure, your whole body tingling.

“Shit! Harry, I’m gonna--” Already worked up from all the teasing, the exquisite combination of sensations sent a jolt straight to your core, causing a small orgasm that surprised you both.

Whoa, that never happened to you before; you were still in shock.

But that wasn’t enough.

It didn't do anything to satiate you, though; it only made you want more.

What the hell got into you?

Damn it.

He snickered. “Yes, baby, say my name and say that word, and I will give you more," he hummed into your flesh.

“Are you going to fuck me or what?” you growled, almost sobbing.

“As soon as you say the damn word,” He growled back and rubbed the tip of his cock against your walls and you pressed your hips against him but he pulled back, still waiting. “Oh c’mon, tell me you love me already,” he hissed.

It was too much and frustrating

“I… Harry, I-” you panted, trying to use your words but you were failing.

“Go on,” he grunted, commanding.

It was too much and frustrating for him too.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore as his cock throbbed in agony, and with a quick and rough thrust, he buried himself inside you, but halfway through it yet was enough to make you jump and scream.

He pulled back again and sighed.

You leaned back into the pillows, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your legs around the backs of his. Your eyes met his, with a soft caress of his cheek, you whispered, "Harry Castillo... I love you... I love you so much that I do silly things because of you. I love you so much that I don’t want a single day to go by without you."

His lips curved up in a wide, victorious smile. "That's my girl. I love you too baby.”

He began to kiss you everywhere--- your cheeks, your nose your chin, your collarbone. And you moaned a little when he finally smashed his lips on yours, kissing you hungrily, his tongue sliding across your lower lip before nipping it. “That wasn't so hard, was it?” he grinned and kissed you again.

You managed to shake your head a little, blinking up at Harry as you panted broadly against his mouth. Your cunt throbbed around his cock as he fully sheathed himself in you. His fingers intertwined with yours, raising your joined hands to rest on the pillow beside you. He rolled his hips gently, then again as you whimpered, swirling his tongue with yours. He fucked you with slow, even strokes, trading slow kisses as you moaned and panted into one another's mouths.

He then broke the kiss, pressing his face into your neck as his thrusts became harder. You gasped, sinking your nails into his shoulders as you let your eyes slide closed. The bed was beginning to shake with his movements, and the slapping of your hips slightly echoed through the grand bedroom. You felt the familiar curling sensation beneath your waist, and you slid a hand down, grasping his behind and using the grip to urge him on. He drew back just enough to get a good look at you, his eyes bright in the dim room. You sucked in a stunned breath as he reached between your legs, fingers teasing your clit as his hips pounded yours more roughly.

You were moving so wildly that he couldn't keep his mouth on you any longer.

Your head fell back and you gasped when he thrust harder, deep into your wet, heated walls, a desperate sound escaping your thoroughly kissed lips. He stroked your clit while keeping up the rhythm he knew -he remembered from the first time you had sex that night-, one that pulled insanely erotic noises straight from your throat.

A devilish grin spread across his face as he took in the sight of you, his kitty writhing uncontrollably at his touch. Unable to take his eyes off of you, he worked his hand faster, moving it in a new sinfully exquisite way.

“Oh, God! Fuck!” You cried out, slick sounds of your bodies became louder and louder with every pump of his cock as his mouth latched onto your neck. You wrapped your arms around him, gripping him tightly to your chest, needing something to hang on to desperately. He could feel your body tense and knew you were close from the sounds you were making.

Fuck, those sounds alone could be his undoing.

“Come for me, baby,” he breathed in your ear, pushing you over the edge.

And you did.

Arched off the bed, his hand never left you, gone with you, working you through it as a steady stream of curses and what could be his name tumbled from your lips. Coming back down, you pulled his face to yours as you plundered his mouth, all sense of restraint shattered. His hand started moving again in time to your kiss, trying to - oh hell no.

You needed more.

You needed him.

Surprising him, you reached and flipped his hand over, then him, still breathing hard from before. Your eyes were filled with lust as you straddled him and, without preparation, sank down onto him as much as you could take at this angle, throwing your head back while letting out a loud moan of satisfaction.

Your whole body shuddered as your hips jerked involuntarily, the feeling of him filling you so completely, almost too much but so good.

“Fuck, baby!” he choked out, his head slamming back into the pillow.

“That’s the idea,” you said, voice dripping with sex, only giving him a second or two before you start to ride him.

He couldn’t decide which was better.

Having the power to make you lose all self-control, completely at his mercy, or lying back and letting you take what you want from him.

Luckily, he didn’t have to choose.

It was like celebrating your confession; there were no more secrets, no more games, and no holding back between you two, finally.

Groaning, he ran his hands up your thighs and caressed the curve of your waist, coming around to knead your backside. Mesmerized by how fluidly you were moving, he watched in awe as your body prepared for yet another release. Rapidly reaching your peak again, he rubbed your with his thumb while his other hand tweaked and pulled your nipple. Your fingers curl, nails scraping his chest as you clenched hard around him, almost bringing him with you but he somehow managed to hold back.

Barely.

For now.

Dazed from multiple orgasms, you were not exactly sure how but he suddenly had you on your stomach, body pressed into the bed by his, the fingers of one hand interlaced with your own. He started off slowly, making sure you could handle it. He picked up the pace when you arched your back for an even better angle, giving his free hand room to sneak underneath your hips and play with you. Crushing your entwined hands together, you frantically reached out for anything else to hold on to, gripping the side of the bed with your other hand as he pounds into you from above.

