this blog exists solely to indulge my love for visual novels. you'll mostly find moodboards (they tend to be messy, weird, and cluttered), drabbles, ramblings, and whatever happens to be rotting in my brain.
feel free to dm me or send an ask. i'd be delighted to be friends with you, pixels. (actually... please befriend me)
📼𓄸 ͜͡ ✦ . about me
hyperfixations / interests: loving decays, bbd, wan2talk, tfc, 14 days with you, beyond the turquoise stars, tkatb, in your virtue, overdose, ymthah, to eat a god (and more)
hobbies: writing, working with different art mediums, fashion, hoarding stickers, reading
music: ptv, sws, mcr, chase atlantic, pvris, u2, umi, clairo, the marías, weezer... and many more.
𝐵𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑖𝑒.
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masterlist of @crossaints works ்۪۪ ۪𖥟
#crossaints — all pictures used are edited by me (except pic no. 5) please don't use or repost my edits without permission. characters used are cain and silas from wan2talk credits to @mirawakestudios
Do any of the Li’s like playing video games? If so, what kind and what games would they play with the mc?
i hope you have a great day, thanks! :3
yeahhh!! genesis, silas, and cain all play video games!! not all the time though ofc. umm im not saying who plays the LoL equivalent in the w2t universe, but just know that it will be mentioned…
silas enjoys stuff like tekken, genesis likes legend of zelda, and cain recently played siren blood curse + condemned 2 bloodshot! i think they’d all be up for multiplayer games with mc (yes even cain, but if you’re bad at playing he’d tell you to get off I’m ngl)
lottie doesnt really play but if she did, her favorite type would be a cozy simulator game… like harvest moon!! (suggestion from rad)
sometimes i think about how lane would react if he found out that i mix white monster with coffee. bet he's going to say “you trying to fucking kill yourself or what?” like a fucking hypocrite. bitch, i literally saw you chug your 10th red bull of the day.
synopsis — you only asked silas to teach you how to bake. neither of you expected flour-dusted hands to linger, or for every accidental touch to feel sweeter than whatever was rising in the oven.
You only wanted to do something nice for the Paranormal Experiences & Investigation Club.
That was all.
The thought had come to you rather innocently: everyone had been busy lately, buried beneath investigations, reports, and whatever supernatural nonsense the club had decided to involve itself in this week. Surely bringing something homemade to the next meeting would be a nice gesture.
Cupcakes.
Cupcakes were nice.
There was only one small problem.
You couldn't bake.
But that, you decided, was hardly a problem.
People baked all the time. There were recipes for everything nowadays. You didn't need some mysterious culinary talent passed down through generations. All you needed was a recipe book, a trip to the market, and a little bit of common sense.
So you went to the bookstore.
You stood in front of the cookbook section for nearly twenty minutes before finally choosing one with a reassuringly colorful picture of perfectly frosted cupcakes on the cover.
If the cupcakes on the cover could look like that, surely yours could too.
Probably.
You bought the book, went to the market, gathered everything the recipe asked for, and returned home feeling almost absurdly confident.
You even arranged all the ingredients on the kitchen counter before starting.
Everything was there. You opened the recipe book and carefully went through the instructions one more time, checking each ingredient before finally getting started. The first few steps went smoothly enough that, for a while, you began to wonder if you'd been unnecessarily worried. Maybe baking wasn't going to be as difficult as you'd imagined.
That confidence lasted until somewhere around the fourth step.
A little too much flour ended up on the counter. An eggshell found its way into the bowl. At one point, you realized you'd been mixing the batter for far longer than the recipe instructed because you'd gotten distracted by your phone. None of the mistakes seemed particularly disastrous on their own, but when you finally looked down at the bowl, the batter had taken on a consistency that didn't seem quite right.
You reread the instructions, comparing the page with what was in front of you as though the answer might somehow reveal itself.
It didn't.
Still, there was no reason to panic. The recipe hadn't said anything about the batter looking pretty, and surely the oven would take care of the rest. You poured the mixture into the cupcake liners, trying to distribute it as evenly as you could, then carefully slid the tray inside.
You had bought all the right ingredients.
You had followed the instructions.
Surely, somehow, this would work.
When the timer finally rang, you pulled the tray out with considerably more confidence than you probably deserved.
Then you stared.
The cupcakes looked less like cupcakes and more like something that had been unearthed during an archaeological excavation. They were pale and slightly sunken, their centers still suspiciously wet despite the amount of time they'd spent in the oven. You picked one up and poked the middle with a toothpick, only for half the cupcake to cling to it when you pulled it back out.
"...Okay."
Maybe they just needed a little more time.
That had to be it.
You put the tray back into the oven and set the timer again, choosing to ignore the increasingly obvious fact that you had no idea what you were doing. Five minutes passed, then ten. By the time fifteen minutes had gone by, you were beginning to wonder if perhaps you'd finally managed to salvage them.
Then you smelled something burning.
You froze.
The smell grew stronger, drifting out from the kitchen until there was no longer any possibility of pretending it wasn't happening. With a quiet, horrified realization, you hurried back to the oven and pulled the door open.
Smoke immediately billowed out.
You coughed and waved it away, staring helplessly at the cupcakes inside. Somehow, against all reasonable expectations, you had managed to create something that was both undercooked and burnt at the same time.
You weren't sure how that was even possible.
But there it was.
Your greatest culinary achievement.
The kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off. There was batter on the counter, flour on the floor, a suspicious smear of butter near the sink, and whatever was happening inside the oven was probably best left between you and God.
You looked down at your flour-covered hands, then at the cupcakes sitting miserably on the counter, before finally glancing back at the recipe book that had promised you something far more impressive than whatever you'd managed to create.
You could give up. There was still time to buy something from the store and pretend you'd never planned on baking anything in the first place. No one had to know.
Or you could ask someone who actually knew what they were doing.
Unfortunately, the only person who came to mind was Silas.
Silas, the handsome baker—
You immediately stopped yourself.
The guy who worked at the pastry shop, you corrected. That was all. You simply happened to know someone who worked with pastries and therefore, by sheer coincidence, was probably the most qualified person you could ask.
That was perfectly reasonable.
You hurried back to your bedroom and sat down in front of your computer, leaving the kitchen to its fate for the moment. Once the chatroom loaded, you found Wolfsbane among the usernames and opened the private chat.
Your fingers hovered over the keyboard.
You could probably figure this out yourself.
Probably.
You stared at the empty message box for another few seconds before finally sighing and typing.
[username]: hey silas
Wolfsbane: Hello.
[username]: hypothetically speaking, if someone tried to bake cupcakes and somehow managed to burn them while leaving the inside uncooked
A moment passed.
Wolfsbane: How?
[username]: i don't know
Wolfsbane: I think I know who you're talking about.
[username]: don't laugh
Wolfsbane: I'm not.
[username]: you're definitely laughing
Wolfsbane: A little.
You sighed, resting your forehead against the desk.
[username]: can you help me?
The typing indicator appeared almost immediately.
Wolfsbane: Of course.
[username]: really?
Wolfsbane: Come by the shop tomorrow. I'll teach you properly.
You stared at the screen.
That was... surprisingly easy.
[username]: okay
Wolfsbane: And don't put them back in the oven.
You looked toward the kitchen.
Too late.
[username]: no promises.
———
The next afternoon, you found yourself standing outside the pastry shop with a paper bag full of ingredients hanging from your wrist. You had briefly considered leaving them at home. Silas worked here, after all; surely the shop had everything you needed.
But that didn't feel right.
It was one thing to ask him to teach you. It was another to show up and expect him to provide everything after you'd already managed to waste half of your own ingredients. So you brought whatever you still had, even if the bag felt slightly heavier than it should have.
When you stepped inside, the familiar warmth of the shop immediately surrounded you. The scent of freshly baked bread and sugar hung pleasantly in the air, and somewhere behind the counter, you could hear the faint clatter of dishes being put away.
Silas looked up when he heard the bell above the door.
His attention settled on you first, then dropped to the bag in your hand.
"What's that?"
You lifted it slightly. "Ingredients. I brought whatever I had left."
Something faintly amused crossed his expression as he looked at the bag again. "I thought I'd use mine."
"I thought about it."
"Ah."
The quiet amusement in his voice made you look away. You followed him toward the back of the shop as he dried his hands on a towel, trying not to feel quite so guilty about having shown up with a grocery bag like an apology.
"You didn't have to bring anything," he said.
"I know. I just didn't think it'd be nice to use the shop's ingredients after I already ruined my own."
Silas glanced over his shoulder at you. "You're very concerned about manners for someone who nearly set their cupcakes on fire."
You gave him an unimpressed look.
"Are you going to bring that up every time you see me?"
"Probably."
You sighed, and the sound of his quiet laugh followed as he turned back toward the kitchen.
"I regret asking you for help."
"No, you don't."
You opened your mouth to argue, only to stop when you realized you had nothing to say.
Unfortunately, he was right.
You didn't regret it.
Not even a little.
The kitchen at the back of the shop was considerably cleaner than yours had been the day before. Everything had its place, the counters were spotless, and there was something almost unfair about watching Silas move around the space so naturally.
Silas looked over the ingredients you'd brought, checking each one before setting them out across the counter. There was something almost methodical about the way he worked, arranging everything within reach before finally picking up the recipe book you'd brought with you.
"All right. We'll start again."
You looked at him. "Again?"
He glanced at you, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "You didn't expect me to let you leave here still believing you can bake, did you?"
"That sounds like an insult."
"It's an observation."
Before you could come up with a response, he reached for the mixing bowl and set it in front of you. With a small gesture, he indicated the space beside him.
"Come here."
You stepped closer, close enough to see the faint traces of flour still clinging to his sleeves from whatever he'd been working on before you arrived. He handed you the whisk and began explaining the next step, his voice calm as he went over the parts you'd apparently managed to misunderstand yesterday.
This time, you were determined to get it right.
Silas placed the bowl in front of you and began explaining what you had done wrong the first time. This time, you listened carefully, watching the way he measured everything before adding it to the bowl.
"Don't rush this part." Silas watched as you began mixing, his attention fixed on the batter. "You want it smooth, but you don't want to overwork it."
You nodded and followed his instructions, moving the whisk through the mixture as evenly as you could.
"Like this?"
"Slower."
You adjusted your hand.
"Not that slow."
You frowned at the bowl. "You're terrible at explaining."
"And you're terrible at following instructions."
"That's not true."
"Yesterday says otherwise."
You muttered something under your breath, but he only seemed more amused as you continued stirring. After a while, the rhythm became easier, the batter gradually smoothing beneath the whisk.
Then your wrist began to ache.
You shifted your grip, trying to find a more comfortable position, but the awkward angle only made the spoon drag more heavily through the mixture. Before you could figure it out yourself, Silas stepped closer.
"Here."
His hand settled over yours.
You stopped moving.
For a moment, Silas seemed entirely unaware of your sudden stillness. His attention remained on the bowl as his fingers gently adjusted your grip, guiding your wrist into a more natural position. The movement was simple, practical—nothing more than someone correcting the way you held a spoon.
And yet, you became painfully aware of how close he was.
His hand was warm against yours, his fingers resting lightly over the back of your hand as he guided the whisk through the batter. You could feel the quiet movement of his wrist, the faint brush of his arm against yours whenever he leaned in to correct the motion.
"You're putting too much pressure into it," he murmured.
"Let the whisk do the work."
You nodded.
You weren't entirely sure you'd heard him.
Your attention had become far too occupied with the warmth of his hand and the fact that, despite how unnecessary it probably was, neither of you had moved away yet.
There was nothing particularly intimate about it. He was teaching you how to mix cupcake batter. That was all. His hand was simply there to guide yours, his fingers resting loosely against the back of your hand as he demonstrated the motion.
Still, you became strangely conscious of every little movement—the slow turn of the whisk beneath your hand, the occasional brush of his knuckles against yours, even the faint scent of sugar and vanilla clinging to his sleeves.
"See?" His voice pulled you back. "You're doing it properly now."
You glanced down at your hands before looking up at him. "Right."
It seemed to be only then that Silas realized he was still holding your hand. His fingers loosened, and he drew his hand away with a quiet, almost imperceptible hesitation.
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
For a moment, neither of you moved. Then Silas stepped back and reached for the next ingredient, as though returning to the task at hand would make the brief awkwardness disappear.
"Add that."
You did.
A little too quickly.
Some of the flour escaped the bowl and scattered across the counter.
Silas stared at it.
You stared at it too.
"...That wasn't me."
His gaze shifted toward you.
"You were holding it."
You sighed. "Okay. It was me."
A quiet laugh escaped him, and despite yourself, you smiled too.
After that, the rest went more smoothly.
Mostly.
There were still a few mistakes along the way. You spilled some of the milk, nearly dropped the whisk twice, and somehow managed to dust the front of your shirt with flour despite your best efforts to keep yourself clean. By now, Silas seemed to have accepted that helping you bake also meant keeping an eye on everything you were doing.
When he noticed the flour on your shirt, you brushed at it, only managing to smear it further.
"You're making it worse."
You glanced down at yourself. "I am?"
He gave a small nod, then looked back at your face. "You have some on your cheek, too."
