The leader of cartel Jalisco, considered as the most powerful drug dealer in the world, was killed in an operative carried out by the mexican army and the cartel has begun their retaliation by trowing molotov bombs at convinience stores, taking over an airport and highways and setting cars and trucks on fire all over central mexico.
A curfew has been set in all the affected cities, and mine is one of those. I'm really scared for what may happen in the next few days, threats are being made and I'm watching places I have walked by my entire life be set on fire; and even though I think I can stay safe until this passes over I would really appreciate it if you all prayed for us. Whatever belief you have, I would be really greatful that you prayed for us.
hii i loved the goldenretriever!ellie x bratty!mean reader fic please do more!! ☺️☺️
"you should’ve known better"
𔓐𑇓 ݁ ˖ synopsis: ellie’s too soft. you’re not.
Ი𐑼 ݁ ˖ wordcount: 1.2k
𐙚 ꒷ ˖ pairing: goldenretriever!ellie x mean!r
۪ᩍ ݁ ˖ tags: fluff, modern au, established relationship, mean!r, soft!ellie
jesse’s apartment was packed — too many people squeezed into a space that always felt one couch too small.
music thumped softly from a speaker in the corner, a messy mix of indie rock and whatever playlist jesse insisted was elite. (it wasn't)
empty bottles lined the kitchen counter, laughter spilling from every room, bodies brushing past each other with careless familiarity. it was loud, warm, and crowded in that way parties always were.
but ellie knew you were upset with her. she knew something was wrong the second you stopped touching her.
normally, you stayed glued to her side without even thinking about it — fingers laced together under the table, your knee pressed against hers like a quiet reminder, or your hand hooked lazily in her belt loop, thumb resting warm and possessive against her thigh. you were always there. always touching. always grounding her.
tonight, nothing.
your phone glowed in your hands, the light reflecting faintly in your eyes as you scrolled like it held the most fascinating thing in the room. your posture was closed off, shoulders slightly turned away from her, attention deliberately elsewhere.
she glanced at you, just for a second, then back at the girl standing far too close for comfort. the girl leaned against the kitchen counter like she belonged there, like she hadn’t just inserted herself into ellie’s space without asking.
"so..ellie. right?" the girl asked, smiling a little too wide.
"mmhm." ellie mumbles, adjusting in her seat as she takes a sip.
“god, i love your look,” she said. “i’ve seen you around campus. you always have a guitar.”
“uh. thanks.”
“oh my gosh,” the girl said suddenly, eyes lighting up. “your tattoo’s really cool.”
she leaned in even closer, close enough that ellie could smell her perfume, and brushed her fingers along ellie’s forearm like it was nothing. like it was allowed.
ellie stiffened.
that familiar, uncomfortable heat crawled up the back of her neck, spreading into her ears. she hated this part—the part where attention turned invasive, where she didn’t know how to shut it down without being rude, where she worried more about everyone else’s comfort than her own.
she glanced back at you but you didn’t look up. your thumb scrolled. slow. deliberate.
shit.
ellie forced a polite grin, shoving her hands into her pockets and setting her drink down on the table. “thanks. appreciate it.”
the girl laughed softly, clearly encouraged. “i was thinking, you should play something sometime. i’d love to hear you.”
ellie swallowed. “yeah, maybe.”
either completely oblivious or just that desperate, the girl lingered, talking ellie’s ear off and layering her with compliments like they meant nothing. “i love your haircut too. i wish i could pull off a cut like that. you look way too good.”
ellie chuckled nervously, eyes flicking back to you again. she could feel it — the tension rolling off you, thick and quiet. you were a ticking time bomb, and she was standing way too close to the fuse.
no matter how many times ellie gave short answers or subtly leaned away, the girl kept persisting.
you finally had enough.
you let out a quiet scoff. not loud. not obvious.
but ellie heard it. she shifted, suddenly restless. “i’m gonna— uh— get another drink.”
she stood quickly, instinctively placing a hand on your back as she passed, a silent apology, before excusing herself. she brushed past you, but you didn’t move from your seat. instead, your eyes followed her, expression unreadable. bored. closed off.
in the kitchen, ellie ran a hand over her face, letting out a muffled groan. she leaned forward against the counter for a second, trying to steady herself, trying to figure out how the hell she’d managed to mess this up.
then she heard it.
the soft, familiar clack of your heels against the floor.
before she could turn around, she felt you there — close enough that your presence changed the air. ellie turned quickly and instinct took over. she leaned down, burying her face into your neck, breathing you in like she needed it to survive.
her hands found your lower back, your waist, pulling you in without hesitation.
“hey,” she murmured, voice low and tired. “i’m sorry.”
you stiffened at first, just slightly, but you didn’t push her away. your hands hovered at her sides, unsure.
“you flirting now?” you asked, voice low, casual in a way that wasn’t casual at all.
ellie sighed against your skin. “it wasn’t anything. i swear.”
“really,” you said, raising a brow. “didn’t look like nothing.”
“she was just talking to me.”
“yeah. and you were smiling.”
ellie frowned. “i smile when people talk to me.”
“not like that.”
she pulled back just enough to look at you, brows knit together. “i didn’t want her talking to me. i didn’t want her touching me. i just… didn’t know how to make her stop without making it weird.”
that made your expression falter, ellie never put up a fight when it came to you. she knew she stood no chance, and it's not like she ever wanted to fight with you.
ellie frowned, hurt flashing across her face. “i was just being polite.”
“yeah,” you said coldly. “you’re great at that.”
ellie said quickly. “i hate that i made you feel like that.”
your eyes searched her face, like you were trying to decide whether to stay mad or give in. you exhaled sharply. “she was all over you.”
“she was standing there.”
“she was flirting.” you scoffed, looking away.
ellie stepped closer. “and i wasn’t flirting back.”
you finally looked at her then. eyes sharp. hurt sitting right under the surface.
you didn’t pull away — but you didn’t soften either. “you don’t get it.”
“then help me,” ellie whispered. “please.”
“you didn’t shut it down either.”
ellie softened immediately. “baby…” she sighed. “when you stopped touching me,” ellie continued softly, “i knew i fucked up.”
she reached for your hand. you hesitated — just a second — before letting her take it.
“i didn’t even think about it,” ellie said quietly. “i wasn’t interested. i only care about you.”
“then why didn’t you say something?” you asked.
"i wasn't trying to be rude, but i get what you mean baby. i was out of line. i'm sorry honey." ellie said, kissing your cheek, her eyes big and soft, like she was scared of you being mad at her.
“i don’t like people looking at you like that,” you muttered.
ellie smiled, soft and warm. “like what?”
“like they want you.”
ellie leaned in, forehead resting against your shoulder, her voice was soft, low. “they can look all they want.”
“yeah?”
“yeah,” she whispered. “i go home with you.”
your fingers curled into her shirt. “i hate you."
ellie smiled wider. “i know you do. i love you too.”
you huffed, annoyed at yourself, then finally leaned into her. ellie wrapped her arms around you immediately, holding you close like she’d been waiting for it.
“jealous looks good on you,” she murmured.
you pinched her side, nudging her away. “don’t push it ellie.”
she laughed quietly, kissing your temple. “c’mon. let’s go sit somewhere else.”
you nodded, fixing your hair. “away from her.”
ellie grinned like a dog given treats. “anything you want, babygirl.”
and just like that, your hand found its place back on hers. right where it belonged.
the tv buzzed quietly in the background, the only noise breaking the stillness of the room. you were wrapped up in the warmth of the blanket, freshly showered, the coolness of the air only adding to the cozy atmosphere. the night felt perfect, except for the constant checking of your phone. ellie had texted at 8, explaining that she’d be late, some bullshit about last-minute documents to finish up at work, she said.
9:30 came and went, the minutes dragging as you waited, hoping for a call or message. but nothing.
your eyes grew heavy, and before you knew it, you were asleep, deep, peaceful sleep.
then, around 10:15, the door creaked open.
“honey? i’m home. got carried away.”
but no answer. you were out cold, completely unaware.
ellie stepped into the bedroom, quietly, eyes immediately finding you on the bed. the sight of you—your hair fanned out on the pillow, blanket half draped over you, your arms resting above your head as if in total relaxation—made her pause.
the shirt you’d been wearing had ridden up just enough to expose a sliver of your stomach, and of course, ellie noticed. her heart skipped a beat. her eyes growing with hunger.
she's had a long day.
she stood there for a moment, letting herself take in the sight of you, before quietly slipping her shoes off. she stood at the dresser, taking off her tie, eyes still glued onto you.
ellie quietly slipped into bed beside you, careful not to wake you. she took a moment to watch you, the soft rise and fall of your chest as you slept. next thing she knew, she propped herself up on one elbow, while one of her hands came up to your hair. she kissed your neck slowly, leaving soft and subtle kisses.
you shifted slightly, acknowledging her, but still asleep. your hand draped over her back. "mm.." you mumbled. "sweet baby..im home. need you badly." she said in between kisses.
you laid there, enjoying the soft kisses before eventually drifting back to bed. she kissed you slower, and harder, soft pecks turning into hickies. you'd squirm, your eyes still shut but she'd rub your arm or play with your hair to ease you.
with a couple of new hickies on you, she kept kissing on you while she slipped her fingers into your panties. "ellie..mm..your home." you said as you shifted to the side. "..fuck..honey. please? 5 minutes." she pleaded. with nothing but a soft nod and eyes shut, she circled you clit as she continued kissing your jaw.
eventually though, your eyes opened as you felt her push a finger inside you. "baby hold on..wait..i just-" you were cut off by a moan as she started rocking her fingers back and forth. your slick coated her fingers as you whimpered softly, wrapping your arms around her neck and she licked on a hickey that was already purple.
you were nothing but moans and whines but once you were close, she slowly pulled her fingers out. "shh..hold up." she said before kissing you softly on your temple, her fingers coming up to her lips as she licked her fingers clean, as if it was just normal.
"no? baby..i..you woke me up." you murmured to her, your fingers coming up to push her hair off her face, still clearly sleepy. she just smiled softly, played with your fingers.
she circled your clit and fingered you til you were dumb, your eyes filled with tears as she teased you endlessly. its been about 5 times, and you were pent up, frustrated and needed release. but you were no where near it. you were tired and groaned.
her fingers played with your pussy, her fingers drenched in sticky white cum as you played with your boobs, needy as fuck.
"ive been good. ive waited for you. please. just...once." you pleaded. but you were met with a soft, sweet smile before she pecked your temple.
she withdrew her fingers once again and pulled your shorts back up before playing with your hair, whispering soft words and coos into your ear.
"go back to bed baby. i love you"
12: 05 pm.
you were falling asleep, but still felt ellie's hands all over you, but fuck your eyes were so heavy at that point, and any point after 10:00 pm? you're fast asleep.
eventually you rolled onto your stomach, your ass plump in your pajama pants you've hand since senior year that definitely are too short for you now.
"fuck me." ellie groaned, her hand coming up to knead at your ass.
ellie pulled you gently ontop of her. your face in the crook of her neck. she pulled one of her knees, her thigh slotting between your legs. she started helping you move, your pussy rubbing on her thighs. you stirred awake, holding her shoulders as your whimpered.
"feels so good." you whined.
"you sound so good. make those sounds for mommy, my sweet girl."
you were grinding against her, battling both sleepiness and the pleasure you were feeling.
"cmon, let me hear my sweet baby."
you whimpered. right in her ear, your eyebrows knitted together and your thighs clenching around hers.
you adjusted and shifted, your pussy hitting her jeans just right, you got greedy and started grinding faster and harder. ellie's hands stayed planted, one on your shoulder blade and one on your hip as she helped you ride up against her.
your back was arched, your eyes shut as your head rolled back.
her eyes stayed on your face, focusing on it rather than your lower half, because the hottest thing she could see was you about to come.
by the time you came, your slick had gotten through your panties, drenching your underwear, pajama shorts and ellie's pants.
"well..you woke me up now." you murmured, coming up to kiss her softly.
"couldn't stop thinking bout you at work." she replied.
⊹ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — we finally learn what tore them apart, and why it was never really over. the past resurfaces in borrowed lines and scripted silences, haunting them through words they once lived. what goes around, comes around.
⊹ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓— 15,2 K
⊹ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — ANGST, dialogue-heavy, multiple POVs, non-consensual sex tape leak (off-page), media harassment, queer shame + outing pressure, yelling and harsh language, emotional cheating / secrecy in current relationship, messy exes forced to work together, references to past smut, yearning as illness, AFAB!reader. minors and men DNI.