Your mouth locked open, sobbed into the bed with every thrust, bringing you higher and higher until you were exploding, your whole body trembling with shockwaves originating from the epicenter where you were connected. His face was covered in sweat, cursing as he spilled into you with a deep, feral growl, finally letting go.

As the first rays of sunlight filtered through the tall window, you gradually roused from sleep, reluctant to open your eyes. It felt as if you were resting on a soft, fluffy cloud, completely weightless. A wave of happiness washed over you, and you silently chided yourself for not embracing this morning magic sooner. After mustering enough courage, you finally confessed your feelings for him, and Harry’s efforts truly deserved a reward.

Just then, your phone alarm buzzed loudly from inside your bag on the floor, breaking the tranquil moment.

Ugh, of course, it was Thursday.

Damn it!

Realizing you were still face down on the bed, you wished you could just stay there forever. As you swung your legs over the side and reached out, you felt the empty space next to you. Had Harry already gotten up? You yawned and looked around. “Harry?” you called out sleepily.

The bathroom door swung open, and there he was, toothbrush in hand, foamy mouth and all. He shot you a smile that made you giggle. “Good morning, beautiful,” he managed to say through the toothpaste.

“Morning, ol' man,” you teased.

He frowned dramatically and went back to rinse his mouth before returning to you. “Ol' man, huh?” he asked, sitting on the bed. You wrapped your arms around him. “My ol' man,” you replied, kissing him, and he kissed you back.

“Are you getting me back for calling you 'kitty'?” he mocked, leaning in for another quick kiss. “Maybe,” you said with a playful grin and kissed him again.

You wanted to lose all sense of time in this room with him, wrapped up in nothing but kisses, but you had to get moving. “I’ve got to go to work,” you mumbled, breaking the kiss, reluctantly.

He grimaced. “Can’t you just skip today?”

“It's Thursday, Harry. Besides, don’t you have work to get to?” you reminded him as you slid out of bed.

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you, and—” he murmured.

“Hmm?” You looked at him.

Just then, Harry's phone rang.

“I’ll be in the shower,” you said as you walked over.

He sighed and answered the call.

After using the toilet, you stepped into the shower, only for Harry to sneak in behind you. He quickly shed his pants and joined you under the warm water, wrapping his arms around you for another kiss, making you giggle.

“Looks like you were right; I guess I have to get to work too,” he said while turning on the water.

You kept kissing as the water poured over you, both of you unable to stop touching each other. Harry was super gentle as he massaged shampoo into your hair, clearly enjoying it. You returned the favor, and it felt so much nicer than just a simple swap.

As you both walked out of the hotel, Oliver showed up, carrying a bag that smelled amazing. “Here’s a quick breakfast for you,” he said, handing it over.

You glanced at Harry, who was smiling cockily. “I didn’t want you heading off to work all hungry.”

You smiled widely, leaning in to kiss him. “Thank you. And... I love you.”

He smiled back. “I love you too,” he said, giving you another kiss.

Oliver laughed, clapping his hands. “Now that’s the sight I needed to see. Congratulations. I can die happy now.”

You both shared a joyful laugh and leaned in for another kiss, celebrating your love.

Harry and Oliver offered to drop you off near the building, but you declined, knowing you still had plenty of time and weren’t running late. After saying goodbye to them, a smile crept onto your face as you made your way to the entrance.

You were now Harry Castillo’s girlfriend—something that turned out to be less daunting than you’d imagined.

Lost in thought as you approached the building, a sudden screech of brakes pulled you back to reality. Startled, you turned to find a little girl who had just fallen to the ground. You hurried to her side. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

Meanwhile, the driver of the car was shouting, “Watch it, kid! Do you want to get hurt?”

Fuming, you yelled back, “You should be the one watching out! Don’t yell at her; can’t you see she’s terrified? Come on, sweetheart.”

Once you reached the sidewalk, you crouched down to check the scrape on her knee. “Does it hurt?”

“I wasn’t scared,” she replied defiantly. “I could have handled myself against him.”

You raised your eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, absolutely, I’m sure you could. I was just looking out for you, you know. Girls have to look out for each other, right?" You winked at her.

She laughed. "I think so too, thanks. It’s just a scrape, really."

“Let’s swing by the pharmacy for a bandage,” you insisted.

“No need; I can take care of it. I'm already where I want to be, and I’m sure there are some first aid supplies at the house,” she said as she headed toward the building where you work.

You quickened your pace to catch up. "Do you live here? I actually work here."

She glanced at you, curious. “Not really. I’m just trying to get away from my parents’ drama for a bit. I thought I’d use my Uncle Harry’s place while he’s away.”

You suddenly froze.

No way, it couldn’t be.

Must just be a coincidence with the name or something.

“Did you say Harry? Does he live in this building?”

As you headed for the elevator, the girl nodded. “Yeah, he’s on the top floor, in the penthouse.”

Another wave of shock hit you.

Taking a deep breath, you asked, “Is your Uncle Harry's last name Castillo, by any chance?”

“So you know him?” she said, sounding casual.

But you were anything but casual, your mind racing.

Nodding, “Yeah, I know him,” you said in barely more than a whisper.

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