You instinctively raised your hand, but before you could find the spot, Silas reached over and brushed it away with his thumb.
You went still.
The touch lasted barely a moment, yet somehow you became aware of it all the same—the warmth of his skin against your cheek, the brief pause in his movement, and the way his gaze remained on you before he seemed to remember himself.
His hand fell back to his side.
"Flour," he said, almost unnecessarily.
"I figured."
The corner of his mouth lifted, though his attention eventually returned to the bowl between you.
"You're getting better."
You looked at the mixture, then back at him. "At baking?"
A faint smile lingered on his face.
"Among other things."
You weren't entirely sure what he meant by that.
For once, you decided not to ask.
—
Once the batter was finally ready, Silas showed you how much to put into each liner, making sure you didn't repeat yesterday's mistake of filling some more than others. You were much more careful this time, and when the last one was finally filled, you stepped back to admire your work.
They actually looked like cupcakes.
You glanced at Silas, almost expecting him to find something wrong with them.
Instead, he gave a small nod of approval.
"Not bad."
You smiled. "That's the nicest thing you've said to me all day."
"I've said plenty of nice things."
"You've mostly insulted my baking."
"Constructive criticism."
You laughed and carried the tray toward the oven. Silas opened the door for you, and together you carefully slid the cupcakes inside before setting the timer.
And then there was nothing left to do but wait.
You leaned back against the counter while Silas cleaned the few utensils you'd used. The shop had become quieter now, the rush of the afternoon having settled into a gentle hum. Somewhere beyond the kitchen, you could hear the occasional sound of dishes and the muffled voices of customers.
"You know," Silas said as he wiped the counter, "you really didn't have to go through all this trouble."
You looked at him. "I wanted to."
"For the club?"
You nodded.
"Everyone's been working hard. I thought it'd be nice to bring something."
Silas was quiet for a moment before setting the cloth aside.
"That's thoughtful."
You smiled a little. "Even if I nearly killed the cupcakes?"
"Especially then."
You laughed.
Silas leaned against the counter beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost touched.
For a while, neither of you said anything.
You found yourself watching the oven instead, following the slow rise of the cupcakes through the glass. The warmth from it filled the small kitchen, and for some reason, standing there beside him felt strangely comfortable.
"Silas?"
"Hm?"
You glanced toward the oven, watching the cupcakes slowly rise behind the glass. "Do you think they'll actually taste good?"
Silas followed your gaze before looking back at you, the faintest hint of amusement settling in his expression.
"I think they'll be fine."
You gave him a doubtful look. "That's not very convincing."
His smile deepened, though he didn't seem particularly bothered by your skepticism. "You'll have to wait and see."
You turned toward him, already preparing another complaint, but whatever you'd meant to say faded before it reached your lips.
He was looking at you.
Not at the cupcakes or the counter or anything else around the kitchen. At you.
There was something quieter in his expression now, the teasing warmth from earlier softened into something you couldn't quite place. You became suddenly aware of how close you'd been standing, how neither of you had bothered to move away.
The kitchen seemed strangely quiet.
Then his gaze dropped.
Only for a moment.
It lingered on your lips before slowly returning to your eyes.
Your breath caught.
"Maybe," he said, his voice quieter than before, "you'll surprise yourself."
You swallowed, suddenly far too conscious of what to do with your hands.
For once, you had no clever reply.
Then— Ding!
The oven timer rang.
The sharp chime broke through the quiet kitchen, and you startled so badly that you nearly stepped backward into the counter. Silas seemed to recover a little quicker, though you caught the briefest flicker of surprise across his face before he turned toward the oven.
You lowered your gaze, suddenly finding the floor much more interesting than it had been a moment ago.
Silas reached for the oven mitts, and the warmth that escaped when he opened the door soon filled the kitchen with the sweet smell of freshly baked cake. You looked up despite yourself.
The cupcakes had risen beautifully.
No burnt edges. No suspiciously wet centers. No signs of the culinary disaster you'd produced the day before.
They were, somehow, actual cupcakes.
You stared at them for a moment, almost afraid that looking away would somehow ruin them.
"They look good," you murmured.
Silas glanced at you before looking back at the tray. A small smile appeared on his face.
"They do."
You turned toward him, your earlier embarrassment slowly giving way to genuine excitement.
"I actually did it."
"You did."
There was something strangely satisfying about hearing him say it. After yesterday's disaster, after the flour-covered kitchen and the smoke and your desperate decision to ask him for help, you'd somehow managed to make something edible.
Maybe even good.
Silas carefully set the tray aside to cool, and you stayed beside him, watching the cupcakes settle.
For a moment, neither of you said anything.
You found yourself smiling.
Maybe baking wasn't so bad after all.
@crossaints — i hope you enjoyed reading "A Pinch Of Love"!!!
that's a good question. i'm honestly not entirely sure hahaha! there are so many interesting characters that i've had in mind. i've played a ton of visual novels and obviously have my favorites, but i haven't really decided who i'd actually want to write for yet. (obviously aside from bbd and wan2talk?)
i've never seen a knee deep fic though, so that's definitely a start... but other than that, i'm pretty much open to suggestions! if there's a character you think i'd have fun writing, feel free to throw them at me and i'll see what i can do.
synopsis — every prayer begins with god and ends with your name. cain grips his rosary tighter, begging for forgiveness before he has even sinned. how could someone so ordinary distract him while he kneels before heaven?
cw: religious content, christian imagery, prayer, religious guilt, and themes of temptation/sin.
This fic uses catholic prayer and religious imagery as part of Cain's internal conflict. It isn't intended to mock or disrespect anyone's faith. Please skip this one if religious themes make you uncomfortable.
The church was quiet at this hour.
Cain preferred it that way.
After the doors had been closed and the last footsteps had disappeared into the street, the building seemed to settle into itself. Old wood creaked softly somewhere beyond the pews. Candle flames trembled beneath their glass. The air still carried the faint, sweet trace of incense, lingering long after the priest had gone.
Nothing demanded his attention.
Nothing should.
Cain knelt before the altar, his back straight despite the hard pressure of the floor against his knees. The rosary rested between his fingers, cool and familiar. He turned the first bead beneath his thumb.
He knew the prayer.
He had known it for years.
There was comfort in that—something dependable in words that had survived childhood, doubt, anger, fear. He did not need to search for them. They lived somewhere beneath memory, beneath thought, waiting only for his mouth to give them shape.
It should have been easy.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
The bead slipped beneath his thumb.
“Geheiligt werde dein Name…”
(Hallowed be Thy name…)
Another.
“Dein Reich komme…”
(Thy kingdom come…)
His breathing steadied as the familiar rhythm of the prayer returned to him, each word falling into place with the next, each bead slipping quietly beneath his thumb. There. That was better. The silence belonged to God, and the prayer belonged to God. Whatever had strayed into his thoughts a moment ago was his to dismiss, his to keep from taking root. He had only to pay attention—to the words, to the rosary, to the altar before him—and nothing else would matter.
“Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden.”
(Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.)
The next bead slipped beneath his thumb.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
And somewhere between one prayer and the next, his thoughts strayed to you.
Your face came to him first, unbidden and strangely clear—the expression you wore when you were listening, the quiet attentiveness in your eyes, the little change in your features when something amused you. He hadn't meant to remember any of it. He wasn't even sure why he had.
His thumb stopped against the bead.
For a moment, Cain remained perfectly still, eyes closed, as though refusing to acknowledge the thought might make it disappear.
It didn't.
He opened his eyes.
The altar remained exactly as it had been. The candles burned with the same small, wavering flames, their light catching against the crucifix above them. Nothing in the church had changed. There was no movement in the pews, no voice from the doorway, no presence beside him.
You were not here.
His gaze lowered to the rosary resting between his fingers.
Perhaps that was why.
Perhaps a mind left alone long enough was bound to wander somewhere it shouldn't. There was nothing unusual about that. Nothing worth dwelling on.
Cain drew a slow breath and began the prayer again, returning to the first words as though he could simply retrace his steps and leave the thought behind.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
He forced himself to finish the line, keeping his attention on the rosary as the next bead slipped beneath his thumb. It was only a thought, nothing more, and thoughts were hardly worth the attention he was giving them.
Except his mind had already returned to the way you listened when someone spoke.
The slight tilt of your head. The quiet attention in your eyes. The absent little movements of your hands whenever you talked, gestures so ordinary that he had never had any reason to notice them in the first place.
And yet he remembered them.
Not merely remembered.
He remembered them later.
Cain's jaw tightened.
Why had he remembered them later?
His thumb moved to the next bead.
“Und vergib uns unsere Schuld…”
(And forgive us our trespasses…)
Then your voice came to him again—not the words themselves, but the sound of them. The warmth in it. Its particular cadence. The small change that crept into it whenever something amused you.
His fingers pressed more firmly around the rosary.
He shouldn't know that.
There was no reason he should know that.
“…wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.”
(…as we forgive those who trespass against us.)
The words left him quieter than before.
He lowered his gaze to the floor.
It was absurd. He had heard thousands of voices over the years, most of them lost almost as soon as they were spoken. He couldn't have recalled half of them if he tried.
So why yours?
The question lingered.
Cain drew a slow breath through his nose and tried to dismiss it.
There was nothing remarkable about you. Nothing he could point to, nothing he could condemn, nothing that should have made you worthy of this much attention. You had never asked for it. Never demanded it.
You had simply been there—a face among many, a voice among many, another person who happened to cross his path often enough for his mind to make a habit of remembering.
That was all.
It had to be.
His thumb found the next bead.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
His voice faltered on the last word.
Cain stopped.
Temptation.
The word lingered strangely in his mouth, carrying a weight it had not possessed a moment before. His eyes lifted toward the crucifix, toward the figure suspended above the altar, and for an instant he felt as though he had been caught thinking something he had no business thinking.
No.
That wasn't what this was.
You were not—
His thoughts recoiled before they could finish themselves.
Better that way.
Cain lowered his gaze to the rosary. At some point, his fingers had tightened around it again; one of the beads had pressed hard enough into his palm to leave a faint crescent behind. He loosened his grip, flexed his fingers once, and drew a slow breath.
Then he began again.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
This time the words came steadily, though he was suddenly far too conscious of each one.
“…sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.”
(…but deliver us from evil.)
The final bead settled beneath his thumb.
For a while, Cain remained where he was.
The prayer was finished, yet the silence that followed did not bring the relief he expected. The same quiet weight remained beneath his ribs, stubborn and inexplicable.
His gaze drifted toward the candles.
One had burned lower than the others, wax spilling in slow, pale trails down its side. Its flame leaned with the draft, thin and wavering, but held its ground.
Cain watched it for longer than he meant to.
There was something irritating about its persistence.
He closed his eyes.
And, despite himself, began again.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
Cain began again from the beginning.
Perhaps he had simply been distracted. Perhaps he was tired. The mind wandered when the body was exhausted; there was nothing unusual in that. There had to be an explanation for it, and if he searched long enough, he would find one.
“Geheiligt werde dein Name…”
(Hallowed be Thy name…)
He fixed his attention on the words.
On God.
On the altar before him.
On anything that was not—
“Dein Reich komme…”
(Thy kingdom come…)
You.
Cain's thumb moved to the next bead.
“Dein Wille geschehe…”
(Thy will be done…)
Not your voice.
Not your face.
Not the way you—
His breath caught.
He opened his eyes.
Whatever thought had been forming had already slipped away, leaving only the uncomfortable impression of having almost remembered something he had no right to remember.
Cain lowered his head again.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
Your hands.
They came to him with such clarity that he almost frowned at the memory itself. He could picture them resting loosely in your lap, the absent movements of your fingers whenever you were nervous, the way you reached for something without looking.
Small things.
Meaningless things.
Things he had never intended to notice.
And yet he remembered them.
All of them.
The smallest details, the sort no one thought to keep. The sort that should have disappeared the moment he stopped looking.
Cain's thumb stopped over the bead.
Why?
The question surfaced so quietly that he almost mistook it for part of the prayer.
Why you?
He frowned.
There were countless people in the world. People kinder than you. More beautiful. More devout. People he had known longer, people whose lives had intersected with his far more often.
People he had forgotten.
That should have been the end of it.
So why you?
Cain closed his eyes.
No.
That wasn't the question.
The question was how.
How had you managed to become so difficult to forget?
His fingers moved again, carrying the rosary forward one bead at a time, and he returned to the prayer as though the answer might disappear if he refused to look directly at it.
“Und vergib uns unsere Schuld…”
(And forgive us our trespasses…)
Your name surfaced so naturally that, for a moment, Cain almost mistook it for part of the prayer.
Then he realized.
His thumb stopped.
It was only a name. A handful of sounds, nothing more. There was nothing sacred about it, nothing dangerous. And yet he knew precisely how it sounded when you said it yourself. He knew the way it changed in someone else's mouth, how it carried across a room when someone called for you, how it sounded when you answered.
He knew.
Perhaps that was what unsettled him most.
He knew far too much.
His lips parted, but whatever word had been waiting there never came. The church remained perfectly still around him, indifferent to the quiet disturbance taking place beneath his ribs.
Cain lowered his eyes.
“...wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.”
(…as we forgive those who trespass against us.)