A ping from your laptop and the rain tapping the window in an indifferent rhythm were the only sounds in the room, as if the universe was trying really hard to pretend this wasn’t about to change the route of your entire life.
Two months before, you and Ellie filmed the audition together on the floor.
But that morning, she was out running errands with the last twenty dollars you had for the month. Your last twenty, folded cash, wrinkled at the corners from being counted too many times. She left with her hood up and a list on her phone that said things like bread, eggs and coffee as if those were normal priorities when the future was sitting in your inbox somewhere, waiting to either crown you or crush you.
But then, you were alone with the ache in your chest that always showed up when you’re waiting to finally be chosen.
You don’t even remember clicking it, your body acting in autopilot.
Congratulations.
And that single word was enough. The rest of the email might as well have been written in mandarin, because your brain catched on that single word and refused to let go.
“Oh my GOD.”
You shooted up so fast the chair legs scraped the floor. Your heart was sprinting, pounding at the inside of your ribs like it was trying to escape. You started pacing, because you didn’t know what else to do with it, because there wasn’t enough room in your body for that much joy.
You took three steps and slammed your little finger into the corner of the table so hard white pain flashed behind your eyes.
“Fuck—”
But it didn’t matter, not at that moment. You laughed, breathless and manic, sitting back down because you had to read it. You had to see it with your own eyes, and had to make sure it wasn't just another dream.
Your hands were shaking so hard the trackpad almost didn’t register your fingers. You read the next sentences too fast, only catching buzzwords. They loved your tape. They loved your presence. They loved your performance. They wanted you as the lead in a horror film with a real budget and a real crew and a real release date that people will actually watch. And then the line that made you press your palm to your mouth like you were trying to hold your soul inside your body:
We will cover your accommodations in Los Angeles for the duration of filming.
You didn’t even realize you’re crying until you felt humid tracks of warmth sliding down your cheeks.
The lock unexpectedly clicked, causing the door to swing open with a rush of chilly air, revealing Ellie—grocery bag perched on her wrist, damp auburn locks framing her temples.
Your body reacted instinctively, crossing the room in three swift strides and enveloping her in an embrace. Ellie gasped in surprise, her arms wrapping around your waist as the grocery bag sways, eggs gently clinking together in protest.
“Whoa—hey—” she chuckled, arms tightening around you, “What the hell?”
You took her face with both hands and kissed her, a chaotic and fervent connection, grinning into her mouth as if intoxicated by your own fortune. She kissed you back out of reflex, out of love, out of habit. When you finally pulled away, laughter and tears mingled, your voice ringing out too loudly.
“I got the role!”
Ellie blinked, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed her mind struggled to process your words, as if trying to shield her from reality.
“You—” she swallowed. “Wait. What?”
“I got it,” you said again, shaking her as if she’ll understand faster if you shake her. “The audition. The tape we filmed. I got the lead. Ellie, I got the role!”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Then she laughed, her arms tightening around you so hard you squeaked.
“Holy shit,” she whispered into your hair. “Holy shit.”
You felt her inhale deeply, trying to absorb every essence of this moment, to etch it into her memory. You pulled back just enough to gaze into her eyes. They sparkled with brightness, and her smile was there, yet something about her felt… distant.
It’s like she was holding it at arm’s length, scared if she celebrated too hard, it might be snatched away. It hit you right under the ribs, but you pushed it away. You kissed her again and blurted the next thought because your brain was already sprinting toward the future.
“It’s in LA,” you said. “They’re paying for me to stay there for filming. LA, Ellie. Like…Los Angeles! Can you believe it?!”
“LA…” she echoed.
“Yes!” you said, talking frantically, “And you can come with me, you should come with me. We can go together, we can—” you pulled away, gesturing as if you’re drawing the whole dream in the air, “we can do more auditions there. You’ll get something, I swear there’s jobs everywhere. And they said there’s a payment before, so I’ll make sure you’re comfortable while you get something and…”
Ellie’s face changed. Her eyes flicked down and away. When she met yours again, there was this unsettling thing in her expression that sent a chill through you.
“Hey,” your tone instinctively lowered. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head too quickly, as if the motion was meant to erase whatever you just saw. “Nothing,”
You knew her too well for that.
“Ellie,” you pressed, stepping closer again. “Baby—what’s wrong?”
Her hands were still on your arms, but they weren’t holding you like before.
“I—” she began, only to falter. The grocery bag still dangled from her wrist, forgotten, the eggs, bread, and coffee suspended between you—a foolish, domestic reminder that life goes on even as your future was starting to break apart. “Can you… sit down?”
“Why?” you asked back, trying to laugh it off, but it didn't come out right. “Ellie, what—”
“Please,” she said, and her voice was gentle but laced with an undercurrent that felt like a door closing.
You responded with a nod, your body already afraid. The cushion sinked beneath you, a sensation both known and suddenly overwhelming. Ellie set the grocery bag down carefully and sat at your side, like so many times before.
“Ellie,” you said again, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I got an email too,”
You blinked, confused for half a second, then your brain caught up and joy surged back up your throat so fast you almost choked on it.
“You did?” you gasped, springing forward. “Ellie—wait—did you—”
“I got the role.”
“Oh my God!” you shouted, laughing, hands flying to your mouth, heart practically leaping out of your chest. “Ellie! Ellie, that’s—are you serious? You got it? You got the audition?”
Her lips quivered slightly. It was neither a smile nor a wince.
“Yeah…”
You were suddenly a live wire, the apartment too small for the sheer scale of what this could mean. “We did it!” you grabbed her hands. “We did it. We both—Ellie, we’re both going!”
Her fingers squeezed yours, tight. You kept talking, because you had to, because your hope was too reckless to know how to be quiet about something this big.
“We thought it was over,” you said, laughing through the leftover tears. “We thought it was just—like, another tape into the void and—Ellie, we’re actually getting out. We’re actually getting out of here.”
Her eyes glistened for a split second. You sensed it even before she uttered a word, your body recognizing the weight of sorrow a heartbeat before your mind could comprehend it. Very carefully, like she was handling a bomb with trembling hands, she spoke:
“It’s not in LA.”
The words didn’t make sense at first, not because you didn’t understand them, but because you refused to let them belong to you.
“What?”
“The filming,” she said, voice rough around the edges, her eyes rejecting yours. “It’s in… it’s in New York.”
The room felt like it tilted an inch to the left, gravity becoming unreliable. All the air in the room paused, waiting for your reaction. You stared at Ellie like if you looked long enough, the sentence would rearrange itself to be kinder. Her eyes shined with that held-back kind of emotion she hated letting out. Emotions she treated like weakness even when they weren’t.
And you realized, with a sudden nausea, that this was a breaking point for both of you.
“Please just…say something,” Ellie whispered.
Your voice, when it finally arrived, was barely a whisper. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
Ellie nodded, once, like she expected that. She had rehearsed it. In the dark, while you slept beside her. In the quiet after you drifted off while she stared at the ceiling, counting the humidity stains as if they might give her answers. That day last week when she moved through the apartment with a certain sadness clinging to her skin, and you kissed her forehead and asked if she was okay and she said yeah too quickly. She’s known for longer than you have. Long enough to learn the art of carrying it by herself.
“How long?” you asked, “How long have you known?”
Ellie’s jaw tightened. She looked down at your joined hands, then back up at your face, eyes glassy but steady.
“…Two weeks ago.”
“What the fuck, Ellie?” you snapped, louder than you meant, the sound cracking as it left you. You let go of her hands, standing up to pace the space. “Why would you keep that from me?”
“I didn’t want to ruin it,” she responded. “Not when you were already so nervous.”
“That’s not fair,” you said, hands raking through your hair. “That’s not something you decide alone.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
You turned back to her, chest heaving, panic bleeding through the anger. “So how long? How long is the filming going to take?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s… indie, but not small. There’s rehearsals, reshoots, press. There’s no way I could know that yet. Months? Maybe even… more.”
Months.
“Jesus.”
You laughed once, lacking humor.
“Okay,” you said, pacing once, then stopping. “Okay. So you’re in New York. I’m in LA. That’s—” you gestured vaguely between the walls, the ceiling, the world, “—that’s the entire country, Ellie!”
She stood up too. “We can make it work.”
You looked at her, the lack of hope in your face evident.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she insisted, stepping closer. “We love each other, okay? This isn’t—” she shook her head, “—this isn’t the end.”
You pressed your lips together, trying to keep them from trembling.
“It’s just…” You hesitated, words tangling. “It’s hard to accept, Ellie. I mean—we haven’t been apart since we were fourteen.”
A tear finally slipped from her eyes at that.
“We’ve literally grown up together,” you continued, “I don’t really know how to—” your breath catched, “—how to live without you.”
“I know,” she said immediately. “I don’t know how to live without you either.”
She crossed the space between you in two strides and wrapped her arms around you, pulling you into her chest. You melted into her despite yourself. Her chin rested against the top of your head, her hands embraced you warm, solid, grounding.
“But love,” she murmured, desperate and tender all at once, “we love each other too much not to try to make this work.”
She pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, her thumbs gliding under your eyes. Your chest constricted painfully, tears cascading down your cheeks in defiance of the thought of a future apart.
"No, please don’t cry," she urged. "Look at me."
You did. Tears streaked her face, even after she had told you not to cry. She was always so determined in that stubborn, Ellie way that had made you believe in the impossible before.
“We’ve worked too hard,” she said, “For years. For this. We can’t throw these opportunities away. You have to just trust me now.”
You nodded, because part of you wanted to. Because other part of you always had. But another part won’t let it go.
“I just thought…” Your voice cracked like broken glass. “I thought your role was going to be in LA too.”
“That’s what we assumed,” she said. “We didn’t—”
“That’s two completely opposite parts of the country, Ellie!” you interrupted, panic bleeding into your tone despite your effort to contain it. “We don’t have money for plane tickets, we barely have money for groceries!”
“And what if,” you kept going, words tumbling out faster, “what if we start booking other roles in those cities? What if you get something else in New York and I get something else in LA and then we’re just—” your chest heaved, tears falling harder, “—always missing each other? Always scheduling around each other? And then months turn into years and—”
“Hey,” Ellie cutted in, hands coming up to hold your face. “Hey. Stop.”
You kept talking anyway, fear louder than reason. “Once you get an opportunity somewhere you can’t just move, Ellie. That’s how this works. You follow the roles, the roles don't follow you! And what if we just keep chasing them farther and farther apart until—”
“Hey,” she said again, firmer. “Can you stop?!”
Your voice cracked mid-sentence and died in your throat.
Ellie pressed her forehead to yours, breathing hard. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that,” you whispered.
“We’re not choosing cities over each other,” she said, voice shaking but resolute. “We’re choosing ourselves. Both of us.”
You closed your eyes. God, you wanted to believe her.
“But what if choosing ourselves,” you whispered, “means losing each other? Ellie, I can't even bear that thought.”
Ellie went very still. Her arms tightened around you, desperate.
“Then we’ll fight it.”
You pressed your face into her shoulder, breathing her in—the smell of home. Outside, the rain kept pouring. Inside, your dream loomed between you and the person you loved the most, each of you embodying different cities as if conflicting truths. Neither of you knew which one to choose.
Somewhere deep within, you both knew that this wasn't the end, but it surely was the start of something that would cause pain, regardless of how gently you held it.
And you held it as gently as you could.
You left for LA three weeks later, and she left for New York two days after that.
The goodbyes were cinematic in the worst way—too much airport noise, too many announcements echoing overhead. Ellie hugged you so tight you almost laughed, as if she was trying to fuse you to her ribcage.
You kissed her like it was a contract between you. Like if you did it right—long enough, carefully enough—the future would be forced to honor it, bound by every unspoken clause you pressed into her mouth.
For the first few weeks, it worked.
You called each other every single day. Sometimes twice. Sometimes three times, if filming wrapped early or one of you couldn’t sleep. You memorized time zones. You learned each other’s schedules by heart, set alarms just to catch one another between takes, in stolen pockets of quiet.
You sent letters. Real ones. Like the dramatic, yearning lesbians who never learned how to be normal about each other you were.
Ellie wrote hers in messy handwriting on hotel stationery, lines slanting, margins crowded with thoughts she didn’t know how to say out loud. She told you about endless days on set, about New York streets that felt sharper somehow, about how much she missed your touch and your breathing on her neck.
You wrote back from LA, ink smudged where your hands sweated as you leaned against trailers and soundstage walls. You told her about makeup tests and screaming scenes that left your throat in pain, about the strange disorientation of being recognized by people who didn’t actually know you, about how much you wanted her to be here with you.