The prayer sounded different now.
Not strange.
Something worse.
Familiar.
He had carried those words through fear and anger, through sleepless nights and mornings when he had needed something—anything—to hold onto. He had whispered them when there was no one else to speak to and recited them when words were the only thing keeping his thoughts from unraveling.
They had always belonged to God.
So how had you found your way into them?
Cain's fingers tightened around the rosary.
He should ask for forgiveness.
The thought arrived with the same certainty as the prayer itself.
Forgive me.
But for what?
He had done nothing.
He hadn't touched you, hadn't kissed you, hadn't confessed anything that would warrant repentance. He hadn't even seen you tonight. There was no offense in remembering someone, no sin in hearing their voice in his head after they had gone.
No—
Cain stopped himself.
The excuses were becoming too specific.
His throat tightened.
He swallowed and lowered his head, returning his attention to the rosary as though the next bead might give him somewhere else to look.
Then, quietly, he began to pray again.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
This time, the word did not frighten him.
It irritated him.
Cain's jaw tightened.
Temptation.
Again.
The same word, the same prayer, the same thought that had been following him from one bead to the next as though he hadn't already tried to leave it behind.
It wasn't because you had tempted him.
You hadn't.
You had done nothing.
That was what made it so infuriating.
If you had tried to distract him, he could have blamed you for it. If you had touched him, he could have called it deliberate. If you had said something meant only for him, he could have given the thought a name and been done with it.
But you had never asked for his attention.
He had given it to you himself.
Without meaning to.
Without permission.
And, apparently, without any particular desire to take it back.
His thumb pressed hard against the bead.
Cain exhaled through his nose.
Ridiculous.
He moved to the next one.
“...sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.”
(…but deliver us from evil.)
The last word disappeared into the silence.
He remained kneeling.
His knees had begun to ache, a dull pressure beneath the bone, but he barely noticed it. His attention was fixed entirely on the rosary hanging between his fingers.
He could start again.
Of course he could.
He had done it before.
He could stay here until the candles burned down to their wicks, until the first gray light of morning found its way through the windows. He could repeat the prayer until the words lost their meaning and became nothing more than sounds his mouth knew how to make.
He could ask God to take this thought from him.
He could ask for discipline.
Clarity.
Indifference.
Anything.
It should have been simple.
Cain lowered his head.
His lips parted.
Nothing came.
His fingers tightened around the rosary, not hard enough to hurt this time, only enough to remind himself that it was there. One bead beneath his thumb. Then another.
Something solid.
Something measurable.
Something that could be counted.
He did not begin the prayer.
He couldn't.
Because beneath all the explanations he had given himself—distraction, exhaustion, temptation, habit—there was something he had been carefully avoiding.
The thought surfaced reluctantly.
He pushed it away.
It returned.
He frowned.
No.
That wasn't it.
He tried to find another explanation, something easier, something he could believe.
Nothing came.
Only the quiet realization that perhaps the problem had never been that he kept thinking of you.
Perhaps the problem was that, every time he managed not to, some part of him went looking for you again.
Cain went still.
His eyes remained lowered.
The truth settled slowly, unwelcome and undeniable.
He didn't want it gone.
His fingers loosened around the rosary.
For a moment, he almost laughed at himself.
Of all things to discover on his knees, this.
He had spent the entire night asking himself why you kept appearing in his thoughts, never stopping long enough to wonder whether he actually wanted you to leave them.
Now he knew.
And knowing did not feel like relief.
It felt like surrender.
Cain closed his eyes.
You weren't here.
You hadn't followed him into the church. You hadn't interrupted his prayer, hadn't touched him, hadn't asked anything of him.
You had done absolutely nothing.
He had done all of it himself.
And somehow, that made it worse.
His thumb found the first bead again.
The prayer was still there, waiting patiently for him.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
His voice was quieter this time.
He swallowed and continued.
The words came more easily now.
Not because the distraction had disappeared.
Because he had stopped pretending it would.
And somewhere between Vater unser and erlöse uns, as inevitable as the next bead beneath his thumb, your name found its way into the prayer again.
@crossaints — this might not be everyone's cup of tea. the prayer that was used is Das Vaterunser it's a german prayer.
this one is a little different from the fics i usually write. though my fics tend to explore a character's internal thoughts and emotions anyway.. especially the ones with cain. but i think on my knees leans into that a little more heavily.
it also uses an actual prayer and catholic/religious imagery throughout, so i know it won't necessarily be everyone's cup of tea. that's completely fine! just wanted to give a little heads-up for anyone who might not be comfortable with that kind of content.
anyway, i had a lot of fun writing this one. it was interesting.
synopsis — every prayer begins with god and ends with your name. cain grips his rosary tighter, begging for forgiveness before he has even sinned. how could someone so ordinary distract him while he kneels before heaven?
cw: religious content, christian imagery, prayer, religious guilt, and themes of temptation/sin.
This fic uses catholic prayer and religious imagery as part of Cain's internal conflict. It isn't intended to mock or disrespect anyone's faith. Please skip this one if religious themes make you uncomfortable.
The church was quiet at this hour.
Cain preferred it that way.
After the doors had been closed and the last footsteps had disappeared into the street, the building seemed to settle into itself. Old wood creaked softly somewhere beyond the pews. Candle flames trembled beneath their glass. The air still carried the faint, sweet trace of incense, lingering long after the priest had gone.
Nothing demanded his attention.
Nothing should.
Cain knelt before the altar, his back straight despite the hard pressure of the floor against his knees. The rosary rested between his fingers, cool and familiar. He turned the first bead beneath his thumb.
He knew the prayer.
He had known it for years.
There was comfort in that—something dependable in words that had survived childhood, doubt, anger, fear. He did not need to search for them. They lived somewhere beneath memory, beneath thought, waiting only for his mouth to give them shape.
It should have been easy.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
The bead slipped beneath his thumb.
“Geheiligt werde dein Name…”
(Hallowed be Thy name…)
Another.
“Dein Reich komme…”
(Thy kingdom come…)
His breathing steadied as the familiar rhythm of the prayer returned to him, each word falling into place with the next, each bead slipping quietly beneath his thumb. There. That was better. The silence belonged to God, and the prayer belonged to God. Whatever had strayed into his thoughts a moment ago was his to dismiss, his to keep from taking root. He had only to pay attention—to the words, to the rosary, to the altar before him—and nothing else would matter.
“Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden.”
(Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.)
The next bead slipped beneath his thumb.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
And somewhere between one prayer and the next, his thoughts strayed to you.
Your face came to him first, unbidden and strangely clear—the expression you wore when you were listening, the quiet attentiveness in your eyes, the little change in your features when something amused you. He hadn't meant to remember any of it. He wasn't even sure why he had.
His thumb stopped against the bead.
For a moment, Cain remained perfectly still, eyes closed, as though refusing to acknowledge the thought might make it disappear.
It didn't.
He opened his eyes.
The altar remained exactly as it had been. The candles burned with the same small, wavering flames, their light catching against the crucifix above them. Nothing in the church had changed. There was no movement in the pews, no voice from the doorway, no presence beside him.
You were not here.
His gaze lowered to the rosary resting between his fingers.
Perhaps that was why.
Perhaps a mind left alone long enough was bound to wander somewhere it shouldn't. There was nothing unusual about that. Nothing worth dwelling on.
Cain drew a slow breath and began the prayer again, returning to the first words as though he could simply retrace his steps and leave the thought behind.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
He forced himself to finish the line, keeping his attention on the rosary as the next bead slipped beneath his thumb. It was only a thought, nothing more, and thoughts were hardly worth the attention he was giving them.
Except his mind had already returned to the way you listened when someone spoke.
The slight tilt of your head. The quiet attention in your eyes. The absent little movements of your hands whenever you talked, gestures so ordinary that he had never had any reason to notice them in the first place.
And yet he remembered them.
Not merely remembered.
He remembered them later.
Cain's jaw tightened.
Why had he remembered them later?
His thumb moved to the next bead.
“Und vergib uns unsere Schuld…”
(And forgive us our trespasses…)
Then your voice came to him again—not the words themselves, but the sound of them. The warmth in it. Its particular cadence. The small change that crept into it whenever something amused you.
His fingers pressed more firmly around the rosary.
He shouldn't know that.
There was no reason he should know that.
“…wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.”
(…as we forgive those who trespass against us.)
The words left him quieter than before.
He lowered his gaze to the floor.
It was absurd. He had heard thousands of voices over the years, most of them lost almost as soon as they were spoken. He couldn't have recalled half of them if he tried.
So why yours?
The question lingered.
Cain drew a slow breath through his nose and tried to dismiss it.
There was nothing remarkable about you. Nothing he could point to, nothing he could condemn, nothing that should have made you worthy of this much attention. You had never asked for it. Never demanded it.
You had simply been there—a face among many, a voice among many, another person who happened to cross his path often enough for his mind to make a habit of remembering.
That was all.
It had to be.
His thumb found the next bead.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
His voice faltered on the last word.
Cain stopped.
Temptation.
The word lingered strangely in his mouth, carrying a weight it had not possessed a moment before. His eyes lifted toward the crucifix, toward the figure suspended above the altar, and for an instant he felt as though he had been caught thinking something he had no business thinking.
No.
That wasn't what this was.
You were not—
His thoughts recoiled before they could finish themselves.
Better that way.
Cain lowered his gaze to the rosary. At some point, his fingers had tightened around it again; one of the beads had pressed hard enough into his palm to leave a faint crescent behind. He loosened his grip, flexed his fingers once, and drew a slow breath.
Then he began again.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
This time the words came steadily, though he was suddenly far too conscious of each one.
“…sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.”
(…but deliver us from evil.)
The final bead settled beneath his thumb.
For a while, Cain remained where he was.
The prayer was finished, yet the silence that followed did not bring the relief he expected. The same quiet weight remained beneath his ribs, stubborn and inexplicable.
His gaze drifted toward the candles.
One had burned lower than the others, wax spilling in slow, pale trails down its side. Its flame leaned with the draft, thin and wavering, but held its ground.
Cain watched it for longer than he meant to.
There was something irritating about its persistence.
He closed his eyes.
And, despite himself, began again.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
Cain began again from the beginning.
Perhaps he had simply been distracted. Perhaps he was tired. The mind wandered when the body was exhausted; there was nothing unusual in that. There had to be an explanation for it, and if he searched long enough, he would find one.
“Geheiligt werde dein Name…”
(Hallowed be Thy name…)
He fixed his attention on the words.
On God.
On the altar before him.
On anything that was not—
“Dein Reich komme…”
(Thy kingdom come…)
You.
Cain's thumb moved to the next bead.
“Dein Wille geschehe…”
(Thy will be done…)
Not your voice.
Not your face.
Not the way you—
His breath caught.
He opened his eyes.
Whatever thought had been forming had already slipped away, leaving only the uncomfortable impression of having almost remembered something he had no right to remember.
Cain lowered his head again.
“Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute…”
(Give us this day our daily bread…)
Your hands.
They came to him with such clarity that he almost frowned at the memory itself. He could picture them resting loosely in your lap, the absent movements of your fingers whenever you were nervous, the way you reached for something without looking.
Small things.
Meaningless things.
Things he had never intended to notice.
And yet he remembered them.
All of them.
The smallest details, the sort no one thought to keep. The sort that should have disappeared the moment he stopped looking.
Cain's thumb stopped over the bead.
Why?
The question surfaced so quietly that he almost mistook it for part of the prayer.
Why you?
He frowned.
There were countless people in the world. People kinder than you. More beautiful. More devout. People he had known longer, people whose lives had intersected with his far more often.
People he had forgotten.
That should have been the end of it.
So why you?
Cain closed his eyes.
No.
That wasn't the question.
The question was how.
How had you managed to become so difficult to forget?
His fingers moved again, carrying the rosary forward one bead at a time, and he returned to the prayer as though the answer might disappear if he refused to look directly at it.
“Und vergib uns unsere Schuld…”
(And forgive us our trespasses…)
Your name surfaced so naturally that, for a moment, Cain almost mistook it for part of the prayer.
Then he realized.
His thumb stopped.
It was only a name. A handful of sounds, nothing more. There was nothing sacred about it, nothing dangerous. And yet he knew precisely how it sounded when you said it yourself. He knew the way it changed in someone else's mouth, how it carried across a room when someone called for you, how it sounded when you answered.
He knew.
Perhaps that was what unsettled him most.
He knew far too much.
His lips parted, but whatever word had been waiting there never came. The church remained perfectly still around him, indifferent to the quiet disturbance taking place beneath his ribs.
Cain lowered his eyes.
“...wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.”
(…as we forgive those who trespass against us.)
The prayer sounded different now.
Not strange.
Something worse.
Familiar.
He had carried those words through fear and anger, through sleepless nights and mornings when he had needed something—anything—to hold onto. He had whispered them when there was no one else to speak to and recited them when words were the only thing keeping his thoughts from unraveling.
They had always belonged to God.
So how had you found your way into them?
Cain's fingers tightened around the rosary.
He should ask for forgiveness.
The thought arrived with the same certainty as the prayer itself.
Forgive me.
But for what?
He had done nothing.