You told each other everything. The good. The boring. The humiliating.
“I miss you,” she’d say, like she hadn’t said it a minute ago on the call.
You’d sigh, dramatic. “I miss you so much I might actually die.”
Ellie snorted. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m serious. If I perish, tell my story.”
She’d smile then, small and tired. “What happened now?”
“I was walking back to the trailer and there was this little flower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk,” you said. “And I thought of you.”
“You’re comparing me to a sidewalk flower?”
“I’m saying you’re resilient. And pretty. And stubborn.”
She laughed, soft and fond. “Everything reminds me of you.”
“Oh yeah?” you teased. “Everything?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “Everything. A yellow taxi, a dumb movie quote, a squirrel in Central Park. It’s all you.”
“That’s hot.” You hummed. “What are you wearing?”
“Changing the subject already?”
“Answer the question.”
She shifted on her pillow. “The black tank. And those sleep shorts you hate.”
“I don’t hate them,” you said. “I just think they’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” she repeated, amused.
“For my sanity,” you added. “Now you.”
You glanced down. “Your hoodie. The gray one.”
Her tone was proud. “Good. I was hoping.”
“It still smells like you,” you admitted, quieter now.
“If I were there, I’d steal it back.”
“If you were here,” you said, “I wouldn’t let you leave the bed.”
She hummed, low. “Promises, promises.”
You told her what you’d do to her if you were there—murmured, half-joking, half not. She listened, breath slow, promising things right back. Normal things. Intimate things. Eventually, you yawned. Tried to hide it but failed miserably.
“You should sleep, baby,” she said reluctantly. “You gotta be up early.”
You groaned. “I hate the concept of time.”
“I know,” she smiled. “Trust me, I know.”
Silence settled between you.
“…You hang up,” you said.
“No,” she replied. “You hang up.”
“I hung up last night.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I needed you more today.”
Your chest tightened. “Ellie.”
She rolled onto her side. “Fine. But I’m counting. If you don’t hang up in ten seconds, I’m coming to LA and ruining your life.”
“I’d let you.”
She smiled, eyes already closing. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
You planned visits you couldn’t afford yet but swore you’d make happen. Futures you talked about like they were already waiting somewhere gentle and reasonable. You reassured each other constantly, almost laughing about it.
And you were sure. At first.
Because you loved each other too much not to try. Because love, when it’s young and desperate and certain, convinces you that effort is enough. That wanting something badly can bend geography, that time zones are just numbers, that distance is temporary if devotion is strong enough.
And even though Ellie was there in every way she could be, there were nights you still cried. Quietly into pillows, in bathrooms with the fan running where no one could hear you. You never told her. You didn’t want to make your loneliness her burden.
You didn’t have the money to go see her. But the hope that you would—that soon you’d stand in the same room again—kept your love alive. You held onto that hope like a lifeline, like proof this was only a season.
You told yourselves this would be something you’d look back on one day and say, remember when that almost broke us?
You didn’t know yet how quietly almosts finish the job.
Months kept moving whether you were ready or not. Filming swallowed your days—long hours, screaming takes, makeup wiped off and reapplied until your skin broke out. Nights were quieter, lonelier, still threaded with Ellie’s voice and her folded letters tucked into your bag.
You kept believing that if you held on tightly enough, nothing would slip.
Press started looming. Emails with too many people cc’d. Mentions of interviews. Words like visibility and brand. Tools you didn’t know how to use.
That was when you met Rachel.
The meeting was set up casually. Coffee in a place in West Hollywood that smelled expensive and calm in a way that made you feel underdressed no matter what you wore. You arrived ten minutes early anyway, nerves crawling up your spine, hands wrapped tight around a paper cup you didn’t really want.
Rachel arrived exactly on time.
She was a gorgeous brunette, hair sleek, makeup dark but effortless, posture perfect without trying. She wore black Louboutins, heels clicking against the floor with quiet authority. She was older than you—not by decades, but enough that it showed in the way she moved, in the way her aura loomed over her shoulders.
You stood too fast when you saw her and she smiled like she found it charming. “You must be Y/N,” she said, extending a manicured hand. “Rachel.”
Her handshake was firm, confident. It made you suddenly aware of how young and inexperienced your own hands were.
You nodded, probably too eagerly. “Hi. Yeah. Hi.”
She sat across from you, crossing her legs with ease, eyes already cataloging everything—your posture, your clothes, the way you kept tucking your hair behind your ear and tried not to bite your nails too much.
“Relax,” She said lightly, waving a hand as if brushing away your anxiety. “I’m not here to correct you, or scold you, or teach you how to sit or talk or smile for cameras.”
“You’re… not?”
She laughed softly. “God, no. That’s not my job.”
She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, studying your face with a kind of focused curiosity that made your stomach flip.
“I’m here to protect you,” she continued. “And to help you.”
That didn’t feel any less terrifying. She tilted her head, eyes narrowing, seeing past your nerves, past the exhaustion, past the girl still calling her hometown girlfriend every night from a trailer bed.
“Girl,” Rachel said finally, lips curling into a grin. “You have serious potential.”
You let out a nervous laugh.
“You don’t know how to lie yet, which is both dangerous and very exciting.”
“That sounds… bad.”
“Oh, it is,” she said cheerfully. “For everyone else.”
She sat back, confidence settling into her bones. “But don’t worry. I’ll teach you how to survive this. I’ll keep them from eating you alive before you learn how to bite back.”
You swallowed. “I’ve never— I don’t know anything about press. Or interviews. Or—”
You called Ellie that night from your trailer, legs tucked up under you, phone balanced against your knee while the LA air hummed outside, it was never intended to sleep. Her face appeared on the screen a second later—grainy, slightly too close, hair damp from what you assume is a shower. The sight of her softened something in you immediately, the way it always did.
“Hey baby,” she said, smiling.
“Hey love,” you breathed, already lighter.
You launched into it without much warning, excitement spilling out of you in uneven bursts. You told her about Rachel—about the meeting, the coffee, the way she walked in like she owned the place. You told her she was gorgeous, confident in a way that made you feel simultaneously terrified and safe.
“She wears Louboutins like it’s nothing,” you said, laughing. “Like, she’s so fucking cool.”
Ellie snorted. “Of course she is.”
“She said she’s here to help. And then she told me I have serious potential, Ellie. Like—” you shrugged even though she couldn’t feel it, “—I don’t know. I trusted her immediately.”
Ellie’s smile didn’t reach her eyes this time.
“Yeah?” she said, tone a little irritated. “That was fast.”
You frowned slightly. “What?”
“Nothing,” she replied too quickly. “I just—she sounds… intense.”
“She is,” you admitted. “But in a good way. I think.”
Ellie hummed, noncommittal, gaze drifting off-screen as if she was chewing on something she didn’t want to swallow. To fill the silence, she shifted, propping herself up on one elbow.
“I mean, I get it. I’ve got someone like that here too.”
Your stomach tightened. “Like… who?”
“My coworker,” Ellie said. “Laura. She’s older and been doing this forever. She’s been kind of—showing me the ropes.”
“Oh,” you said, forcing your voice to stay light. “Cool.”
Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Cool?”
“Yeah,” you said quickly. “That’s—good. I’m glad you have someone.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was heavy, stretching between you, filled with things neither of you wanted to say. The distance felt louder tonight, like it had learned how to speak.
You shifted, picking at the edge of your blanket. “So… when is your filming supposed to end?”
Ellie sighed. “I don’t know. Honestly? Probably more months.”
Your stomach dropped.
“More months?” you echoed. “Ellie, you said months already.”
“I know,” she said, rubbing a hand over her face. “But it’s a really dramatic movie. A lot of locations. Rewrites. It’s not… simple.”
“What?” you said quietly. “I’m already preparing for press, I’ve got meetings and interviews lined up. What do you mean more months?”
Ellie’s voice softened. “I thought you’d be done sooner.”
“I thought you would be,” you shot back before you could stop yourself. Then, catching your tone, you added more carefully, “I just—Ellie, we haven’t seen each other in two months. I fucking miss you.”
She didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was slower. “I know. I miss you so much too.”
Two months apart. And somehow, already talking like this. Neither of you said anything else but you smiled when you hung up, because that’s what you always did. Because you loved each other. Because you were trying.
But when the screen went dark, the quiet that followed felt different.
The handwritten letters stopped first—you didn’t even notice when the last one arrived, only that no new envelopes showed up after it. The calls became shorter with time, missed here and there. A late shoot. An early call time. Someone falling asleep before hitting call back.
Ellie sounded tired all the time.
New York was lonely in a way she hadn’t expected, big, loud and uncaring. Filming wrapped around her life completely, emotionally brutal scenes that bled into her off hours and then were scratched off the narrative. Ellie had always been a more methodical actor, who carried a character as if a second spine, and this one was heavy with trauma. She didn’t know how to put it down. Sometimes when you talked, it felt like you were speaking to someone who was still half on set.
Meanwhile, your world was tilting in the opposite direction.
Press started early, earlier than you’d thought. Meetings turned into fittings, fittings into interviews, interviews into schedules so tight you had to plan when you were allowed to breathe. Rachel moved through it all like a general, guiding you, correcting gently, reminding you where to look, how to angle your face, when to smile and when not to.
You were excited and terrified. Both at once.
The night it finally cracked, Ellie called you out of the blue. You answered from your hotel bed, excitement still buzzing in your chest.
“Hey baby!” you said, smiling.
“Hey,” Ellie replied.
You told her about the interview you’d done that day, about how surreal it felt to hear people ask you questions as if you mattered. You rambled about the press tour coming up, about how you were already thinking of outfits, about a dress you’d seen in Beverly Center that you really wanted to wear, about camera angles and lighting and how Rachel said you photographed beautifully from your left side.
Ellie was quiet on the other end. But when she finally spoke, her voice was flat.
“Wow.”
You laughed. “What?”
She hesitated.
“Who even are you?”
The words hit wrong, your stomach already folding into itself. “What…what do you mean?”
Ellie exhaled through her nose. “I don’t know. You just sound so… different. You already have an LA accent.”
“What?” You frowned. “I literally don’t.”
She shrugged, even though you could only hear it. “You do. You talk different. You say things different.”
Your chest tightened. “That’s not true!”
“You’re changing,”
You felt heat rush to your face. “Well, you have a country accent now,” you shot back before you could stop yourself. “Just like your character. And you’ve been so cold to me these last weeks, Ellie, like you literally can’t get your head out of it.”
She went still on the other line.
“And filming for five months straight?” you continued, voice shaking now. “That’s too much. That’s not normal.”
“You think I fucking control that?” Ellie snapped. “I’m a rookie, I don’t get to say shit. Everyone treats me like I should be grateful just to breathe there.”
“So do they to me,” you said. “I’m going through the same thing.”
There was a pause. Then Ellie laughed, but it lacked any type of humor.
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re already treating you like a Barbie they want to sell,” she said, voice sharp with something that sounded like fear. “They sent you to inject your lips, booked ads for you, made you dye your hair lighter—”
“You don’t like my hair!?”
“That’s not the point!” Ellie snapped. “Can’t you see it?”
“See what?” you cried.
“Your dream,” she said, voice breaking through the anger. “Your dream was to act in musicals and dramas. To be Charlize Theron in Monster, not fucking Pamela Anderson in Baywatch!”
“Why are you being so rude to me?” you said, voice cracking. “I’m doing what I can! I don’t get to choose what I want to do either! I’m just trying to survive just like you do!”
Ellie went quiet for half a second, and when she spoke again her voice was sharper, louder, no longer careful.
“You said you were coming to see me,” she shot back. “What happened to that?”
You froze. “What?”
“You said it,” she insisted. “You said, I’ll come to New York as soon as I can. You said that.”
“Ellie, I—”
“I don’t have money for a plane ticket to LA,” she cut in. “They’re not paying me right now, the payment comes later. I literally eat coffee and call it a day. So why don’t you come see me, huh?”
“That’s not fair, I don’t have enough money either.”
“Why?” Her laugh was bitter, ugly. “Did your Dior ad money not come in yet?”
The sentence detonated between you.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” you yelled. “I don’t get paid for anything. I don’t have a Dior ad!”
Ellie scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
“No,” you said, voice shaking with rage now. “Everything I get booked for here is paid in exposure. Everything I wear is borrowed, I have to give it back at the end of the day, Ellie. I don’t own any of it.”
Silence. Then—
“You’re so fucking mean to me,” you said, tears spilling over now, hot and humiliating. “You don’t even ask. You just assume the worst!”