He hadn't touched you, hadn't kissed you, hadn't confessed anything that would warrant repentance. He hadn't even seen you tonight. There was no offense in remembering someone, no sin in hearing their voice in his head after they had gone.
No—
Cain stopped himself.
The excuses were becoming too specific.
His throat tightened.
He swallowed and lowered his head, returning his attention to the rosary as though the next bead might give him somewhere else to look.
Then, quietly, he began to pray again.
“Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung…”
(And lead us not into temptation…)
This time, the word did not frighten him.
It irritated him.
Cain's jaw tightened.
Temptation.
Again.
The same word, the same prayer, the same thought that had been following him from one bead to the next as though he hadn't already tried to leave it behind.
It wasn't because you had tempted him.
You hadn't.
You had done nothing.
That was what made it so infuriating.
If you had tried to distract him, he could have blamed you for it. If you had touched him, he could have called it deliberate. If you had said something meant only for him, he could have given the thought a name and been done with it.
But you had never asked for his attention.
He had given it to you himself.
Without meaning to.
Without permission.
And, apparently, without any particular desire to take it back.
His thumb pressed hard against the bead.
Cain exhaled through his nose.
Ridiculous.
He moved to the next one.
“...sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.”
(…but deliver us from evil.)
The last word disappeared into the silence.
He remained kneeling.
His knees had begun to ache, a dull pressure beneath the bone, but he barely noticed it. His attention was fixed entirely on the rosary hanging between his fingers.
He could start again.
Of course he could.
He had done it before.
He could stay here until the candles burned down to their wicks, until the first gray light of morning found its way through the windows. He could repeat the prayer until the words lost their meaning and became nothing more than sounds his mouth knew how to make.
He could ask God to take this thought from him.
He could ask for discipline.
Clarity.
Indifference.
Anything.
It should have been simple.
Cain lowered his head.
His lips parted.
Nothing came.
His fingers tightened around the rosary, not hard enough to hurt this time, only enough to remind himself that it was there. One bead beneath his thumb. Then another.
Something solid.
Something measurable.
Something that could be counted.
He did not begin the prayer.
He couldn't.
Because beneath all the explanations he had given himself—distraction, exhaustion, temptation, habit—there was something he had been carefully avoiding.
The thought surfaced reluctantly.
He pushed it away.
It returned.
He frowned.
No.
That wasn't it.
He tried to find another explanation, something easier, something he could believe.
Nothing came.
Only the quiet realization that perhaps the problem had never been that he kept thinking of you.
Perhaps the problem was that, every time he managed not to, some part of him went looking for you again.
Cain went still.
His eyes remained lowered.
The truth settled slowly, unwelcome and undeniable.
He didn't want it gone.
His fingers loosened around the rosary.
For a moment, he almost laughed at himself.
Of all things to discover on his knees, this.
He had spent the entire night asking himself why you kept appearing in his thoughts, never stopping long enough to wonder whether he actually wanted you to leave them.
Now he knew.
And knowing did not feel like relief.
It felt like surrender.
Cain closed his eyes.
You weren't here.
You hadn't followed him into the church. You hadn't interrupted his prayer, hadn't touched him, hadn't asked anything of him.
You had done absolutely nothing.
He had done all of it himself.
And somehow, that made it worse.
His thumb found the first bead again.
The prayer was still there, waiting patiently for him.
“Vater unser im Himmel…”
(Our Father in Heaven…)
His voice was quieter this time.
He swallowed and continued.
The words came more easily now.
Not because the distraction had disappeared.
Because he had stopped pretending it would.
And somewhere between Vater unser and erlöse uns, as inevitable as the next bead beneath his thumb, your name found its way into the prayer again.
@crossaints — this might not be everyone's cup of tea. the prayer that was used is Das Vaterunser it's a german prayer.
synopsis — you can do so much better than him, Amelia tells herself every time she watches you smile at someone else. if only she had the courage to say: I could be better than him.
“Would you choose me over that fucking dog?”
The question followed Amelia long after the door had closed behind her.
She closed her eyes.
She didn't know.
And somehow, not knowing frightened her far more than admitting she wanted you ever could.
That night, Amelia lay awake for hours.
She told herself she was angry.
But Amelia had spent years assuming that if she ever wanted you, she could simply want you quietly. From a safe distance. She could keep being your friend and bury everything else beneath insults and sarcasm until it eventually disappeared.
Except it hadn't disappeared.
It had gotten worse.
And she couldn't keep pretending it wasn't. So Amelia did the only thing she knew how to do when something frightened her.
She ran.
Not far.
Just far enough that you couldn't reach her.
After that, Amelia started avoiding you.
Not dramatically. She didn't block your number, tell you she was angry, or make some grand declaration that you were no longer welcome in her life. That would have required admitting there was a problem in the first place.
Instead, she made herself difficult to reach. Whenever you asked if she wanted to hang out, there was always something.
She was busy.
She was tired.
She had somewhere to be.
Maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow became another day, and another after that.
At first, you didn't think much of it.
Amelia had always been difficult. She disappeared when she was irritated, ignored messages when she didn't feel like answering, and possessed an almost infuriating talent for making herself unavailable whenever she decided she needed space.
But this was different.
She wasn't asking for space.
She was avoiding you.
You noticed it in the little things first.
The places where you usually met suddenly stopped having her in them. Messages that once took her five minutes to answer sat unread for hours, sometimes an entire day.
Whenever you caught sight of her somewhere, her eyes seemed to find anything else worth looking at before they found you.
And when they did—
She looked away.
That bothered you more than you wanted to admit.
So you tried harder.
You asked her to grab something to eat.
She'd already eaten.
You asked if she wanted to watch something.
She wasn't in the mood.
You asked if she'd at least tell you what you'd done wrong.
That one went unanswered.
Eventually, you stopped asking politely.
You caught up with her one afternoon after nearly a week of being given excuses.
“Amelia.”
She heard you.
You knew she did.
Her shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly, but she didn't turn around. She simply kept walking, hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, her pace quickening just enough to make it obvious she was hoping you'd get tired of following.
You didn't.
“Amelia, seriously.”
Still nothing.
You lengthened your stride until you were beside her, matching her pace despite the deliberate way she kept walking just a little faster than usual.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
The answer came too quickly, too flat.
Amelia didn't even look at you. Her gaze remained fixed ahead, her jaw set, as though whatever waited at the end of the street was considerably more interesting than you were.
You frowned.
“Then why are you avoiding me?”
“I'm not.”
“You are.”
She kept walking.
For a moment, you let the silence sit between you, hoping she'd eventually give you something more than the same stubborn refusal she'd been giving you all week.
She didn't.
“You've been ignoring me.”
“I've been busy.”
“For a week?”
“Yes.”
The sheer stubbornness of it made you stop for half a second.
Amelia didn't.
She kept going as though she'd somehow managed to make the conversation disappear simply by refusing to acknowledge it.
She hated that you were still following her.
You should have gotten tired of her excuses sometime during the past week. You should have rolled your eyes, called her impossible, and left her alone.
Instead, you'd chased every half-assed answer she'd given you and followed her down the street with that same stubborn concern written across your face.
It made Amelia feel cornered.
Not by you.
By herself.
“Why do you care so much?”
The question came quietly.
Amelia's chest tightened.
For a moment, she couldn't look at you. Her gaze dropped to the pavement, following a crack in the concrete as though there were something there worth studying.
Because she cared.
That was the answer.
Simple.
Embarrassing.
Unacceptable.
She let out a short laugh, but it came out dry and humorless.
“Because you're making a stupid mistake.”
You frowned.
“With him?”
She nodded once.
She could have said she didn't trust him. She could have brought up the things she'd spent weeks collecting in her head—the way he looked at you, the way he texted you constantly, the way you smiled whenever his name appeared on your phone.
But none of those were real reasons.
Not anymore.
You waited.
When she gave you nothing, your expression shifted from confusion to frustration.
“You keep saying he's wrong for me, but you never tell me why.”
Because there wasn't anything to tell you. That was what made it so unbearable. She should have been able to explain herself. That was the humiliating part.
Amelia always had an explanation. A reason for every insult, every argument, every time she'd told you that you were making a mistake. She could usually talk her way out of anything if she was given enough time.
But standing there now, with you waiting for an answer, every excuse she'd prepared sounded pathetic.
Because what was she supposed to say?
That she hated seeing you happy with someone else?
That she'd started measuring every moment you spent with him against every moment you'd ever spent with her?
That she'd caught herself wondering what it would feel like if you looked at her the way you looked at him?
None of it sounded like concern anymore.
It sounded like jealousy.
And Amelia hated how obvious it suddenly was.
She looked away, jaw clenched.
For years, she'd convinced herself that wanting you was something she could keep contained. Something private. Something that didn't have to change anything as long as she never gave it a name.
She'd been wrong.
The moment you chose someone else, that quiet little secret had become impossible to ignore.
Every smile you gave him had made it louder.
Every time you reached for his hand, it had reminded her that she had never once asked you to reach for hers.
And every time she told herself she was only trying to protect you, some quieter part of her had answered the same thing.
Liar.
Amelia swallowed.
She didn't want to be the person who resented you for being happy.
She didn't want to be the person who treated your relationship like a competition she had somehow been entered into without your knowledge.
But she didn't know how to stop.
Because somewhere along the way, friendship had stopped being enough.
And she'd been too afraid to admit it until there was someone else standing beside you.
Her eyes finally lifted to yours and you were still waiting. She wished you would stop looking at her like that. Because the longer you did, the harder it became to pretend the problem was him.
The problem was that she wanted something he had.
Your attention.
Your affection.
Your smile.
God, she hated herself for wanting any of it.
Her gaze dropped again.
“He's not doing anything wrong,” she admitted quietly.
The words felt like losing.
She heard the faint change in your breathing.
“What?”
Amelia shook her head.
“Forget it.”
But she couldn't.
Because she'd finally said the thing she'd been refusing to admit.
He wasn't the problem.
She was.
“You just deserve better.”
The words left Amelia before she could stop them.
You stared at her.
“Better than him?”
She didn't answer immediately. Her gaze drifted somewhere over your shoulder, anywhere but your face.
She could feel the question sitting between you, waiting for an explanation she didn't have.
“Better than him,” she repeated eventually.
It sounded weak even to her.
You gave her a disbelieving look.
“Why?”
Because she couldn't stand watching you choose him.
Because every time you smiled at him, something ugly twisted beneath her ribs.
Because she'd spent weeks convincing herself she was protecting you when, really, she'd been trying to protect herself from having to watch someone else become the person you loved.
None of those were things she could say.
So Amelia shrugged.
“Because I'm right.”
Your expression hardened.
“You always do this.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Do what?”
“Act like you're the only person who gets to decide what's good for me.”
Amelia opened her mouth, ready with some sharp response, but nothing came.
She'd always been good at this.
She could turn concern into criticism. Fear into anger. Anything that made her vulnerable could be sharpened until it looked like an argument she could win.
“I'm trying to protect you,” she said eventually.
You shook your head.
“I don't need you to.”
Something in Amelia's chest gave way. Not dramatically. There was no sudden revelation, no clean moment where everything fell into place.
It was quieter than that.
The last piece of restraint she'd been holding onto simply wore thin.
She looked at you properly.
Really looked.
Your expression wasn't angry anymore. Not entirely.
There was hurt beneath it, confusion she had put there herself, and something painfully familiar in the way you were still trying to reach her despite everything she'd done to make herself impossible to reach.
She hated that look.
She hated knowing she'd caused it.
Most of all, she hated that some part of her still wanted you to come closer.
“You don't understand.”
The words came out quieter than she intended.
“Then let me.”
Her eyes dropped.
She couldn't.
How could she explain something she barely understood herself?
How could she tell you that she hated seeing you with him without admitting that she wanted to be the one beside you?
How could she tell you that every smile you gave him felt like something being taken away from her when she'd never had any right to it in the first place?
She'd spent the entire week running from those thoughts.
Now they were standing between you, exposed and ugly.
You stepped closer.
Amelia felt it before she looked up—the shift in the space between you, the faint warmth of your presence, the way her body seemed to tense in anticipation of something she couldn't name.
“You've been avoiding me.”
She looked away.
“Maybe I don't want to talk.”
The lie tasted bitter.
You were quiet for a moment.
Then, softer, “Then why are you so angry?”
Amelia's fingers curled into her palms.
“I'm not.”
“You are.”
She almost snapped back.
Almost.
Instead, she stood there with her nails pressing crescent-shaped marks into her skin, welcoming the sting because it gave her something else to focus on.
Anything was easier than thinking about how close you were.
Especially now.
You were standing right in front of her, close enough that Amelia could see the tiny changes in your expression, the way your eyes searched hers whenever she went quiet.
She hated that you still looked at her like you cared. After everything she'd done to push you away, you were still here.
Still asking.
Still trying to understand her.
That should have made her feel relieved. Instead, it made something inside her ache. Because this was what she'd wanted, wasn't it?
Your attention.
Your patience.
To matter enough that you'd follow her when she walked away and refuse to let her disappear behind another excuse. And yet, knowing she had it wasn't enough. That was the part Amelia couldn't forgive herself for.
She didn't just want to matter to you.