Ellie snapped back instantly. “Maybe because it looks like you’re living the fucking LA dream.”
That did it.
“Oh my God,” you whispered, incredulous. “So that’s what this is?”
“What do you want me to say?” she fired back. “That I’m thrilled watching you get everything while I’m stuck freezing my ass off on night shoots being treated like shit?”
“I’m not getting everything,” you screamed. “I’m barely holding it together!”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck you!” you sobbed. “You’re just jealous!”
The word landed like a grenade.
“What? I’m not—” she said quietly.
“Why not?” you kept going, voice breaking apart. “Why can’t you just be happy for me like any normal girlfriend would? You hate that I’m getting these opportunities and you’re not. You hate that people look at me now. You hate that I’m here and you’re there. It’s been five months, Ellie. FIVE. MONTHS. I miss you so much it hurts to breathe!”
Your chest heaved as you started crying openly now, shoulders shaking, phone clenched so tightly your knuckles ached.
Ellie’s voice cracked when she answered. “You think I don’t miss you?”
“Then why does it feel like you punish me for it?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It feels like it,” you said. “Every time we talk lately, you tear me down. You make me feel stupid for being excited. You make me feel guilty for everything I get.”
There was heavy breathing on the line. Yours. Hers. Two people burning from opposite ends of the same rope.
“Because I’m tired,” she said. “And I’m angry, and I don’t know how to do this anymore.”
“Or maybe you’re just fucking Laura!”
You blurted, the words tearing out of your mouth before you could stop them.
Ellie inhaled sharply. “What the fuck are you even saying?”
“I don’t know!” you shot back, voice rising, cracking. “You tell me! You’re distant, you’re cold, you talk about her all the time—”
“You’re fucking crazy if you think I would ever do that to you,” Ellie shouted. “I would never!”
“Well I don’t know, Ellie,” you yelled, pacing the length of the room like a trapped animal. “I don’t know anything anymore. So tell me—ARE. YOU. FUCKING. LAURA!?”
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!”
“ANSWER ME!”
“I can’t believe you’d even say that!” she yelled. “After everything, after six years of being together, you think I’d cheat on you!?”
“You’re the one who acts like I’ve already replaced you!”
“Because I feel replaced,” Ellie roared back. “Because every time I hear your voice you sound further away!”
“That doesn’t mean you get to punish me!”
“That doesn’t mean you get to accuse me of shit I would never do!”
Both of you were screaming now, voices overlapping, words crashing into each other without mercy.
“You don’t trust me anymore,” Ellie shouted.
“You treat me like you don’t love me anymore!” you screamed back.
“That’s not true!”
“Then why does everything you say hurt?”
Silence slammed down between you—violent, ringing. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat, your temples, your fingertips.
Ellie spoke first, and her voice was wrecked.
“I can’t do this tonight,” she said. “I can’t be accused of being someone I’m not.”
“Fine,” you snapped, sobbing openly now. “Run away, that’s what you’ve been doing for months anyway.”
“That’s not fair!”
“NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS FAIR!”
Another pause. When Ellie spoke again, her voice was flat and controlled in a way that scared you more than the yelling.
“I’m hanging up.”
“Wait,” you pleaded, suddenly terrified. “Ellie, please—don’t hang up.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not when we’re like this.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you begged, your voice breaking apart. “I love you—!”
The dead, empty silence of a line cut clean through everything. You stood there staring at your phone, your face soaked with tears, the room suddenly too quiet.
That was the night something irreparable cracked.
You fell asleep crying until the morning came and you could barely open them at all.
Memories came and went in your head from the moment you and Ellie were torn apart. They played like a live-action movie, rewinding and fast-forwarding, then slowing down only to hurt you more. You remembered everything: how she smelled that night at prom, how she looked when she told you she was moving to New York, the way she kissed you the last time you saw each other.
You would be lying to yourself if you said you were fine these last months without her. How do you cope with having someone by your side every day for six years, only to be forced apart? There was an ache stitched directly into your skin, a raw pain that followed you like a ghost with every step you took. A string pulled tight every time you moved even a meter farther away from her.
From sleeping beside her every night to seeing her only in pixels through your phone.
Death sometimes comes in ways that don’t involve the loss of life. It doesn’t always look like a body being lowered into the ground. Sometimes death arrives in the absence of touch, in the loss of having someone close to your skin. Feeling her heartbeat beneath your hands. Her hair brushing against your palm as you helped her fall asleep. Counting the freckles on her cheeks. Talking for hours about nothing and everything. Rambling, laughing, just feeling her exist beside you.
Something inside you died when you lost her. Because you did lose her. You lost her in all the ways that mattered, in all the ways love is meant to look when it’s full and alive and feels stronger than fate itself, loud enough to take up space.
You lost her when you stopped knowing about her days. When you could no longer watch her exist. When she began changing her habits, her accent, and you couldn’t fully accept it. You lost her slowly, as she slipped through your fingers while you were buried under schedules and paparazzi shots and interviews. Too busy to notice she wasn’t fine every time she said she was.
And only now did you truly understand how much you missed her. How much it hurt to realize the girl you fell in love with wasn’t the same anymore.
People change. They grow. They move away, come back, stay, leave. And somehow, they still keep your heart in their hands no matter how much it bleeds to be pulled free. Sometimes their grip is too tight for them to notice. Sometimes the past is too big to forget.
What you didn’t know was that Ellie felt the same way about you.
She noticed it before you did—how quickly she was losing you, how fast you were slipping through her fingers. She saw it happening in real time, watched the girl she fell in love with in high school slowly turn into a moldable, polished and plastic doll. And you couldn’t even see it yourself, too starstruck to notice what they were doing to you.
She noticed it in the way you talked to her. The way you rambled like she was just a long-distance friend now, like calling her had become routine. Like she was someone you vented to because you needed to unload, not because you actually wanted her to know how your days really felt.
Work wrapped around her like a cage, trapping her in a quiet kind of loneliness. The people around her were always busy, always important, barely sparing her a glance—looking down at her like she should be grateful just to share the same space. And she was. She was grateful. This was everything she had ever dreamed of.
But if this was everything she had ever wanted, why wasn’t she happy?
The answer was simple.
She wanted you there.
The dream had never existed without you. Neither of you had ever imagined a future apart. She could have all the money in the world, all the fame, the lights, the roles, the stardom—but if you weren’t sharing a couch with her, breathing beside her, none of it made sense.
And yet, the version of you she dreamed of wasn’t the same one anymore.
She never meant to hurt you. She was angry at herself—angry for taking the role, for letting you go to LA in the first place. She would have chosen a lifetime of crumbs on the floor if it meant you were still beside her.
She fell asleep crying that night. And when she woke up, she cried more.
Whatever was happening, there was nothing you could do to stop it. There was a horrible clarity to it, a kind of madness that settled over your thoughts like a gray cloud.
Love and pain twisted into each other until they became inseparable, two of the strongest sensations a person can feel at once. And when the pain comes from the person you love most, how are you supposed to make it stop?
Two weeks blurred together after that, bleeding into one another like watercolors left out in the rain, and they went by without a single word. Nothing but the quiet, stretching thin and sharp between time zones. You told yourself not to hope. You told yourself it was over, that silence was its own answer.
Until a knock on your door resounded in the quiet.
You froze in the middle of the room, breath caught halfway in your chest. Another knock followed, firmer this time, like the person on the other side was afraid you might disappear if they waited too long.
You opened the door.
Ellie.
She stood there like a memory that had learned how to breathe. Just as beautiful as you remembered, tired eyes, hair a little longer, shoulders drawn tight like she’d been holding herself together with will alone. For a second, neither of you moved. The sight of her hit you, a flood of recognition so overwhelming it made your vision blur.
Your eyes filled before you could stop them.
“Ellie,” you breathed, voice breaking. “You’re here.”
You launched yourself into her arms, the way you’d imagined doing a hundred times and convinced yourself you never would again. She caught you instantly, like her body had been waiting for yours. You buried your face in her shoulder and cried, sobs tearing out of you raw and unguarded. She cried too—quiet at first, then harder, clutching you like the ground might give out beneath her feet if she let go.
“Oh my god,” you choked, pulling back just enough to look at her, hands framing her face. “You’re here. You’re actually here. How—how did you get the money? When did you come? How did you—Ellie, I can’t believe you’re here.”
She tried to speak, but you were already unraveling.
“I’m so sorry,” you rushed, words tumbling over each other. “I’m so sorry for what I said the other day, I didn’t mean it like that, I was scared and tired and I thought I was losing you and I—”
Ellie shook her head, tears spilling freely now. She cupped your face, thumbs brushing the tears from your cheeks with reverence.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, voice thick. “Not right now.”
Then she kissed you.
It was desperate and aching and full of all the months you’d spent reaching for each other through screens and words and memory. Her mouth moved against yours like she was trying to convince herself you were real, like she was afraid you’d vanish if she didn’t hold on hard enough. You kissed her back just as fiercely, hands shaking as you pulled her closer, bodies finally fitting together again after so long apart.
The world narrowed to the two of you—salted tears, familiar warmth, the soft hitch of her breath when you kissed her deeper. Every hurt, every silence, every night you’d cried alone folded into that moment and broke open.
After that you collapsed into each other like gravity finally had permission to exist. Clothes disappeared without ceremony. The kind of intimacy born from absence, from hunger that had been starved for too long. You learned each other again in the dark, mouths and hands tracing same paths, bodies fitting together the way they used to, the way you’d memorized. It was soft and frantic and aching all at once, a shared breath held too long finally released.
After, you stayed tangled together, sheets twisted around your legs, Ellie’s body warm and solid behind you, her forehead resting against your back. Her hand moved in slow, absent circles over your skin. It should have felt like relief.
Instead, your mind drifted.
This wasn’t the same Ellie.
The realization arrived quietly, cruel in its subtlety. There was something different about her. The moment you’d just shared, so intimate, so sacred in your memory during the months apart, hadn’t carried the same electric thread. That untangled passion that once lived effortlessly between you felt… muted. A song played in another room that you didn’t know how to explain without sounding ungrateful or insane.
Thoughts crept in, uninvited and vicious. Maybe she was cheating. Maybe she wasn’t okay. Maybe she was already halfway gone. Maybe New York had given her someone else—someone prettier, funnier, better than you. Someone who actually fit into her new life. Someone you could never compete with.
Ellie was quiet too.
She lay there behind you, close but not quite reaching, her hand still tracing circles. She studied your hair, different now. Inhaled your new perfume, unfamiliar. Her eyes wandered the room when she thought you weren’t watching. The sterile hotel furniture and empty surfaces. You didn’t have your novels anymore, didn’t have the photos with her she knew you carried everywhere. It was as if she were mapping the evidence of your life continuing without her.
You felt yourself drifting farther away with every second of silence. Neither of you spoke. The quiet thickened, heavy with things unsaid, pressing into the space between your ribs.
Finally, Ellie broke it.
“You’re quiet,” she said softly.
“You’re quiet too.”
Her hand stilled. “Is something wrong?”
You stared at the wall, at the unfamiliar pattern in the wallpaper, at anything that wasn’t her reflection in the dark. “I don’t know, is it?”
Ellie shifted behind you, pulling back just enough for the distance to sting. “What does that mean?”
“I’m trying to understand what just happened.” you said before you could stop yourself. The words tasted bitter the moment they left your mouth.
“What happened is I flew across the country to see you,” she said, hurt sharpening her voice. “I showed up at your door.”
“I know,” you whispered. “And I’m grateful. God, Ellie, I am. But something feels… different.”
She shook her head, eyes glistening. “You think I don’t feel it too? You think I didn’t notice you pulling away even while you were holding me?”
You sat up, sheets pooling at your waist. “Then say something.”
“I’m scared to,” she admitted. “Because every time I open my mouth lately, I feel like I’m choosing between us and everything else.”
“So that’s it?” you asked. “I’m an option now?”
“No,” she said quickly. “You’re not an option. You’re just—” She faltered. “We’re not in the same place anymore.”
Silence swallowed the room again, heavy with nostalgia, with an intense grief for the versions of yourselves that used to exist so easily together.
You realized then that love doesn’t always break in explosions. Sometimes it thins, it changes so subtly you only notice once you’re already standing in the space where something used to be.
You stand up abruptly, the sudden movement breaking whatever fragile stillness remained. You reached for a shirt on the floor and pulled it over your head, hands shaking too much to be graceful. Sitting at the edge of the bed, you stared ahead, jaw tight, trying to breathe like nothing was wrong.
But whatever breathing exercise you tried to do, it didn’t work. The tears came anyway—silent at first, traitorous. You wiped at your face angrily, like you could be embarrassed out of crying.
Ellie noticed immediately. “Hey—fuck, I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up too. “I didn’t mean—”
You laughed, broken and sharp. “You never mean the things you say,” you said, “But somehow you always say them.”
“You started this.” she snapped.
“I started this?” You turned to her then, eyes red, disbelieving.
“You said you “didn’t understand what just happened”."
“Because I don’t understand!,” you blurted. The words hung between you, ugly and irreversible. You sucked in a breath, already regretting it. “Are you cheating on me?”
“Here we go again,” Ellie muttered, dragging her hands down her face.
“I’m trying to understand,” you insisted, standing now, pacing a step before turning back. “You’re different. You pull away, you go quiet, you look at me like you’re already somewhere else, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. So yeah—my brain goes there.”
She swung her legs off the bed and started pulling on her clothes, movements angry and frantic.
“I flew all the way here,” she said, voice breaking through her anger, “and you still keep accusing me of the same shit. Every time something feels hard, you decide it must be because I’m betraying you.”
“Wait—no—fuck,” you said quickly, panic flooding in as you stepped toward her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”
She shook her head, tugging her shirt over her shoulders. “What the fuck is wrong with us?”
You broke then. Sobs tore out of your chest, ugly and uncontrollable. You sank back onto the bed, hands covering your face. Ellie froze and for a second, she looked like she might leave anyway, then her face crumpled too.
“I don’t recognize us anymore,” you whispered, tears spilling freely now. “We sound like insane people.”
Silence fell again, but this one was worse, exhausted with love that had nowhere left to go. It pressed in on your chest until breathing as if it was hard work. Ellie sat down slowly, a careful distance away, afraid one wrong movement might splinter everything completely.
You wiped your face with the back of your hand, voice hoarse.
“Why did you come all the way here?”
Ellie didn’t answer immediately. She looked at the floor like it might give her a script. Then back at you. Her eyes were a shade of red dangerously close to hope that hadn’t quite died yet.
“Because I love you,” she said finally. “Because I thought if I saw you everything would click back into place. Like it used to.”
Your chest broke open.
“I thought it would fix things,” she went on, voice wavering now. “That we’d touch and it would all make sense again. That we’d remember who we are to each other and it would be… okay. That we would be okay.”
She took a breath, steadying herself, shoulders rising and falling like she was bracing for impact.
“I didn’t come to fight,” Ellie said quietly. “I didn’t come to end anything. I came because I missed you.”
Your heart was pounding so hard it felt violent.
“And I still do,” she added, softer. “Miss you.”
For a second—just one—you let yourself believe that was the whole reason. That love had been enough to bring her here, that maybe it could still be enough to keep her.
“But I also came,” she said, carefully now, “because I needed to tell you something in person.”
Something cold slid down your spine. She hesitated, eyes searching your face like she was trying to memorize it before she broke it.
“I have to stay in New York,” Ellie said. “Another year.”
“What?”
The room tilted. You shook your head as the tears came harder, your chest heaving as the shape of your life cracked open in front of you.
Ellie stood and crossed the space between you, arms reaching out instinctively. “Hey—hey—”
“I got another role I can’t turn down,” she rushed, holding you as you cried, “They extended the contract. There’s another project lined up. It’s a big opportunity and I couldn’t stand another second not telling you face to face—”
“Get off me,” you sobbed, shoving weakly at her chest.
She tightened her grip instead. “No. Stop. Please.”
“Fuck, Ellie!” you screamed, the sound tearing through your throat. “I can’t do this anymore!”
“What am I supposed to do?” she cried. “Say no? This is my dream—our dream!”
“And I know that!” you shot back, voice breaking under the weight of it. “But this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, we were supposed to do it together! And you telling me this now just makes it worse. I can’t move!”
“I’m not saying you have to,” she said desperately. “I’m saying we can still make this work. We always do!”
“Ellie, I really fucking love you. I love you more than anyone, I’ve never loved anyone else that wasn’t you, I gave you six years of my life! We haven’t spent a single day apart in years, and now this is all we are—screens and airports and promises we keep breaking!”
She shook her head violently. “Don’t. Don’t say it like that.”
“Maybe this is who we are now,” you continued, words spilling faster as if stopping would kill you. “Maybe this is what our lives are supposed to look like from now on. Maybe—”
The words hit the room and stayed there, vibrating like a struck wire. Ellie crumpled, sinking back onto the bed as if her legs had finally stopped cooperating. She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking. Both of you broken open by the same love, bleeding in opposite directions.
She wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, as if she was angry at the tears for existing at all. When she spoke again, her voice was worn thin by everything she was trying not to say.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” Ellie admitted. “I keep trying to find some kind of answer, some middle ground, and there just… isn’t one.” She murmured weakly, the sound breaking apart as soon as it left her. “We can’t be together like this, but we can’t be apart either. It’s like no matter what we choose, something important dies.”
“Work is pulling us in opposite directions,” she went on, words tumbling faster now, once she started she couldn’t stop. “I never thought I’d have to choose between the person I love and the thing I’ve wanted my entire life. I really didn’t.”
Her voice cracked. “I thought the dream included you. I thought it always would.”
Your chest ached in a way that felt old and new at the same time. “It was supposed to,” you whispered. “That was the whole point.”
“I’m so tired,” she said. “I’m tired of pretending I’m okay when I’m not. I’m tired of loving you this much and still feeling like I’m failing you.” She looked at you then, eyes raw and honest. “I don’t know how to be your partner from another coast. And I don’t know how to give this up without hating myself.”
You swallowed, throat burning. “Maybe… maybe we don’t have to decide everything right now,” you said carefully, “Maybe we take some time to let things settle. Maybe when things are calmer, when we’re not constantly fighting the world and each other, we’ll be able to see more clearly.”
Ellie searched your face, hope and fear warring in her expression. “Time apart?”
“Not an ending,” you rushed to say. “Just… space.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to yours. “I’m terrified that if we let go even a little, we won’t find our way back.”
“I know,” you whispered. “I’m terrified too. But what we’re doing now it’s breaking us.”
Ellie nodded slowly, reluctantly, like she was agreeing to something she already knew was true. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “But I don’t know how to keep you without losing myself.”
Tears slid down your face again. “Then maybe this is the only way we don’t lose everything.”
She wrapped her arms around you, holding on like she was trying to memorize the exact weight of you. “I never imagined love would feel like this,” she murmured.
“Me neither,” you said into her hair.
You moved without thinking, kneeling in front of her, arms wrapping around her waist. She stiffened for half a second, then folded into you, gripping your shirt like it was the only solid thing left.
“Ellie,” you whispered into her shoulder, voice ruined. “I love you. I will love you forever. You’ll always be my first love. No one gets to take that away. We’ll find a solution. Maybe not now—but someday.”
She sobbed openly now, fingers twisting into your hair. “I love you too,” she said. “More than I can survive, that’s the problem. We will find a solution in the future. But if we want there to be a future, we have to stop this, whatever this is right now. Because it’s killing us.”
You nodded against her, tears soaking her shirt. “I can’t handle watching you suffer like this anymore.”
Her grip tightened. “I can’t either.”
You stayed like that for a long time—two people holding on while letting go, memorizing the shape of each other in case this was the last time it would ever feel like this. The room felt too small for all the love you still had and too empty for everything you were losing.
Nothing was resolved. Nothing was forgiven.
But for a moment, you were still together.
You stayed pressed together until the room began to lighten with early morning, neither of you willing to be the first to move, as if stillness might delay what was coming.
Ellie was the one who finally spoke.
“Say something,” she whispered. “Anything.”
You pulled back just enough to look at her, memorizing the curve of her mouth, the way the green in her eyes went lighter right before she cried. “Promise me this isn’t goodbye,” you said. “Promise me this is just… a pause.”
“I promise I’ll try,” she said carefully.
“That’s not the same thing,” you replied, voice shaking. “Promise me you won’t disappear. Promise me we won’t turn into strangers who only know each other in the past tense.”
Ellie swallowed hard. “I don’t know how to promise that without lying.”
You squeezed your eyes shut. “Please.”
She nodded, tears spilling freely. “I promise.”
You kissed her then, your shared lips saying goodbye without letting the word exist yet. Foreheads touching, breaths tangled, hands lingering longer than necessary.
Later, you walked her to the car. Later, you stood with her at the airport, strangers rushing past carrying futures that still made sense. Ellie held your face in her hands like she was afraid to forget it.
“I love you.” she murmured. “I will love you forever. I hope you know that every single day.”
“I know,” you said. “Me too."
You watched her walk through security. You watched until she disappeared.
You watched leave with every piece of your soul.
And what neither of you knew then was that the promise would never survive, but it wouldn’t break all at once. It would fracture quietly, over time. Broken by a million small things. By schedules that never aligned, by conversations postponed and calls unanswered, by spaces that grew wider and silences that learned how to live comfortably between you.
Promises don’t always shatter.
Sometimes they just fade until one day you realize you’ve been holding onto nothing at all.
𝐓he next time you leave the apartment, the city meets you as rain slicks the pavement, thin and relentless, soaking through the hems of everything. A chill slides down your spine, and uninvited words surface in your mind: and it’s always raining in London.
You don’t even remember when you first heard it, only that it lands heavy now, a line written for this exact moment, for this exact version of you.
Today it’s your first day of filming.
Nothing more is in your mind more than the quiet knowledge that you were going to walk into a room with Ellie again and pretend it hadn’t taken you apart. You would be lying if you said you hadn’t cried the night before, and all the nights before that. Lying if you said you hadn’t reread the letters she sent you that horrible, fatal year, ink smudged in the words where your tears had fallen more than once. You took the prom polaroids out of their box and held them like evidence of a life that once fit you better. You dug through the back of your closet, past designer gowns and Prada bags until you found her gray hoodie that still smelled faintly like her, and you buried your face in it. Lying if you said you were ready for this.
But before filming, your publicist had called you to make a necessary appearance. The loudest and most public place in Hollywood to possibly have lunch as a celebrity—white tablecloths, glass walls, paparazzi practically baked into the architecture.
Being seen was the point. Being seen with Chris was the strategy. The scandal needed a counter-image, clean and legible and heterosexual enough to calm the waters.
The moment you step outside, cameras wake up like predators who never really sleep. Someone calls your name loud enough to cut through the rain. “How are you both handling the scandal?” a voice shouts. “Are you going to comment on your outburst?” other screams.
But you keep your head high, sunglasses fixed in place, mouth set rehearsed and distant. Your steps don’t falter. Chris answers for you, smooth and easy, already moving, already playing his part.
“We’re just grabbing lunch, man. Relax,” he says, hand firm at your back as he guides you toward the car.
The door shuts and inside the SUV, the world finally exhales with you.
“Fuck,” you mutter, letting your head fall back against the seat. The word feels small compared to the shape of what you mean. “I feel like my whole life is a bit.”
Chris snorts as he starts the engine. “It is.”
You huff out something that might have been a laugh once and turn your face toward the window. The restaurant recedes in the mirror, pristine and performative, already rewriting you into something easier to digest. The leftover adrenaline from the cameras tangles with the deeper, quieter dread curling in your chest—the kind that knows Ellie exists in the same world as you.
The combination is dizzying and potent. You think you could bottle it and sell it as a controlled substance.
Your phone buzzes in your hand, yanking you out of your own head.
Rachel:
PAP SHOTS ALREADY UP
“Y/N SEEN WITH BF CHRIS AFTER SCANDAL”
these straights always working OVERTIME
You send back three crying face emojis without thinking and let the phone fall into your lap, screen dark again. Outside, the rain keeps coming, but out of the corner of your eye, you notice Chris’s hand moves.
He’s got his phone in his right hand, thumb flying over the screen with unusual focus. His mouth is doing that tiny half-smile thing he does when he’s talking to someone he actually likes. The notification banner flashes for a second before it disappears, but you catch it.
babe ❤️
Your eyebrows fly up. “Oh?”
He freezes. “What.”
“Ohhhhh,” you say, the sound blooming into delighted cruelty. “Oh, what’s that, Christopherrrr—”
“Nothing,” he says too quickly, locking his phone and shoving it into his back pocket, “It’s spam. So much spam these days.”
You turn in your seat to face him fully, the impending filming momentarily forgotten. “Spam named ‘babe’ with a RED heart emoji?”
His ears turn a very interesting shade of pink. “Could be a scammer.”
“You’re seeing someone.” You gasp, hand flying to your chest.