She wanted to be the person you chose first.
The person you looked for in a crowded room.
The person whose messages made you smile.
The person you reached for without thinking.
She wanted a place in your life that friendship couldn't give her, and no amount of pretending otherwise was going to make the feeling disappear.
Her stomach twisted.
Maybe that was why she'd been so cruel about him. Not because she wanted him gone. Because she wanted the space he occupied. And admitting that felt worse than jealousy ever had.
For once, there was nowhere left to hide behind the argument. You were still waiting for her to say something.
Amelia couldn't.
The words were there, trapped behind her teeth.
I hate seeing you with him.
I hate how happy you look.
I wish it were me.
And beneath all of them, the one truth she was most afraid to say:
I don't know how to be your friend anymore when being your friend isn't enough.
You waited.
Amelia said nothing.
The silence stretched between you until it became its own kind of pressure.
She could hear the faint sound of traffic somewhere beyond the street, the rustle of leaves overhead, even the uneven rhythm of her own breathing.
You were still looking at her.
Waiting.
Amelia hated that you were patient enough to wait.
She had spent weeks avoiding this exact moment, and somehow you'd managed to corner her without raising your voice, without demanding anything from her except an explanation she didn't know how to give.
Then you spoke.
“What, because you're so much better than him?”
Something in Amelia's expression shifted.
For a second, she simply stared at you.
Then she scoffed.
It wasn't amusement.
It was instinct—a reflex born from years of turning embarrassment into arrogance before anyone could see it for what it was.
Her chin lifted.
“Oh, I know I am.”
The words came out sharper than she intended.
Your expression faltered.
Amelia immediately felt the weight of what she'd said, but there was no taking it back now.
Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs. Her palms had gone damp, and the crescent marks her nails had pressed into her skin were beginning to sting.
Still, she refused to look away.
You stared at her.
“Why?”
Amelia's throat tightened before she swallowed.
For one brief second, she considered lying again. She could have laughed. Called you stupid. Told you that she was obviously better because she wasn't some pathetic guy who had gotten lucky enough to catch your attention.
Anything.
Anything except the truth.
But she'd run out of places to hide it.
“Why? Would it be better if I was a man?”
The words were quiet.
Almost too quiet.
They hung between you.
Amelia felt the question leave her mouth and immediately wished she could drag it back.
There it was.
The thing she'd been refusing to name.
Not hatred.
Not concern.
Not some righteous certainty that she knew what was best for you.
Her.
She was the alternative she'd been so desperately trying not to think about.
You didn't answer.
Amelia watched the realization arrive slowly across your face. Your expression changed. It was subtle at first.
A pause. A slight widening of your eyes. The way your lips parted before whatever question had been forming behind them disappeared. Amelia watched the realization settle over you. She knew the exact moment you understood. It wasn't one particular thing. It was everything.
Every argument that had never really been about him. Every time she'd gotten strangely quiet whenever you mentioned him. Every insult she'd thrown at him with far more conviction than the situation ever deserved.
All the times she'd insisted you could do better.
All the times she'd looked at you a second too long and pretended she hadn't.
The realization moved across your face slowly, piece by piece, until there was nowhere left for Amelia to hide from it.
You finally understood.
She wasn't trying to get you away from him.
She had been trying to get you to look at her.
Amelia's stomach dropped.
For once, you were seeing exactly what she'd spent so long trying to hide.
And she had no idea whether she wanted you to look away or never look anywhere else again.
Amelia couldn't move.
She had imagined admitting it so many different ways. In an argument, perhaps. Spat out between insults when she was angry enough not to care what happened afterward. Maybe whispered when she was certain you weren't listening.
She had never imagined saying it like this.
Quietly.
With you looking at her.
The adrenaline that had carried her through the confession was already beginning to drain away, leaving something colder in its place.
What had she done?
She had spent years making sure you never had to know.
Years turning every strange feeling into a joke, every moment of jealousy into an argument, every impulse to get closer into another excuse to shove you away.
And now you'd seen through all of it.
There was no taking it back.
Amelia suddenly felt exposed in a way she couldn't remember ever feeling before. Her usual armor—the sarcasm, the arrogance, the quick remarks she could throw out whenever she felt cornered—was nowhere to be found.
She had nothing clever left to say. Nothing sharp enough to make this disappear. Just the awful, unbearable knowledge that you now knew. And she had no idea what you were going to do with it.
“Amelia…”
Her name came softly.
She looked at you, waiting.
For a moment, you seemed unable to find the right words. Your lips parted, then closed again, your expression shifting as you tried to understand what she'd just admitted.
Amelia watched you hesitate.
She told herself it didn't mean anything. You were surprised. Anyone would be. You probably just needed a moment to figure out how to respond to something neither of you had ever said aloud.
But the longer you remained silent, the more certain she became that she'd already said too much.
A small, humorless laugh escaped her. “Right.”
She turned her face away.
Of course.
She had finally managed to ruin the one thing she'd been so afraid of losing.
For years, being your friend had been simple. She knew where she stood. She knew what she was allowed to want, what she had to keep to herself, and how close she could get without crossing a line.
Now she'd crossed it.
And there was no way to step back over it and pretend nothing had changed.
She had always known how to be beside you.
It was the one thing that had never required thought. She knew when to bother you, when to leave you alone, which jokes would make you laugh and which ones would earn an annoyed look. She knew the rhythm of your friendship so well that she could move through it without thinking.
Now every part of it felt fragile.
Tomorrow, if you spoke to her the way you always had, would she still know how to answer?
Would she be able to sit beside you without remembering what she'd done? Would she be able to hear you say her name without wondering whether it sounded different now?
Amelia hated that she'd turned something so familiar into something neither of you knew how to navigate. And yet, beneath the fear, another thought kept trying to surface.
What if you didn't want things to go back to the way they were?
She shut it down immediately.
That was dangerous.
Hope was worse than rejection because rejection would at least give her something definite to survive.
So she kept her gaze away from you and waited, trying not to imagine what might happen if your answer was something she had spent years secretly wishing for.
“Amelia…” You said her name again. This time, there was no irritation behind it. No accusation. Just a quiet uncertainty that made Amelia finally look at you.
She wished you hadn't.
There was something in your expression she couldn't read, and for once, she didn't want to try. She'd spent too long studying every little change in your face, searching for signs that you were happy, upset, interested, distant. It had always been easier when she could convince herself she understood what you were thinking. Now she had nothing.
You were looking at her differently. Or maybe she was only imagining it because she wanted you to. Amelia's gaze dropped for a moment before returning to yours. She could feel the question sitting between you, waiting to be spoken.
What did she mean?
Why had she said it?
Had she really meant that she could be better than him?
She knew she couldn't lie her way through another question.
Not this time.
If you asked her, she would have to tell you.
She would have to admit that all those stupid arguments had never really been about him. That she'd been jealous long before she understood what she was jealous of. That every time she'd told you that you deserved someone better, there had always been an unspoken second half to the sentence.
Someone like me.
The thought made her want to disappear.
You took a small breath.
Amelia saw your lips part.
Whatever happened next was no longer hers to control.
“Amelia, I—”
She moved before she could think better of it.
There was no decision behind it. No careful calculation of what would happen afterward. One moment, she was standing there trying to find a way out of the conversation, and the next, she had closed the distance between you.
Her hand found your face.
Her fingers settled beneath your jaw, gentle despite the tension running through them. The warmth of your skin seemed to snap her back into herself.
You went still.
So did she.
For a moment, Amelia could only stare.
You were close enough that she could see the surprise in your eyes, close enough to feel the faint warmth of your breath against her face. Her mind finally caught up with what her body had already decided.
She could stop.
All she had to do was step back.
Instead, her thumb moved almost imperceptibly against your cheek. And she pulled you closer.
Her lips met yours.
The kiss was softer than she had imagined.
That surprised her most.
After weeks of anger, jealousy, and words she'd sharpened until they could hurt, she had expected the moment to feel just as messy. She'd imagined it as something reckless, something fueled by everything she'd refused to say.
But there was none of that.
Only warmth.
Only the quiet realization that the person she'd spent so long trying not to want was actually standing in front of her, and she had finally stopped pretending.
Amelia's eyes fell shut.
Her hand remained against your face, no longer holding you there so much as reassuring herself that this was real. She could feel the faint movement of your breath, the hesitation in the way you remained perfectly still beneath her touch.
Then the thought finally reached her.
I'm kissing you.
Not imagining it.
Not wondering what it would feel like.
Actually kissing you.
The realization sent a rush of panic through her.
This wasn't something she could take back and hide behind a joke later. She couldn't pretend she'd misunderstood herself or blame the moment on anger. She had crossed the line she'd spent years carefully guarding. And somehow, despite all of that, she didn't regret it.
Not yet.
Amelia began to pull away.
Then she stopped.
You hadn't moved.
You hadn't pushed her back. You hadn't turned away .You were simply there, still letting her stay. That small uncertainty was enough.
Amelia's fingers softened against your cheek. For a moment, neither of you moved. Then she kissed you again.
This time, there was no shock behind it. No startled pause, no instinctive need to figure out what she was doing. She simply let herself stay, letting the hesitation fall away little by little.
Her thumb brushed your cheek as she tilted her head, the gesture almost impossibly gentle compared to everything that had brought you here.
She had spent the entire evening trying to turn her feelings into something she could argue with.
Now she didn't want to argue anymore.
There was nothing left to prove.
The warmth of you beneath her hand made the whole situation feel strangely unreal. She had spent so long imagining what it would be like to stop holding herself back that she'd never considered what would happen afterward.
For once, she didn't care.
Amelia drew back just enough to breathe, her forehead hovering close to yours.
When she opened her eyes, you were still there.
Still close.
Still looking at her.
And somehow, that frightened her more than the kiss had.
Because she could no longer pretend this was something that had happened because she was angry.
She had chosen it.
She had chosen you.
For a few seconds, Amelia forgot that there was supposed to be an aftermath.
She had spent so long imagining what it would feel like to finally have you close to her that she'd never imagined what came after. In her head, wanting you had always been something distant and impossible, something she could indulge in privately and then bury beneath another insult before anyone noticed.
Now it wasn't private anymore.
She had kissed you.
And you had let her.
The realization settled slowly, replacing the brief sense of relief with something much more frightening.
What if this changed everything?
Amelia looked at you properly for the first time since she'd moved away from your lips. Your expression gave her nothing she could understand. You looked stunned, maybe confused, and she couldn't tell whether there was anything else beneath it.
She searched your face anyway.
For rejection.
For anger.
For some sign that she'd made a terrible mistake.
But there was nothing definite enough for her to hold onto.
That uncertainty terrified her.
Because if you hated it, at least she'd know what to do. She could apologize, disappear for a while, and eventually find some way to convince herself that she'd ruined everything because she'd been stupid.
But if you didn't—
Amelia stopped herself. She couldn't finish that thought. Her eyes dropped, and she took a slow step backward. The distance between you suddenly felt necessary.
“Amelia—”
Hearing her name made her look up. You were about to say something. That was all it took. She knew she couldn't stay. Not when she had no idea what your answer would be. Not when one more second of standing there might give her enough hope to make leaving impossible.
“I should go.” The words came out quieter than she intended. You wanted to respond, but Amelia was already turning away.
She walked quickly at first, then faster when she heard movement behind her.
She didn't look back.
She wanted to.
God, she wanted to.
Every part of her was screaming at her to stop, turn around, and find out what you had been trying to say. But Amelia had spent weeks running from the truth because facing it had terrified her.
Now she'd finally faced it.
And she wasn't brave enough to stay for the answer.
So she kept walking, leaving the question behind her along with everything she'd spent years pretending she didn't want.
synopsis — you can do so much better than him, amelia tells herself every time she watches you smile at someone else. if only she had the courage to say: i could be better than him.
note: this is the first and last time i am going to write something for amelia... made @where-spar0w-barks character miserable.
Amelia hated men.
She had made this very clear on more than one occasion, usually loudly and without anyone asking.
It wasn't a new opinion, either. Amelia had spent years collecting reasons for it.
Every stupid comment. Every half-assed apology. Every man who mistook confidence for charm and arrogance for personality. She'd filed them all away somewhere in the back of her mind, each one another piece of evidence in a case she had never needed to argue.
Men were exhausting. Predictable. Mostly useless.
Which was why she couldn't understand why you kept bringing him up.
It had started small.
A passing mention while the two of you were sitting around doing nothing. Then another the next day.
Then a story about something stupid he'd said that you apparently found funny enough to repeat. Then you'd started checking your phone more often, smiling down at the screen in that quiet, absent-minded way that made Amelia want to snatch it from your hands and throw it across the room.
She never did.
Mostly because she had no reasonable explanation for why she wanted to. So she sat across from you instead, pretending to read while you talked.
Amelia had already read the same paragraph three times. She hadn't absorbed a single word. You were sitting on the counter, swinging one leg idly while telling her about him. Something about how he remembered your favorite drink. Amelia stopped listening somewhere around he remembered.
Why the hell did that impress you?
It was a drink.
That wasn't special. Anyone could remember a drink if they'd heard someone mention it enough times. She knew yours without having to think about it.