“I am not!” he says, voice climbing into indignation. “Seeing someone would imply… seeing. I am… glancing. Casually. From a distance.”
“Oh my God,” you wheeze. “Is this why you shaved? And wore cologne? I thought you were trying to impress me.”
He rolls his eyes so hard you’re surprised the car stays in its lane. “Please. I stopped trying to impress you after you cried over that Dior ad in 2022.”
“Hey!” you protest. “You told me you were never mentioning it again!”
He snorts despite himself.
“So,” you press, tapping his arm. “Who is it. Come onnnn. Who are you textiiiing.”
He grips the steering wheel tighter. “It’s no one.”
“Is ‘no one’ hot?”
He inhales through his nose. “Oh my God.”
“So he’s hot,” you whisper to yourself, thrilled. “You’re in love.”
“I am not in love,” he snaps, then winces at how dramatic that sounds. “It’s… we’ve hung out a few times. It’s not a thing.”
“What’s his name.”
He groans, head briefly tipping back against the seat. “I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
You grin, warmth unfurling in your chest that has nothing to do with exes or scripts or directors who weaponize chemistry.
Your phone buzzes again.
Abby:
i can pick u up today if you want! practice ended early
Guilt prickles under your skin. Your thumbs hover over the keyboard longer than necessary.
kayyy 💕
“Brain spiral?” Chris asks, eyes still on the road.
“Always,” you say.
He nods like he expected that. “Okay, here’s the game plan,” he announces, slipping back into crisis manager mode. He pretends he's Rachel when Rachel isn’t around. “You are going to walk into that rehearsal room, say hi to the people, ignore the cameras, and pretend Ellie Williams is just some coworker.”
“I can’t ignore the cameras,”
He shrugs. “Fine. Then pretend they’re your ex. Look right through them.”
“...There’s no possible way I could look right through Ellie,"
You say, but it’s weak. Fond, nostalgic and underlying hurt.
“We’re here,” he says, turning into the studio lot.
The security gate lifts, and suddenly you’re inside the machine again—trailers, grip trucks, people with headsets and clipboards and lanyards, the air humming with production energy. He pulls up in front of the rehearsal building and shifts into park. For a moment, neither of you move.
You let out a thin laugh. “I’m Y/N fucking Y/L/N, actually.”
“Exactly,” he says. “And there’s not a director on this planet who gets to turn your life into content without also watching you steal every scene.”
Something in your spine straightens, and you unclench your fists without realizing you’d balled them.
“Okay,” you say, more to yourself than to him. “Okay.”
You reach for the door handle, then pause.
“Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t… disappear into your ‘babe’ thing and leave me alone with my chaos,” you say lightly, though you mean it. “I need you.”
He rolls his eyes, but his voice goes soft around the edges. “You’re stuck with me forever, whether you want it or not. Now go be a diva.”
You give him a smile before turning your head and opening the door. The outside air hits you, the smell of whatever dreams are made of. The building looms ahead, glass doors reflecting a version of you that looks more composed than you feel.
You square your shoulders, adjust your coat, and walk toward the entrance. Inside, the building swallows sound the way studios always do. Rehearsal Room B was already lit when you stepp in.
Ellie is there.
She's standing near the table, script in hand, shoulders slightly hunched as if she was bracing against weather that only she could feel. Gray t-shirt, black jeans, rings familiar enough to hurt. She looks tired, worn thin in places only you know how to read.
For a split second, your brain offers you a hi. A smile. Walking over and touching her arm.
But you don't, and neither does she. You both pretend the other isn't there, which somehow takes more effort than acknowledging it would have.
Steven claps his hands once, loud and cheerful. “Alright. Let’s get started. Coffee scene. Page twelve.”
You move to your mark without looking at her. She mirrors the action.
The scene is simple on paper, Grace and Andy sitting across from each other in a café years after everything, talking like strangers who knew too much.
But an entire hour later, you had already run the same scene five times and every single time, Ellie had faltered. Not on the hard parts or the emotional turns or the long dialogues, but when she looked at you. A missed word, a too long pause, a line swallowed and spat back out wrong.
It annoys you more than it should. Miss Emmy-winner-can-cry-on-command forgetting her lines.
What you don't know was that the simple sight of you sitting across from her, mouth set in that professional calm, eyes beautiful that she remembers too well, makes everything she’d memorized evaporate. Whole paragraphs just gone as if you’d reached into her head and turned the lights off.
Steven smiles, watching you too closely. “Take six. Whenever you’re ready.”
ANDY: “I didn’t think you’d order that.”
Her voice is steadier than you expected. You answer automatically, professionalism snapping into place.
GRACE: “It’s what I always get.”
Ellie’s eyes lift and land on you.
And she hesitates a fraction too long, barely perceptible.
Silence stretches.
Ellie frowns. “Sorry—”
You exhale, long and annoyed, the sound cutting through the room.
She looks up. “What?”
“Nothing,” you say, but your tone betrays you immediately—clipped, tight, irritated.
Ellie stiffens, crew members glance at one another, and Steven leans back slightly, eyes alert.
“And—” you rush to stop yourself, lips pressing together. “Let’s… let’s just keep going.”
She stares at you for a second too long, something flickering behind her eyes—hurt, frustration, and an unnameable gleam.
“Right,” she says. “Of course.”
ANDY: “You left without saying goodbye.”
The line hits you straight in the chest, making your eyes burn before you could stop them.
GRACE: “I didn’t think you’d want one.”
Ellie looks up again.
This time she doesn’t forget the line, but her voice certainly changes.
ANDY: “I waited.”
Your throat tightens and your eyes gloss, traitorous.
Steven notices. Ellie notices too—and that is what finally breaks her focus completely.
Her next line tangles in her mouth.
She swallows, trying again.
Nothing comes.
“God.” You huff, unable to stop yourself as you meet her gaze, frustration flashing hot and bright. “We’ve already done this scene five times and you keep messing up.”
Ellie laughs once, humorless. “I’m sorry, Ms. Perfect. Didn’t realize you had somewhere else to be.”
“I’m just trying to do my job,” you shoot back.
“Guess what?” she says, voice rising despite herself. “Me too.”
Steven lifts a hand halfway, then stops. His eyes glitter with interest.
The scene keeps going, even though it wasn’t anymore.
Ellie tries the line again, and this time she gets it right. Her voice dips lower, threaded with something dangerous.
ANDY: “You left without saying goodbye.”
Your chest tightens painfully.
You know this line. You hate this line.
GRACE: “I didn’t think you’d want one,”
ANDY: “I waited, and I waited a long time.”
Your eyes burn. You think of airports. Of unanswered calls. Of another year.
GRACE: “You don’t get to throw that in my face.”
You say, angrier than the script called for. Crew members freeze like they could feel the static humming between you.
ANDY: “And you don’t get to tell me how to feel.”
GRACE: “That’s funny, because that’s all you’ve been doing.”
Steven leans back in his chair, lips parting in awe.
ANDY: “I’m… sorry for that, Grace. I never meant to hurt you.”
Ellie’s next stage direction required her to reach for you.
Her hand hovers. You feels it before she touches you—the ghost of it, the memory of it, the way her fingers used to lace with yours over tables like this one. When she finally does, it's as careful as if she was touching broken glass.
The contact sends something sharp up your arm, not comfort but recognition. Ellie flinches too.
You both hate that it still works.
“And—cut.”
You pull your hand back immediately. Ellie mirrors the action. Chairs scrape loudly as you both stand at once, moving away from each other like magnets forced into reverse.
Steven clears his throat. “Well,” he says lightly, “that was… something.”
The next scene is in a theater that is colder than it looks. Empty rows, old red velvet seats, dust floating in the light. The stage lights are dimmed to a low glow—not a performance, but a memory of one. You stand onstage with Ellie, side by side.
The scene is about remembering, Grace and Andy returning to the old community theater where they used to play pretend before life became cruel, and that feels so much like real life it's almost obscene.
Steven’s voice floats from the dark. “From the top!”
You can feel Ellie even if you don't look at her, heat at your side, tension pulled tight like a wire.
GRACE: “It’s way smaller than I remembered.”
ANDY: “It always felt bigger when we’re kids.”
Your mouth curves despite yourself.
GRACE: “We used to hide back there,” you say, nodding toward the wings. “And scare everyone.”
Ellie shifts her weight, the floor creaks.
ANDY: “You always ruined it by laughing.”
She turns to you then. Finally. Her face is unreadable—angry, soft, something in between.
ANDY: “Do you ever think about that night?”
“I love you.” she murmured. “I will love you forever. I hope you know that every single day.”
“I know,” you said. “Me too.”
Your eyes burn.
You open your mouth.
Nothing comes out.
The silence stretches as crew members shift in their seats. Ellie tilts her head just slightly, watching you with that old mix of challenge.
“Forgot your line?”
You don’t respond.
She nods slowly.
“Thought so.”
The words land like a blade as you shoot her a murderous look. Steven stands, and you can feel his attention snap into focus. This isn’t working the way he imagined.
“Hold on,” he says, walking closer, hands in his pockets. His eyes move between you and Ellie, assessing. “Let’s pause.”
You blink hard, forcing the tears back.
Steven sighs, thoughtful. “The chemistry’s not flowing today.”
“It’s there,” he adds, gently. “But it’s… stuck. Like you’re both holding something back.”
You and Ellie both scoff under your breath involuntarily.
Steven rubs his chin. “We’ll do this scene another day.”
Relief and devastation crash into you at the same time. You step away from Ellie immediately, proximity itself is dangerous. She does the same, jaw tight, hands shoved into her pockets.
Neither of you look at each other.
But everyone in the room feels it—this unresolved past humming between you, love tangled with resentment, two people who can’t stand each other and can’t survive not caring.
You storm off the stage the second Steven dismisses everyone, script tucked under your arm, heels echoing too loudly against tiles. Your chest feels tight, compressed, frustration and anger clawing its way up your throat and refusing to come out clean.
Ellie follows you. You make it halfway down the corridor before she grabs your arm. Her grip is firm, fingers curling around your sleeve, stopping you hard enough that you stumble back a step.
“The fuck is your problem!?” she snaps.
You rip your arm free and spin around so fast it makes you dizzy. “The fuck is your problem? I try so hard to keep it fucking professional, but you piss me the fuck off!”
Ellie laughs, short and disbelieving. “Oh my God.”
“No,” you keep going, voice rising despite yourself. “Look— we both need these roles. Both of us. So if you don’t make it work, we’re both fucked. And I’m not the one being annoying and unprofessional in here.”
Ellie steps closer. Too close. Her jaw clenches so hard you can see it.
“Then fucking act like it,” she snaps. “Because all I hear is you acting like you’re better than me.”
Your laugh is sharp, ugly. “I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to,” she says. “You never do.”
“You’re still the same fuckass kid,” you say, the words spilling out before you can stop them. “Still acting like everything is happening to you and none of it is your fault.”
Ellie’s face goes still in that dangerous way you know too well.
“Oh, fuck you,” she says quietly. “You don’t get to say shit, fucking huffing after I forget a line like you're Meryl Streep.”
“Well for an Emmy Winner you're certainly not professional.”
“Because you’re impossible!" she shoots back. “You walk in there like you’ve got everything figured out, like you didn’t forget your line two minutes ago.”
Your eyes sting. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” she presses. “You hate when I say it out loud, but you know it’s true. You’re always pretending you’re fine.”
“You don’t know me anymore,” you say, voice shaking now.
Ellie scoffs. “Yeah? Funny, 'cause I still know exactly how you look when you’re about to cry.”
You step closer too, faces inches apart now, breathing the same air, anger and history tangling so tight it feels like a living thing.
“You think this is easy for me?” you hiss. “You think I want this? This fucking situation, this fucking movie, you sitting across from me like none of it happened?”
Silence slams down between you, heavy and electric. Your faces are way too close now—not kissing, not backing away, worse.
Ellie’s voice drops to a whisper. “You forgot your line.”
“So did you. Five times.”
“Only when I look at you.”
Your heart thuds painfully.
Neither of you notices the door at the end of the hallway open.
A crew member steps out, freezes at the sight of you—too close, too intense, voices low but unmistakably heated—and immediately turns around and goes back inside without a word.
The door clicks shut and makes reality rush back in all at once.
Ellie steps back first this time, running a hand through her hair, breathing hard. You look away, chest heaving, eyes burning.
Neither of you apologizes. Neither of you walks away fast enough. And somewhere behind the closed door, everyone knows exactly what Steven has seen from the beginning.
𝐓he bar is dim and loud, just like Ellie's head. After filming, she went straight there to drink with Jesse. She's now sitting across from him, elbows on the sticky table, fingers circling the rim of a beer she hasn’t really touched. She looks exhausted, worn down by the kind of thoughts that don’t shut up even when you beg them to.
“I still haven’t told Dina,” she says, staring into the bottle like it might answer back. “That she’s my coworker. That it’s her.”
Jesse’s mouth tightens immediately. He doesn’t interrupt, just waits, which somehow makes it worse.
“It’s eating me alive,” Ellie keeps going, “Every time Dina asks how filming is going I feel like I’m lying. Not technically—but it still feels like shit. I keep thinking I’ll tell her tomorrow and then tomorrow comes and I just… don’t.”
Jesse exhales slowly. “Jesus.”
“I know,” she cuts in, too fast. “I know. I’m a coward. You don’t have to say it.”
“That’s not what I was gonna say,” he replies. “I was gonna say you look like you wanna die.”
She snorts weakly. “That tracks.” She finally takes a sip of the beer and grimaces. “God. This tastes like ass.”
“I know,” she says, rubbing her face hard with both hands. “I just—everything’s already a mess. Filming is a mess. Dina’s a mess. She’s a mess. I don’t want to add another explosion on top of it.”
“Yeah,” Jesse says gently. “I get it.”
She goes quiet, then blurts,
“And on top of that, Erin calls me like twenty times a day.”
“Twenty?” Jesse’s brows shoot up.
“I’m not exaggerating,” Ellie says. “If I don’t pick up, she texts. If I don’t answer the text, she calls again. If I ignore that, she emails. It’s like—” she makes a vague clawing motion in the air, “—I can’t breathe without her knowing.”
“That’s not normal,”
“I know it’s not,” Ellie snaps, then regrets immediately. “Sorry. I just—she says it’s because things are ‘delicate’ right now. That I need to be careful. That the studio’s watching me.”
“That sounds like a threat,”
Ellie laughs, hollow. “Yeah. Welcome to my life.” She stares down at her hands. “Sometimes I think if I mess up one more time, she’ll just… pull the plug.”
Jesse doesn’t joke this time. “That’s not how it works.”
“That’s how it feels,” Ellie says quietly. “And I’m tired.”
There’s a stretch of silence where the music fills in the gaps neither of them want to touch.
Jesse checks his phone and sighs. “I gotta head out. See you later?”
Ellie nods, distracted, eyes still fixed on the condensation sliding down her glass. “Yeah. Sure.”
Jesse stands, shrugs into his jacket, hesitates like he wants to say something important but can’t find a version that won’t hurt. He squeezes her shoulder once, firm and caring.
“Don’t let this rot you,” he says. “"kay?”
Ellie nods and lifts the beer again, taking a real sip this time, the bitterness grounding her in the present whether she wants it to or not, staring at the table as if it’s the only thing keeping her from tipping over.
Jesse leaves. The door swings open, cold air slicing through the bar for half a second before it shuts again.
Outside, a car idles at the curb. Jesse slides into the passenger seat.
“Hi, babe,” Jesse says, smiling as he reaches over.
“Hey, babe.”
Chris answers.
𝐘ou storm out into the night as if the building is on fire behind you.
The air is so cold it feels as if it’s cutting straight through your coat, through your skin, straight into whatever is already breaking too painfully inside your chest. Abby’s car is parked right where she said it would be. Hazards blinking patient, like she’s been waiting longer than she wants to admit.
You get in and slam the door harder than necessary. For a moment, neither of you speaks. Your leg bounces, your hands don’t know where to go, and your head feels like it’s full of migraine and static.
“Shittiest day of my life,” you say finally, staring straight ahead. Your voice sounds wired.
Abby glances at you, then back at the road as she pulls away from the curb. “Yeah,” she says carefully. “I figured.”
The city passes by in streaks of light. You can feel her looking at you without turning her head, the way she does when she’s deciding whether to say something or not.
“I feel like you’re hiding something from me,”
A truth set on the dashboard between you.
You weren’t planning on saying it like this. You weren’t planning on saying it at all.
“Ellie,” you say quietly. “Ellie is my coworker.”
The car feels like it jerks even though it doesn’t.
Abby turns her head this time. “Ellie?”
“Yeah,” you say. “That’s why this is being so hard for me.”
She doesn’t respond right away, and her hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“How long have you known?” she asks.
You hesitate, then force it out. “Since the table read.”
She nods once, eyes on the road, and doesn’t look at you again.
The rest of the drive is unbearable. When she pulls up in front of your building, she parks, turns off the engine, and sits there. You reach for the door handle, but turn around to look at her when she doesn’t do the same.
“I’m not gonna stay over.”
Your chest caves in.
“Abby—”
“I’d rather be in my own place tonight,” she says, still not looking at you.
“Abby, please,” you rush out. “I didn’t choose this. I swear to God, I didn’t. I need to do this movie. I have to. You have to understand that!”
She finally looks at you then. Her face is calm in a way that scares you more than anger ever could.
“I understand,” she says. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” you say, tears burning now. “I’m just trying to survive this.”
She nods again. “I know.”
You wait for her to say more, for reassurance, for we’ll be okay, for anything that sounded better than whatever was happening to your life right now.
She doesn’t.
You get out of the car on shaking legs. The door closes behind you with a sound that feels too final as Abby pulls away without another word, taillights disappearing down the street.
And for the first time since this all began, you don’t know who you’re supposed to call.
𝐂hris and Jesse are sprawled across the bed like they’ve both finally run out of adrenaline at the same time. The lights are off except for the city bleeding in through the blinds, streetlamps cutting soft lines across the ceiling. Jesse’s shirt is twisted around his waist as Chris is on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other tracing lazy shapes on Jesse’s thigh
“It’s fucked,” Jesse says, “All of it.”
Chris hums. “That’s one word for it.”
Jesse shifts onto his side, propping his head up with his hand. “Ellie still hasn’t told Dina. She’s spiraling. Like—actually spiraling.”
Chris turns his head, interest sharpening. “About her?”
“Extra weird. Possessive weird. Control-freak weird. Like she doesn’t leave Ellie alone for more than five minutes, she literally acts like she belongs to her.”
Chris lowers his arm, eyes narrowing. “That’s not new, though. Managers can be intense.”
Chris runs a hand through his hair, pacing at the edge of the bed now. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jesse watches him. “Yeah.”
“That if Erin had access to Ellie’s iCloud—”
“—she could’ve downloaded the tape,” Jesse finishes.
Chris stops moving.
“And then,” Jesse adds quietly, “posted it.”
"Holy shit..."
Chris turns slowly.
“I know what we have to do.”
“What?”
“Rachel.”
Across the city, Erin sits at her desk, the glow of her laptop painting her face pale and intent. Her fingers move fast, efficient, controlled.
She drafts emails with perfect grammar and manufactured concern. Unprofessional behavior. Hostile work environment. Emotional instability affecting production.
She attaches nothing concrete, she knows how this works.
Doubt is enough, rumor is enough, especially when it’s aimed at you.
⋮ ⌗ ┆these are nsfw headcannons for loser!ellie, meaning they contain sexual and graphic content. sfw was posted tomorrow. this takes place in a modern au btw !!.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who never looks at you with lust, just love. of course shes freaky but that isnt the only thing she looks for. she loves you, but the first time you had sex, you kneeew she was gonna be a problem.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who is the ultimate service top. she never really gave a fuck about recieving, cause she knows damm well she can get off just by watching you, but wouldn't refuse you touching her.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie whos lowkey a perv and has touched herself to you instagram highlights more than once. replaying your stories like its the most pornagraphic material when in reality its just your face. but either way it still has her cumming in 5 minutes.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who once begged you to facetime so she can see you play with your clit. she then watched you masturbate on your bed for the next 20 minutes, whispering soft praises every so often. "fuck you're so beautiful like this honey. mmhm..dont hide your noises."
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who recorded you riding her strap once. focusing her phones camera on your pussy tightening around the silicone, your broken and high pitched moans clear in the background. her hands slapping your ass as she bucks her hips up slightly. she has them saved on her pc, and will rewatch it any chance she gets.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who once asked you if you wanted to masturbate together, which of course you felt shy to do, but eventually agreed to. some twitter video playing in front of you as your fingers circle your clit, wet with slick as you whimper and moan, your other hand playing and kneading at your boobs. what was essentially gonna be you masturbating to something together, turned into her playing with her clit as her full attention was on you. her lips leaving soft kisses on your neck. of course she was masturbating to the sight of you.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who loves praising you, knowing it turns you on even more. as you ride her face, the tip of her nose bumping into your clit just right, her tongue laps greedily at your cunt. "mm..tastes so good." and "just like that." leaving her mouth every so often.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who once woke up to you in the middle of the night, humping your pillow, your face buried into another pillow, a half-assed attempt to silence your moans and whimpers. god you were so fucking needy but she was already asleep, so you took matters into your own hands. she wasn't disgusted or disturbed, instead she watched you with eyes half open, her smile drowsy and she was still obviously half asleep but looked at you so tenderly. but her hand came up to your lower back to gently guide and ease you. "shh..just keep going baby."
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who was a wreck when you first went down on her, her thighs on either side of your head, threatening to close as she shuts her eyes, hands gently playing with her hair despite the immense pleasure shes feeling. shes nodding desperately, not able to form coherent words at all. her clit is twitching, her slick coating your nose and chin but you were determined to make her cum. and when she did, her hand came up to keep you in place, still needy for more. how greedy.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who will just randomly send you a "send boobs" text even when she knows both of you are in classes at the same time. "im in class..we both are perv" you replied. "kay fine ill wait for u in the bathroom i guess 🙄🙄"
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who has confessed to masturbating to the thought of you before you even started dating, like talking stage level. she was so embarrassed and burrowed in your neck, saying sorry and how she knows its creepy. you didnt find it weird though, you found it hot.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie who prefers to use her mouth instead of fingers, she loves tasting you and lapping up every last ounce of your cum. and she loves it even more when she kisses you right after, knowing you can taste yourself on her lips.
⸝⸝ . loser!ellie whos only rule when shes eating you out is you look at her. only her. no edging, no teasing, no rules. she just begs you to look at her. she loves seeing your face twitch as she hits your g-spot and how your eyebrows shoot up once she goes harder.
Just- when Simon gets jealous that Nanny!Reader gets approached by a man, the whole family gets jealous.
It’s stupid really. Simon Riley is too old to be feeling like this about his employee.
But you were- you were- god, you were the glue of the family. He wouldn’t be half the father he is now without you by his side, took the time to teach him it’s okay to be soft and vulnerable to the little ones can trust him. Taught him a few things in the kitchen, taught him it was okay to trust in someone after Harper, his first wife died unexpectedly.
There was no family- there was no Simon without you.
So the concept of a man approaching you while you and the gang were Christmas shopping of all things, made no sense.
The kids, of course, didn’t look anything like you but that bloke must’ve seen how close you four were right? Saw Jamie holding your hand and how Julie kept talking to you, right? Or the way yours and Simons hands kept brushing against each other as you walked that made him want to run a thousand laps. The way you’d hook fingers when either one of you got a step too far, that fucking cunt saw it right?
Well, maybe not the last bit because of how packed the department store was. But families come in all shapes and forms nowadays, it’s best for any stranger to assume that you, Nanny!reader, were his wife. His wife? Is that too drastic?
The way the guy is eyeing you up, it’s not drastic enough. It’d be your title soon enough anyway.
So when you walked too far off, of course your beautiful self got stopped by someone.
“What’s taking [+] so long?” Jamie whined, leaning himself into Simons leg.
Simon clears his throat, rubbing his neck to ease his annoyance, “She’s talkin t’ tha man over there.”
“What man?” Both twins said in disgust, whipped their heads around to find you, landing on where you stood near the Christmas ornaments. You were making casual conversation, lazily smiling and giggling at the guys words.
Julie tugged his coat, “Daddy, aren’t you going to do something?”
“Do what honey, they’re just havin a chat.” He sighed. Simon didn’t haven the right to intervene here. You were a grown woman, he couldn’t tell you what to do.
“But he’s lookin at ‘er like you look at her Dad!”Jamie’s eyebrows knitted together in worry. Looking back at you and the stranger.
Okay, point taken.
Simon evaluates the situation once more, the ends of his lips twitching under his mask as he bends down to his children’s level, “Got a little idea we could try.”
It’s not like you asked the guy to come up to you, you were both looking for last set of blue ornaments and reached for the same one.
The stranger didn’t mind giving them to you, long as you told him why you needed them.