She knew which one you'd order when you were tired, which one you'd complain was too sweet, which one you'd insist tasted better even when she couldn't tell the difference.
She knew what you liked.
She knew what you hated.
She knew the little things you forgot you'd ever told her.
And suddenly, him remembering one stupid drink didn't feel impressive.
It felt invasive.
Fucking irritating.
Because Amelia had been remembering you for years.
“You know what's funny?”
Amelia turned another page without bothering to look up.
“No.”
You laughed.
That finally made her look.
Your smile was already there, bright and knowing, the kind that always seemed to appear a second before you said something you knew would get under her skin. Amelia had begun to suspect you did it deliberately.
Maybe you liked watching her get irritated. Maybe it amused you to poke at her until she snapped. She told herself that was why she kept looking.
“He might ask me out.”
The page stopped beneath Amelia's thumb.
For a second, she didn't move.
The words sat there between you, simple enough. Harmless, even. Yet something in her chest seemed to pull tight, sudden and unpleasant, like she swallowed something she couldn't quite get down.
She lifted her eyes from the magazine.
“He might what?”
You repeated yourself, and there was something almost embarrassingly pleased in your expression this time. You weren't even trying to hide how excited you were. Your fingers curled loosely around your phone, the screen still glowing in your lap, and Amelia didn't need to ask who had been texting you.
Of course it was him.
She leaned back into the couch, forcing her shoulders to relax. It probably would have looked convincing if she hadn't immediately asked, “Why?”
You blinked.
“Why what?”
“Why would he ask you out?”
The question came sharper than she'd intended.
You tilted your head, looking at her as though you were trying to figure out where exactly that hostility had come from.
Amelia could feel herself digging the heel of her thumb into the edge of the magazine.
“I don't know,” you said. “Maybe because he likes me?”
There was no arrogance in it. If anything, you sounded almost shy.
That made it worse.
Amelia exhaled through her nose.
“You must've done something.”
Your eyebrows drew together.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…”
She stopped.
There were several answers available to her.
Maybe he just likes you.
Maybe you're pretty.
Maybe he's finally noticed what everyone else has.
Instead, Amelia searched for the meanest one.
It was easier that way.
“You probably gave him the wrong idea.”
For a moment, you only stared at her. Then you laughed.
Not the bright laugh from earlier. This one was smaller, almost disbelieving, as if you couldn't decide whether Amelia was serious.
“You're so mean.”
“I'm being realistic.”
“You don't even like him.”
“Exactly.”
The answer came immediately.
You seemed to notice because your smile widened.
“You've barely talked to him.”
“Exactly.”
“Then how do you know he's an idiot?”
Amelia finally looked away. Because she had been watching him. That was the part she couldn't say.
She watched the way he leaned toward you when you spoke. The way he smiled whenever you laughed. The way his attention seemed to settle on you a little too easily, like he'd already decided you were worth looking at.
She watched him because she didn't trust him.
That was what she told herself.
She didn't trust men.
That was all.
“I've met him.”
“Twice.”
“Twice was enough.”
You shook your head, smiling again, and Amelia caught the expression from the corner of her eye.
She looked away before her own mouth could betray her.
She was annoyed because you were wasting your time. Because you were getting excited over some guy who had done nothing remarkable besides remember your favorite drink and send you enough messages to keep you smiling at your phone.
You could do better than him.
The thought came so easily that Amelia didn't even question it.
Of course you do.
It didn't matter who that better person was.
You deserved someone who could actually keep up with you, someone who didn't make you look at your phone every five minutes wondering if he texted. Someone who wouldn't make you question whether he liked you.
Someone who knew you.
Someone who—
Amelia stopped.
Her thumb dug into the edge of the magazine.
Why had her mind supplied that last part so quickly?
She looked at you again.
You were still talking, completely unaware of the direction her thoughts had taken.
Fuck.
No.
She wasn't doing this.
You deserved better.
“You're jealous.”
The accusation came so casually that Amelia almost didn't register it.
Then she looked up.
You were watching her with that same infuriating little smile, your head tilted slightly as though you'd just solved some complicated mystery.
There was no real accusation in your voice. If anything, you sounded amused.
That made it worse.
Amelia let out a short laugh, sharp enough to betray the irritation she'd been trying to swallow.
“Of him?”
You nodded.
Just once. Like it was obvious.
Amelia stared at you for a beat before closing the magazine in her lap with a quiet snap. She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, settling into the kind of composure she usually wore whenever someone said something particularly stupid.
“Seriously? You could do so much better than that. I hate men.”
It was the simplest explanation she had.
You blinked at her.
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“It does.”
“How?”
Amelia's mouth tightened.
Because if she explained it properly, she have to admit there was a distinction between hating men and hating him. And if there was a distinction, then you might start asking why this particular man seemed to bother her so much.
So she gave you the first argument she could think of.
“If I hated him specifically,” she said, “that would imply I thought about him specifically.”
You stared at her.
Amelia held your gaze for exactly two seconds before looking away.
Unfortunately, that was already a lie.
Eventually, you nodded.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
The silence that followed should have ended the conversation.
It didn't.
Amelia could already see the thought forming behind your eyes.
She knew that look.
Your mouth twitched first.
Then came the smile. “You're still jealous.”
Amelia's eyes narrowed.
There it was.
That smug little expression.
She hated it.
She hated how easily you could get underneath her skin, how you could take every carefully constructed excuse she gave you and turn it around until she was left with nothing but the uncomfortable truth she'd been avoiding.
Her hand moved before she really thought about it.
She reached across the space between you and shoved your knee with the back of her hand.
“Shut up.”
You laughed.
The sound filled the room, warm and effortless.
Amelia immediately looked away.
She hated that too.
Well…
Not really.
That was the problem.
She didn't hate your laugh.
She liked it.
She liked the way you threw your head back when something genuinely caught you off guard. She liked the little snort you'd make when you were trying not to laugh at something. She liked the way you sometimes looked at her as though she were far funnier than she actually was.
She tried to focus on the magazine again, but the words had blurred together.
And somewhere beneath all the irritation, beneath the excuses and the stubborn insistence that she simply hated men, there was a quieter thought she refused to entertain.
Maybe I am jealous.
The thought arrived quietly.
No dramatic realization. No lightning strike. Just four stupid words sitting there in the back of her mind.
Amelia stared at the page.
Then she frowned.
No.
That's pathetic.
She was more annoyed than jealous.
There was a difference.
A very important difference.
She repeated that to herself until it almost sounded convincing.
Then she looked at you again and the second you smiled at your phone, something sour twisted beneath her ribs.
Amelia's jaw tightened.
How can a man make you smile like that?
And if you happened to notice that she was watching you again from the corner of her eye, well— That was none of your business.
There were too many things Amelia liked about you.
She had tried not to notice them.
That was probably the first mistake.
She liked the way you laughed without bothering to make it quiet. She liked how easily you got excited over stupid little things, how you could turn something as insignificant as a new drink or a song you'd heard into a ten-minute conversation.
She liked the way you looked at people when they spoke, as though you were actually listening instead of simply waiting for your turn to talk.
She even liked the annoying things.
The way you interrupted her.
The way you stole food from her plate and acted surprised when she complained.
The way you always seemed to know when she was in a bad mood and somehow decided that was the perfect time to bother her.
There were too many things. Amelia didn't like that.
So, naturally, she became mean.
“You're wasting your time on him anyway.”
The words came out casually enough, almost like Amelia hadn't been waiting for the opportunity to say them.
Your smile faltered.
Only slightly. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed it, but Amelia had become irritatingly good at noticing things about you.
The smallest changes in your expression. The way your voice shifted when something actually bothered you. The little habits you didn't seem to realize you had.
Lately, she noticed too much.
It was becoming a problem she didn't particularly want to examine.
“Why?”
“Because.”
You waited.
Amelia didn't elaborate. She kept her eyes on the magazine resting in her lap, thumb dragging absently along the edge of the page as though the answer were so obvious that she shouldn't have to explain it.
You gave her a look.
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is when I'm right.”
That was usually how Amelia handled things she didn't want to talk about. She made herself difficult.
She turned every question into an argument and every argument into something she could win. It was easier than admitting she didn't have a real reason.
You stared at her for a moment, and she felt the amusement gradually leave your expression.
You weren't teasing her anymore. You were actually thinking about what she'd said, weighing it against whatever you already believed about him.
For some reason, that made her uncomfortable.
“He seems nice,” you said eventually.
Amelia scoffed, finally looking up.
“That's what you say about everyone.”
“Because most people are nice.”
She rolled her eyes.
“That's naive.”
“And you're cynical.”
“I'm realistic.”
A faint smile pulled at your mouth.
“You sound like Lane.”
Amelia's face twisted immediately.
“Don't insult me.”
You laughed beneath your breath, and despite herself, Amelia felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
She caught it before it could become a smile.
Then your phone buzzed.
Your attention dropped almost immediately.
Amelia watched the change happen.
The faint amusement on your face softened into something warmer before you'd even unlocked the screen. Your thumb moved across the notification, and there was something almost instinctive about the way you smiled at whatever you'd received.
Amelia didn't need to ask who it was.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
She hated that she knew.
She hated the phone for being capable of pulling that expression out of you so effortlessly.
More than that, she hated whoever was on the other end of it for being able to give you something Amelia had spent far too much time pretending she didn't want.
You typed out a response.
Amelia lowered her eyes to the magazine.
She tried to read.
The same sentence passed beneath her eyes once, then twice. By the third time, the words had stopped meaning anything.
She turned the page anyway, forcing herself to look occupied.
Three seconds later, she glanced up.
You were still smiling at your phone.
Something unpleasant twisted beneath her ribs.
She immediately pushed it away.
Jealousy was what people felt when they wanted something that wasn't theirs, and Amelia didn't want anything.
Certainly not you.
She just thought you could do better.
That was all.
The thought had barely settled into something she could believe when you spoke again.
“You know…”
Amelia looked up.
You were still staring at your phone, your expression softer than before.
“I think I actually like him.”
The words were quiet.
Almost casual.
They shouldn't have mattered.
They did.
Something inside Amelia seemed to drop before she could catch it. Her fingers tightened around the magazine until the paper bent beneath them.
For a moment, she simply stared.
You didn't notice. You were still looking down at your phone, thumb moving lazily across the screen, completely unaware of the expression that had settled over her face.
“Oh.”
It was all she managed.
You finally looked up. "What?"
“Nothing.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly.
“You made a face.”
“I didn't.”
“You did.”
Amelia rolled her eyes and looked back down, smoothing the bent corner of the magazine with her thumb.
“You're imagining things.”
But she could feel your attention on her.
You always looked at her when you thought she was hiding something. She could practically feel the little smile forming before she looked up again.
And there it was.
That knowing curve of your mouth—the one Amelia had learned to recognize over the years, the one that appeared whenever you thought you'd caught her in something.
“You're really bad at hiding when you're upset.”
Amelia looked at you.
“I'm not upset.”
“Then why are you acting weird?”
“I'm always like this.”
“That isn't what I mean.”
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Because what was she supposed to tell you?
That she didn't like hearing you say you liked him?
That she didn't like the way your face softened whenever he texted?
That she hated how easily he occupied your thoughts, how naturally you seemed to make room for him?
None of it sounded reasonable. And the worst part was that Amelia didn't even know what she wanted instead.
She only knew she didn't want him.
She wanted—
Her thoughts stopped there.
No.
She wouldn't finish that sentence.
Amelia lowered her gaze to the magazine again, pretending the sudden interest in the page was genuine.
“Whatever.”
You didn't argue.
That almost made it worse.
Instead, you simply smiled and echoed the word back to her, softer this time.
“Whatever.”
Amelia hated when you did that.
That soft little smile. The one that made her feel as though you knew there was something underneath all her irritation and were patient enough to wait until she figured it out herself.
She hated it because, for once, you were right.
There was something there.
Something she'd been circling around for weeks, dressing up as annoyance and concern and hatred for men because those were easier things to admit.
She just wasn't ready to give it a name.
The room went quiet after that.
Not completely. There was still the low hum of the television, the occasional noise from outside, the faint rattle of something being moved around in another room.
But between the two of you, there was nothing. Amelia kept her eyes on the magazine in her lap. She hadn't turned the page in several minutes.
You were looking down at your phone again. Every so often, your thumb moved across the screen. A message. Another one. Amelia didn't need to see the name to know who it was.
She could tell by the way you smiled.
That stupid, soft smile.
She hated it.
Or, more accurately, she hated that someone else could put it there so easily.
You looked up from your phone a moment later. There was a different sort of brightness in your expression now, something Amelia had learned to recognize even when she wished she hadn't.
“He's going to take me out.”
Amelia's eyes lifted from the magazine.
For a second, she simply stared.
“What?”
You tucked your phone into your lap, and suddenly there was something almost shy about you. Your fingers worried at the edge of the case, your gaze dropping for a moment before returning to hers.
“He asked if I wanted to go somewhere with him.”
The sentence was simple.
Amelia still felt as though the words had landed with physical weight.
Her first instinct was to tell you no.
No, don't go.
No, you shouldn't.
Just—
No.
A childish, irrational refusal that had no place in a conversation that had nothing to do with her.
She had no right to decide who you went out with.
No right to care.
So she closed the magazine instead and forced her face into something resembling indifference.
“Oh.”
Your smile widened at the news, and Amelia immediately regretted asking.
“I think it's a date.”
“That's unfortunate.”
The laugh that escaped you was bright and effortless, and despite herself, Amelia felt something in her chest loosen.
She couldn't decide whether it was relief or irritation.
Probably both.
You turned toward her, still smiling.
“Amelia.”
She glanced at you.
“What?”
“You could at least pretend to be happy for me.”
“I am.”
The answer came automatically, almost convincing in its flatness.
Almost.
You studied her for a moment, your smile slowly fading into something more suspicious.
Amelia knew that look too.
You had a habit of looking at her as though you could peel apart every expression she tried to hide behind.
“You don't look happy.”
“I don't have to look happy.”
“You're supposed to.”
That made Amelia frown.
“Why?”
You gave her a look as though the answer should have been obvious.
“Because you're my friend.”
The word shouldn't have bothered her.
It was ordinary. Harmless. Something you'd called her countless times before.
Friend.
Amelia had never thought twice about it. But now, after watching you smile at your phone and hearing you admit that you actually liked someone, the word felt like someone had driven a knife straight through her chest.
That's what she was.
She leaned further into the couch and crossed her arms, using the movement to hide whatever had briefly passed across her face.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I'm happy for you.”
You stared at her.
Amelia could practically see the disbelief forming behind your eyes.
“You're lying.”
“Obviously.”
Your laugh came again, softer this time.
Amelia turned her head toward the other side of the room, suddenly fascinated by absolutely nothing.
She could still feel your eyes on her, though, and the awareness of them made her shift uncomfortably against the cushions.
“You're really not going to let this go, are you?”
“No.”
There was no hesitation in your answer.
Amelia finally glanced back at you, catching the amusement returning to your expression.
“You're annoying.”
“You like me.”
She scoffed.
“Debatable.”
Your smile softened.
Amelia looked away before she could see it properly.
She didn't need to.
She already knew what it looked like.
She'd seen that smile enough times to recognize it without looking—the small, warm one you gave when you thought you'd gotten under her skin, when you were pleased with yourself for some reason she could never quite understand.
And, annoyingly, she could feel the warmth of it even after she'd turned away. For a few seconds, neither of you said anything.
Amelia kept her eyes on the room, pretending she wasn't thinking about the word you used.
Your smile widened, but it didn't last.
Almost as abruptly as it had appeared, it disappeared when you turned toward the mirror.
Your fingers went to your lips, rubbing them together as you leaned closer to your reflection and tilted
your face toward the light.
“Oh, shit.”
Amelia glanced over from the couch.
“What?”
“My lips.”
She looked at your reflection, then at you.
“What about them?”
“They're dry.”
You were already fussing with them, running your thumb across your lower lip and inspecting the result as though slightly chapped lips were some kind of emergency capable of ruining the entire evening.
Amelia watched in silence.
There was something ridiculous about how seriously you were taking it. There was also something strangely endearing. She refused to decide which.
“You're going on a date,” she muttered, “not getting married.”
“I know.”
“You're acting like it.”
You made a face at your reflection, still rubbing your lips together.
“I just don't want to look stupid.”
The answer left Amelia before she could dress it up as a joke.
“You won't.”
You looked at her through the mirror.
Amelia realized how quickly she'd said it. There wasn't a sarcastic remark waiting behind it. No insult she could tack onto the end to make the sincerity less obvious.
She meant it.
You wouldn't look stupid.
You never did.
Not when you were nervous, even when you became almost painfully aware of every little thing you were doing. Not when you changed outfits three times because you couldn't decide which one looked better. Not when you spent twenty minutes comparing two nearly identical shades of lipstick.
You always managed to look—
Amelia stopped the thought before it could finish.
Her gaze moved away from the mirror.
She needed to stop doing this.
“Do you have lip gloss?”
The question pulled her attention back.
You were pointing toward the bag beside her.
“I know you have some.”
Amelia glanced at the bag.
She did.
A small tube was buried inside one of the inner pockets, something she'd tossed in there weeks ago and forgotten about.
She reached inside and felt around until her fingers closed around the familiar plastic tube.
She could have handed it to you.
That would've been normal.
Easy.
Instead, she pulled it out and kept it in her hand.
You immediately reached for it.
“Thanks.”
Amelia didn't let go.
Your fingers remained suspended between you for a second before you looked from the gloss to her face.
“What?”
“Give me your face.”
You blinked.
“My face?”
Amelia rolled her eyes.
“Jesus Christ. I'm putting it on for you.”
The confusion on your face nearly made her smile.
“You're going to put it on?”
“You'll smear it everywhere.”
“I can do it myself.”
“I know.”
She still didn't give you the gloss. Something about that seemed to make you hesitate. You studied her for a moment, as if trying to decide whether she was joking.
Apparently, whatever you saw convinced you.
Your hand slowly lowered.
“Okay.”
You turned toward her.
And suddenly, Amelia became aware of what she'd just agreed to.
It wasn't a mistake.
Not exactly.
Just a stupid decision she hadn't thought far enough ahead to regret.
You were sitting there waiting for her, completely trusting, looking up at her without the slightest suspicion that Amelia had been standing there for the last few seconds trying to remember how to breathe normally.
She swallowed.
Then her hands moved before she could reconsider.
Her fingers settled along your jaw, one hand gently holding your face in place while her thumb rested against your cheek.
Your skin was warm.
That was the first thing she noticed.
This was stupid.
It was lip gloss.
That was all.
People did this all the time.
Friends do this.
There was nothing strange about it.
So why did her pulse suddenly feel so loud?
She swallowed and forced herself to move.
“Hold still.”
You smiled.
“Why are you so serious?”
“Because you're incapable of staying still for five seconds.”
“I am.”
“You're moving right now.”
“I'm literally not.”
“Your mouth is.”
You laughed.
The sound vibrated faintly beneath Amelia's fingertips, and her thumb shifted against your cheek almost without thought.
“Stop.”
The laughter faded into a smile.
This time, you actually went still.
Amelia twisted the tube open.
The tiny click sounded absurdly loud in the quiet room.
She focused on the gloss instead of the person sitting in front of her.
She had expected this to be funny, something she could tease you about afterward. Another opportunity to call you helpless and pretend she wasn't the one who had volunteered to do something this intimate.
Then she raised the applicator.
“Open.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
“You're bossy.”
“And you're annoying.”
Still, you parted your lips.
Amelia touched the applicator to them.
The first stroke was careful.
She'd expected this to be easy.
Yeah. It's just lip gloss. Nothing more.
Yet she became painfully aware of every small movement—the slight parting of your lips beneath the applicator, the warmth of your cheek against her palm, the way your breathing changed whenever she leaned closer.
Then she realized you weren't looking at the mirror.
You were looking at her.
Her hand stilled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop staring.”
“You're staring too.”
“I'm trying to concentrate.”
Your mouth curved.
“On my lips?”
Amelia's eyes flicked up.
There it was again.
That look.
Like you noticed something she hadn't meant for you to see.
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Neither of you moved.
Amelia looked down again.
“Then shut up.”
She finished the lower lip, carefully tracing the gloss along the edges before moving to the top.
This time, neither of you spoke.
The silence wasn't uncomfortable.
That would've been easier.
Instead, it was simply there.
Heavy with awareness.
Amelia could hear your breathing. She could feel the warmth of your face beneath her hand. Every time her eyes lifted, yours were already waiting for them.
She hated being this aware of you.
She hated how close you were.
Most of all, she hated that some quiet, traitorous part of her didn't want to move.
So she finished quickly.
“There.”
You blinked.
“That's it?”
“Yeah.”
She lowered the applicator.
You reached for the mirror, but before your fingers could close around it, Amelia caught your wrist.
“Wait.”
You looked back at her.
She frowned at the corner of your mouth.
“You got some there.”
“Oh.”
It was barely anything.
A tiny smear at the edge of your lip.
Amelia could have handed you a tissue. She could have pointed it out and let you fix it yourself.
Instead, her thumb moved. She brushed the gloss away with one slow swipe.
The gesture was automatic.
The realization wasn't.
Her thumb remained against your skin for half a second too long.
You didn't move.
Neither did she.
The room seemed to narrow around the two of you until there was nothing left for Amelia to notice except the closeness of your face and the way your eyes had gone quiet.
Her gaze dropped.
Your lips.
The gloss caught the light.
Then she looked back into your eyes.
Something in her chest tightened.
She pulled her hand away.
“Fixed.”
You swallowed.
“Thanks.”
“Don't mention it.”
Amelia stepped back.
The distance should have been a relief.
Instead, it felt strangely wrong.
You touched your lips before finally turning toward the mirror. You examined your reflection from one angle, then another.
“Does it look okay?”
Amelia looked at you.
Really looked.
The gloss caught whenever you moved, drawing her attention back to your mouth despite every effort she made not to stare.
You looked pretty.
Too pretty.
Pretty enough that she suddenly understood why you'd been fussing over every little detail.
Pretty enough that she immediately wished the person waiting for you outside wasn't going to get to see it.
Her jaw tightened.
“Yeah.”
You turned toward her.
“Really?”
“Don't make me repeat myself.”
You laughed softly, and Amelia looked away.
Then your phone buzzed.
The change in your expression was immediate.
Your eyes dropped to the screen, and that same stupid little smile appeared before you'd even finished reading the message.
Amelia's mood soured.
“Your boyfriend again?”
“He's not my boyfriend.”
“Yet.”
You looked at her.
Amelia shrugged as though she'd said nothing worth examining.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You're doing the thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you pretend you don't care.”
Amelia scoffed.
“I don't care.”
“Sure.”
You slipped your phone into your pocket and started toward the door.
Amelia watched you go.
She should've let you leave.
Instead, just before your hand reached the doorknob, she called your name.
You turned.
Amelia nearly told you not to go.
Nearly told you she didn't like him. Nearly told you that she didn't trust him, that you deserved someone better, that she hated the way you looked at your phone when he messaged you.
Instead, she crossed her arms and settled for the first stupid thing that came to mind.
“Don't let him ruin the lip gloss.”
You stared at her.
Then you laughed.
“That's your concern?”
“It's expensive.”
You shook your head, smiling as you opened the door.
“God, I love you.”
The words were casual.
Almost careless.
Thrown over your shoulder like they were nothing more than something best friends said without thinking.
Amelia still went completely still.
The door clicked shut.
Amelia remained where she was.
“I love you too.”
She'd said it automatically.She'd said it before.
You'd said it before.
It shouldn't have meant anything.
So why did the words sound different now?
Her eyes dropped to the tube of lip gloss still sitting in her hand.
“Fuck.”
She set it down.
A second later, she picked it back up.
“Pathetic.”
She shoved it into her bag and sank into the couch.
The room had gone quiet again.
Too quiet.
It was the kind of silence that left her alone with thoughts she'd spent the last several minutes trying to outrun.
She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, but closing her eyes only made it worse. She could still remember the warmth of your cheek beneath her thumb.
It was ridiculous.
It had been nothing.
A little lip gloss. Her hand against your face. Five minutes spent helping a friend get ready for a date.
Nothing.
Amelia pressed her lips together and breathed slowly through her nose.
“Stupid.”
She wasn't entirely sure who she meant.
You, for getting so worked up over some idiot.
Him, for somehow becoming the person capable of making you smile at your phone like that.
Herself, most likely.
She closed her eyes.
The memory returned anyway. You sitting there in front of her, looking up while she carefully dragged gloss across your lips.
The way you'd gone quiet.
The way your eyes had stayed on hers.
Amelia opened her eyes again.
She was going to lose her mind.
“You know, for someone who hates men, you sure spend a lot of time thinking about one.”
Her head snapped toward the doorway.
Lane was leaning against the frame.
She hadn't heard him come in.
Of course she hadn't.
He had that infuriatingly smug look on his face, the kind that told Amelia he'd been standing there long enough to see something he had absolutely no business seeing.
Her expression hardened.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
Lane's eyes dropped to the lip gloss in her hand, then to the doorway she'd been staring at long after you'd left.
The grin came slowly.
Amelia knew that grin.
“Oh,” he said.
She immediately hated him.
“Don't.”
“Wasn't gonna say anything.”
He paused just long enough to make it obvious that he absolutely was.
“You like girls.”
“Fuck off.”
“Thought you hated men.”
“I do.”
Lane shrugged. “Shit. Apparently you just hate the competition. Lesbihonest.”
Amelia's hand found the nearest pillow before she'd even consciously decided to throw it.
It went sailing across the room.
Lane ducked just in time, laughing as he disappeared down the hallway.
“Fuck you!”
His laughter echoed back at her.
Then he was gone.
Silence settled over the room again.
Amelia slowly sank into the couch.
She stared at the empty doorway, breathing through her nose while the embarrassment burned beneath her skin.
She hated Lane.
She hated his stupid grin.
She hated that he'd seen her.
And most of all, she hated that one stupid joke had made something she'd been desperately avoiding
feel suddenly, horribly obvious.
Lesbihonest.
Amelia buried her face in the pillow.
“Fuck off.”
———
A week was long enough for Amelia to convince herself she'd gotten over it.
At least, that was what she told herself.
She had stopped thinking about the lip gloss.
Mostly.
She hadn't mentioned it again. Neither had you.
Whatever strange little moment had existed between the two of you had been quietly buried beneath the usual routine—your arguments over nothing, Amelia stealing food from your plate, you annoying her until she threatened to leave, and the occasional message from the boy who apparently had decided he wanted to become a permanent fixture in your life.
Amelia had learned his name. She wished she hadn't.
She'd also learned that you were officially dating now, which was information she wished she could have remained ignorant of for considerably longer.
It was a Saturday afternoon when she finally saw the two of you together.
She'd been sitting outside, only half paying attention to whatever Lane was doing nearby while lazily scrolling through her phone. The afternoon had been uneventful enough that she hadn't bothered to look up in several minutes.
Then she heard your laugh.
Her thumb stopped moving.
It was instinctive.
She didn't even think about it.
Her head lifted, and there you were.
And there he was.
You stood beside him with your arms loosely folded, listening while he talked. Amelia couldn't make out what he was saying from where she sat, but apparently whatever it was had been interesting enough to hold your attention.
Then you laughed again.
Not the polite little laugh you gave people you barely knew. Not the short, amused sound you made whenever Amelia said something stupid and you didn't want to admit she'd actually made you laugh.
A real laugh.
Your head tipped back slightly, your shoulders shaking as you tried to catch your breath.
Amelia stared.
Something hot and sour twisted beneath her ribs.
“Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me.”
Lane glanced in the direction of her gaze, but Amelia barely registered it.
Her attention had already returned to the two of you.
She began taking him apart.
His shirt was the first thing she noticed.
Plain.
Boring.
Not even particularly ugly, which somehow made it worse. It fit too neatly around his shoulders, the sleeves rolled up just enough to look deliberate without appearing like he'd actually tried.
Try-hard.
Amelia's mouth tightened.
Then he pushed his hair back.
Idiot.
A moment later, he said something that made you laugh again.
Unfunny idiot.
She crossed her arms.
She couldn't even hear what he was saying, and somehow that made the entire thing more irritating. She had to sit there and watch him make you smile without knowing what he'd done to earn it.
Her imagination filled in the missing pieces, and naturally, every version she came up with made him sound worse.
He laughed at his own joke.
Amelia's eyes narrowed.
There.
Proof.
She wasn't entirely sure what he'd proven.
She didn't care.
Then his hand lifted toward your shoulder.
Amelia straightened.
For half a second, she thought he was going to touch you. He stopped himself before he did, his hand dropping back to his side.
Amelia's shoulders relaxed.
Then she realized what she'd just done.
She immediately frowned.
What the hell was I doing?
She looked down at her phone, determined to mind her own business.
Five seconds later, she looked up again.
You were still there.
Still smiling.
Still listening to him.
Lane glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
Amelia didn't need to look at him to know what expression he was wearing.
“If you have something to say, don't.”
His quiet laugh was enough of an answer.
She finally looked over.
He followed her gaze toward the couple across the parking lot, then back to her.
“That him?”
Amelia's jaw tightened.
“Apparently.”
Lane made a small, noncommittal sound.
Amelia narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
He only shrugged before muttering, “Women.”
She turned away before he could make another comment.
The boy looked normal.
That was what irritated her most.
He wasn't visibly awful.
He wasn't wearing anything offensive. He wasn't being rude. He wasn't acting arrogant or treating you like some kind of accessory he could show off.
He was just standing there.
Talking to you.
Listening when you spoke.
Making you laugh.
Amelia hated that.
Not because he was doing anything wrong.
That was the problem.
He wasn't.
He wasn't arrogant. He wasn't rude. He wasn't treating you like something he had won.
He just liked you.
And you liked him back.
Amelia would have preferred an asshole.
At least then she could hate him without having to hate herself afterward. Not the distracted kind of listening Amelia had seen a hundred times before.
He wasn't looking around or checking his phone or waiting for his turn to speak.
He was paying attention to you.
Amelia's expression soured.
That wasn't fair.
He was supposed to be an idiot.
It would have been much easier if he were an idiot.
You eventually noticed her staring.
Amelia saw the moment your attention shifted away from your boyfriend and landed on her.
You said something to him before excusing yourself, and he gave you an easy smile as you started walking across the distance between you.
Amelia immediately looked down at her phone.
She didn't have anything to check.
She scrolled anyway.
By the time you reached her, she'd already locked the screen and was sitting there with her arms folded, wearing the same expression she'd been wearing for the past ten minutes.
You stopped in front of her.
“Why are you glaring at him?” Amelia looked up slowly, as though she'd been interrupted while doing something important.
“I wasn't.”
You gave her the kind of look that made it obvious you didn't believe her.
Amelia sighed and glanced toward him again.
“He's annoying.”
You looked over your shoulder at him.
“He hasn't even talked to you.”
“Exactly.”
You laughed.
Amelia frowned at the sound, though she could already feel the corner of her own mouth threatening to move.
You had always found her reasoning irritatingly funny.
She didn't understand how.
“You don't like him,” you said.
“I don't.”
“You've never liked him.”
“Correct.”
“And you've barely spoken to him.”
Amelia shrugged, as though that settled the matter.
“I don't need to.”
You shook your head, smiling to yourself.
Then you started telling her again about how nice he was, how funny he was, how he'd somehow managed to remember something you'd mentioned weeks ago.
Amelia listened this time.
Unfortunately, listening only made things worse.
She watched the way your face changed whenever you talked about him.
The slight lift in your voice.
The way your hands moved when you got excited.
The little smile that appeared whenever you reached the part of the story you liked most.
You liked him.
Really liked him.
Amelia's stomach tightened.
She wanted to tell you that being nice wasn't a personality. That remembering things wasn't impressive. That being funny wasn't difficult when the person laughing at your jokes was already interested in you.
Instead, she sat there and listened.
When you finished, she gave a dismissive shrug.
“That's not a personality.”
You laughed again.
Amelia looked away.
She hated how easily you could make her irritation disappear.
One second, she wanted to argue with you.
The next, you smiled at her and the anger simply lost its shape.
It was unfair.
Then your boyfriend called your name.
You turned.
Amelia watched.
There was nothing remarkable about what happened next.
He didn't make any grand gestures. He didn't say anything she could twist into arrogance. He didn't even touch you.
He simply smiled.
And you smiled back.
That was all.
Somehow, that was worse.
Amelia had spent the entire afternoon waiting for proof that he was as stupid as she'd decided he was.
She'd been cataloguing everything—the way his shirt sat on his shoulders, the way he pushed his hair back when he talked, the way his hands moved whenever he got excited about something.
She knew she was being ridiculous. She kept doing it anyway.
And when you looked at him, there was a softness in your expression that Amelia knew far too well.
She had seen that expression before.
Just never directed at someone else.
“You're staring again.”
Your voice pulled her back.
Amelia blinked and realized you'd turned toward her.
She looked away almost immediately.
“I'm looking at him.”
“Why?”
“I'm trying to figure out what you see.”
You smiled.
“You don't have to figure it out.”
Apparently, that answer amused you, because you were still smiling when you turned your attention back toward him.
Amelia watched you do it.
Her jaw tightened.
She wanted to find something.
Anything.
A stupid habit. An irritating laugh. A bad joke. Some tiny flaw she could hold up and say, There. That's why.
Instead, she found herself noticing how carefully he listened whenever you spoke.
How he leaned closer without interrupting.
How you seemed comfortable beside him.
How natural it looked.
Amelia hated that most of all.
It looked right.
That was the thought she didn't want.
She folded her arms tighter. “His shirt is ugly.”
You stared at her.
For a moment, you looked genuinely speechless.
Then you laughed.
Amelia frowned.
“What?”
“You've been watching him for ten minutes just to insult his shirt?”
“I've been observing.”
“That's a nicer word for starring.”
“Same thing.”
You laughed again.
Amelia watched you instead of him.
That was the real problem.
She could tell herself she was studying him. She could pretend she was looking for reasons to dislike him.
But she wasn't looking at him anymore.
She was looking at you.
At the way your eyes crinkled when you laughed.
At the way your shoulders loosened when you were comfortable.
At the little smile that remained even after the laughter faded.
And suddenly Amelia didn't care what his shirt looked like.
She cared that he was the one making you smile.
She cared that he was the one standing beside you.
She cared that when you looked happy, he was there to see it.
That was the part she couldn't forgive.
Not him.
Herself.
Because she wanted to be the reason for that smile. She wanted to be the person you looked at like that. And she had no idea when wanting that had stopped being something she could laugh off.
A few minutes later, you finally said goodbye.
Amelia watched you walk back toward him.
She told herself she wasn't watching.
She was.
She watched him say something that made you laugh again.
Watched you step closer to him without thinking.
Watched him open the passenger door for you.
You paused before getting in.
Then you turned around.
Your eyes found Amelia from across the distance.
You smiled and lifted your hand in a small wave.
Amelia raised hers in return.
The gesture was automatic.
She wished it hadn't been.
You disappeared into the car.
Amelia stayed where she was.
She watched the car pull away, watched the rear window shrink into the distance, watched until there was nothing left to see.
Only then did she realize she'd been holding her breath.
She let it out slowly.
The street was empty again.
And somehow, without him there, it felt worse.
Because now Amelia couldn't blame him for the ache in her chest.
There was no boyfriend to glare at.
No ugly shirt to criticize.
No stupid joke to complain about.
Just the empty road.
And the uncomfortable truth she'd been avoiding all afternoon.
She didn't hate seeing you with him.
She hated that she wasn't the one beside you.
Lane watched all of it unfold.
His grin didn't disappear.
If anything, it sharpened.
Amelia knew that look.
He'd found something, and now he was deciding how badly he wanted to use it against her.
“Don't.”
“I didn't even say anything.”
“You were going to.”
Lane shrugged, pushing himself away from the doorway. His eyes flicked briefly toward her hand, now balled into a fist, then returned to her face.
“You like her.”
Amelia's stomach dropped.
She laughed immediately, too quickly.
“Fuck off.”
“Yeah, that's what I thought.”
“There's nothing to think about.”
“Sure.”
That single word irritated her more than an argument would have.
Amelia sat forward, her jaw tightening.
“She’s my friend.”
Lane stared at her for a second.
Then he laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make her feel stupid for having said it. “Right.”
“Shut up.”
“You're the one sitting here looking like somebody killed your dog because she's dating some guy.”
“I'm not upset about him.”
“Bullshit.”
The word landed harder than it should have.
Amelia's fingers curled against her knee.
Lane tilted his head, studying her with that same irritating amusement.
He laughed under his breath.
“All that shit about hating men, and your bitch got stolen by some dude with a dick.”
The room went quiet.
Amelia stared at him.
For once, she had nothing to throw back.
Lane had already turned away.
“Anyway,” he muttered, as if he'd just finished commenting on the weather, “I'm serious. That's embarrassing.”
He walked out before she could answer.
Her face burned.
She wanted to call him an asshole.
She wanted to throw something.
She wanted to convince herself he'd misunderstood everything.
But the worst part wasn't what he'd said.
It was how quickly her mind had supplied the answer.
He was right.
Not about the way he'd said it. Not about the stupid, ugly way he'd reduced it to something so simple.
But about losing.
Because that was exactly what it felt like.
She had spent weeks telling herself the boyfriend was annoying, boring, unworthy of you. She had picked apart his clothes.
His personality.
The way he talked.
The way he looked at you.
Anything she could find.
And somehow, none of it changed the one thing that mattered.
You still chose him.
For the first time, she wondered if she'd been angry at him because she hated him—or because she hated that he had something she wanted.
Her stomach twisted.
“Fuck this.”
Amelia turned and walked toward the house.
She made it inside and shut the door behind her. The click of the lock sounded louder than it should have. She stayed there for a moment, her back pressed against the door, staring at nothing.
your mood boards are so cool! how can you make them messy yet still pretty? i tried making mood boards but they turned out ugly 😭
i honestly don't know.... i just put pictures together and hope for the best. i guess i have a weird eye?
i received an ask about this earlier and what can highly recommend is too spend time browsing on pinterest and make a board/pin of the pictures you like.
if you find it confusing, you can start by collaging them instead of jumping right into piecing them together (editing) like i do. i think that's easier? but seriously, just have fun with it. when you start treating mood boards as a silly little art project or a game, everything just fall into place.
fun fact: i used to make kpop/anime moodboards and layouts here on tumblr back then (started on 2019 or 2020?).
I wanted to say again I ADORE ur writing and the moodboard they're jst goated YOU ARE GOATED!
After writing abt laney chan, lub kun, bb and amelia, have u thought about writing a Serkan fic as well? I need more content of serkey chan he's jst so cute🤏🏻
NO PRESSURE OFC ik ur doing so much things at once so take ur time and take proper rests and a good amount of sleep😋 luv u babe <3
hello there,
thank you as always! i am about to complete the whole gang atp. the amelia fic will be posted tomorrow. i am not sure about the time intervals though... since it has two parts.
i absolutely love serkan so i will definitely write something for that baby boy. maybe i'll include serkan next lineup.