Stupid? sure, you could’ve just grabbed them and went on your merry way. But the dude wasn’t half bad looking, tall, low fade, a model-esc smile, piercings— you didn’t mind indulging him.
All an excuse to create some space between you and Simon which had gotten so much closer since you started living in the Riley household. You (and the twins of course) slept in Simons room almost 4 times a week.
So much so, the alarm got put on your side of the bed because Simon had a habit of turning it off and flipping over. You’d sleepily turn it off with closed eyes and let out a little grunt, leaning over the twins and shaking Simon hard enough to get up.
And it’s times like that, you were so tired, so exhausted, you didn’t even realize whenever Simon got out ‘f bed, he’d grumble a ‘mornin’ to you and you’d hum, taking over the roll as the twins pillow with your arm. And Simon would tangle your fingers together, gently kissing your knuckles.
He loved it.
You on the other hand, you were denying the love.
If you even tried to explain this to yout friends they’d bombard you with questions non stop, Simon was your employer. Not for romance, a big fat no no.
And yet, you still talked for hours in his and your bedrooms, when he wasn’t able to make dinner you’d wrap him a portion and leave it on the counter for him to see. Simon would get the errands you asked for and put them away, folded laundry with you on the weekend— when you just weren’t feeling yourself Simon could spot it out a mile away and let you go read a book or take a nap, even when you were on the clock and he was off.
Hell— when you fell asleep on the couch, Simon would take you into his bedroom and you’d wake up in his muscular arms.
You were inches away from heaven.
You had to wake up though. Even today, Simons touch lingered on you, it really felt like- like you guys were a-
“Mommy! There you are!” An oh so familiar voice sighed in relief, running into you as hugging your waist.
“I- Julie-“
“Jamie ‘nd I were looking for you everywhere! We thought you got lost!” She pouts, big brown eyes looking up at you and then looking toward the stranger. She scowls, “Who are you?”
He clears his throat, eyebrow raising, “You have a child?”
Your eyes widen, air sweeping you up, stammering, “This- I don’t have any-“
“—Mom! We finally found you!” Jamie comes running down the aisle, hugging your other side.
Your hands almost instinctively caress their heads, still confused as to what and why this was happening and like clock work, theres Simon close behind. “The kids were worried ‘bout you dovie,” he slips his large hand down your waist, pulling you closer to him and kissing your temple, “Don’t make us wait too long next time. Somethin happen with the ornaments?”
And the older brute eyes peer down at the stranger, and he takes a step back in fear- “You have a good day with your family ma’am.”
With that, the man dashes away, leaving you in the hold of three Riley’s.
You let out a chuckle, almost unamused but you truly can’t believe they’ve pulled this stunt.
You look up Simon, mouthing, ‘You’re a fuckin cunt’
And he lets out a snicker from his belly, arm wrapping around you shoulder and kissing your cheek before whispering in your ear, “Oh, you fuckin love it.”
And heat rises under your cheeks making you squirm.
Okay fine, you give up.
Maybe you did fucking love it.
a/n: it’s the holiday season, I want to do a Christmas post to!!!
synopsis: ellie had been waiting to ask you to be her prom date for weeks but she never got the courage to do so, afraid she'll ruin your friendship, so when she least expected it, someone won her on the race, but was someone that didn't deserve you at all
content warnings: fluff, sfw, oblivious reader, a man, very few mentions of y/n, mentions of weed and alcohol, swearing, a little bit of yearning, loser!ellie, just corny shit that i loveee
wc: 4.7k
Everything felt like any normal morning, nothing felt out of the ordinary. Dina, Jesse, Ellie and you were talking outside of school right before heading in and, like always, Ellie walking you to class while rambling about the new Savage Starlight comic or the new adventure the characters had. You couldn’t care less but always listened.
But lately, you’d been quieter than usual, and Ellie noticed it. She always did.
Prom night was getting closer, a night you’ve been dreaming of since you were a little girl. You’d picked out the perfect dress months ago. Months. That’s how excited you’d been.
Problem was, you didn’t have a date.
Maybe it was the fact that you weren’t exactly the most popular girl at school. You didn’t talk to many people in your classes either. You had a small group you could call genuine friends, everyone else was more of an acquaintance. But you never thought that it would become an inconvenience when it came to someone asking you to prom.
Sure, you could go alone, but that’s not the way you’d imagined it. In your head, it was always this grand, dramatic proposal, after class, in front of everyone, with a big glittery sign and cute doddles reading: ‘Will you go to prom with me?’.
But as the days slipped by and prom night neared, none of that happed. You were getting more and more disappointed. There were only five days left for someone to pop the question. So, realistically talking, the odds weren’t on your side.
And you weren’t exactly subtle about your frustration either. Ellie hated seeing you this way, especially when she had been thinking about asking you to prom since the first day of high school.
Truth was, she was a coward. Dina and Jesse have been telling her that all week and warning her that if she didn’t make the first move someone else eventually would. But no matter how much she wanted to, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Everything was at stake.
And by everything, she meant a years-long friendship she wasn’t willing to lose.
It had been a long boring morning for Ellie. Maybe that should’ve been her sign that things were about to get worse, because Ellie, Dina and Jesse were waiting for you at lunch and when you walked in you mood was completely different from this morning. You had the biggest smile on your face and she could swear she saw you skipping as you walked towards their table. Something told her she wasn’t going to like the reason of your mood.
As you took a seat, you handed Dina a small folded piece of paper with something written in it. She frowned, but unfolded it either way, her eyes scanning the words. Once the words have registered, her eyes widened. She forced you a polite smile “That’s amazing” Dina said, but her gaze flickered towards Ellie, giving her a mix of a look of pity and a silent ‘We told you so’. And with that looked, she didn’t need any explanation. She already knew.
Fuck
After reading it, Dina slid the paper towards Ellie and Jesse, but before it could reach her, Ellie snatched it up. She went completely still the moment her eyes landed on the message. Jesse leaned over her shoulder to peek. “Bullshit!” he blurted “Ian Rhodes asked you to prom?”
You shrugged with a cheeky smile on your face, “Maybe…” you said. Ellie didn’t say one word. She just couldn’t. All she could do was stare at the words on the paper, ‘Will you go to prom with me?’. Two little checkboxes underneath had a yes and a no, and a tiny meticulous cross on the yes was visible with blue ink.
“That’s stupid, you don’t even talk to one another” Ellie regretted it the second the words left her mouth, especially when she sees the way you flinched and your expression fell. Dina kicked her from beneath the table hard enough to kill, sending a glare to her direction. But Ellie didn’t react because she knew she fucked up.
“I— fuck, I’m sorry didn’t mean it” Ellie apologised, and the her look on her face was pure remorse.
“Ian is a nice guy and we do talk… sometimes” you murmured. You weren’t sure if you were trying to convince her or yourself. “Can’t you at least pretend you are happy for me?” You pushed your food around with your fork, eyes glued to your plate, unable to look at her.
It physically pained Ellie to hear you say that. She always wanted the best for you. There was nothing that she wanted more than to see you happy, even if it meant going to prom with someone that wasn’t her.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” She said again “It was rude of me. I am happy for you. I just… hope the prick doesn’t steal you all night” She tried to joke, an attempt to lighten the mood.
And it worked because the corner of your mouth lifted, just barely, but enough. Ellie felt her shoulders relax the second she saw it.
“Yeah, we are very happy for you.” Dina added, shooting Ellie a sharp glare “It’s just that Ellie can’t help but be an asshole sometimes”
Ellie rolls her eyes “Yeah, yeah, you know me” she muttered, shrugging her shoulders with a smug smirk of hers.
She tried to look unbothered, biting back every snarky comment she wanted to make about Ian’s horrible hair. Jealous wasn’t even the right word, it was worse. But she had no one else to blame but herself.
She could’ve been him if it hadn’t been for her cowardness. She could’ve been the one picking you up at your house and she wouldn’t even have to be nervous about your parents liking her because they already loved her. She could’ve been the one seeing you in you dress first, the dress she knew would make you look like the prettiest girl in school.
But she was a coward.
A coward completely an utterly in love with you since you were twelve.
But a coward, nonetheless.
“Well, I just came to tell you the news,” you explain as you start grabbing your stuff, swinging your backpack onto one shoulder. “But now I must go. I’ve got tutoring with Mrs. Graham about the last unit, and I better not skip it or I’ll definitely fail the next science exam. I’ll see you later” And with that, you march out of the hall.
The moment you are out of sight Dina and Jesse turned toward Ellie with a knowing look “You are so stupid,” Dina said, making Ellie groan. She slumped forward, burying her face in the shelter of her crossed arms as if she could jus disappear into the table.
“You really have a way with word for your miserable friend here, huh?” Jesse added. Ellie’s stance made him chuckle as he gave her a few comforting pats on the back. Ellie lifted her just enough that only her eyes peeked out and shot them both the deadliest glare.
“Ian— of all people, it had to be the dickhead of Ian” Ellie scoffed “The prick can’t even spell his own name, let alone give her a proper prom night” She kept going, jealousy dripping from every word “He can’t even dress properly and still he has all the girls falling at his feet. So why would he choose to go with—“
“You’re jealous” Dina and Jesse said in perfect unison.
“Of that dipshit? Fuck no,” Ellie said immediately. “I’m just worried he won’t give her the night she deserves. She’s been dreaming about this for ages, and I refuse to let him ruin it for her.”
Dina’s raised a brow, giving Ellie the most sceptical look imaginable. “And you think you could do better?” she challenged.
Ellie’s ears went red instantly “That’s not— I— that’s not what I meant— “
Dina rolled her eyes and started gathering her stuff too “You two are insufferable,” she muttered, pushing her chair back, “I’m just going to head out to the bathroom before I do something I regret” she paused, turning towards Ellie again “You are so oblivious it’s going to make me mad.”
She leaned down slightly, voice dropping in that serious tone so uniquely hers “Let me give you a piece of advice here, Ellie— not as a friend, but as a mentor,” she pointed at her “She’s not going to wait forever, so put your shit together”
Dina straightened, fixing her bag, “Now, we’ll talk later about buying alcohol for prom night, because you’ll definitely need it and I want to get fucked up!”
She couldn’t stand it anymore. You’ve been talking about prom, and Ian, and your dress all goddamn week, and Ellie was at her limit. She wanted to tell you to shut up, that she didn’t care, that she didn’t want to hear another word about it, especially if it had anything to do with Ian.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do so, not when it came to you.
Not when you were you looking at her with those shiny, excited eyes.
That’s when you looked the prettiest. Her whole expression softened every time you rambled, even if it was about that douchebag Ian. Because, truth was, the only reason she didn’t want to hear about it was because she wasn’t the one you were calling your date.
“Okay, I have, like, a huge dilemma, Els” you said, turning to face her as you walk backwards “My hair. I still don’t know what to do. And I need your help,” you begin “I’ve been thinking about a messy bun, a little like early 2000s vibe, you know?” You lifted your hands, gathering your hair to demonstrate. “Or I could simply just leave it down and do some waves… What do you think?”
“You’d look pretty either way”
The both of you freeze on your spot.
Fuck, did she say that out loud?
Your heart slammed against your ribs so hard it hut. Your eyes widened, cheeks flushed warm.
The two of you just stared— suspended in this shaky, breathless stretch of silence that felt like it lasted forever.
“I— what I mean is—” Ellie stumbles in her words, rubbing the back of her neck as she tore her gaze away, suddenly feeling way too exposed. “Either one is…good. Whichever you chose is a great choice.” She cleared her throat, desperate to salvage the moment “Umm… but maybe the bun?”
Real smooth, dumbass.
Your eyes brightened again, soft and warm “Thanks, Ellie.” A shy smile tugged at your lips— ant it absolutely wrecked her.
The chattering of the people, groups of teenagers talking a little too loud, toddlers throwing even louder tantrums and all those sounds of the mall continued as you kept chattering.
You’ve decided to meet up with Dina and Jesse in the mall because Ellie made the stupid mistake to mention that she still didn’t have anything to wear to prom. That made your inner prom gremlin to wake up and insist to hang out after class to go shopping for her. But, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it, because seeing you being so eager to help her prom outfit.
“There you are!” Jesse says the moment he sees us, as him and Dina approach us.
“Everyone is here?” You clasp your hands together “Wonderful, let’s get go!” Your smile as bright as the sun.
Dina nudges Ellie, pulling her out of her trance “Don’t make it so obvious, lover girl” Ellie just flips her off as a respond.
You spend all afternoon going from one shop to another, none stop. Everyone’s legs were already hurting from walking so much. Your energy was the only one that hasn’t shivered a little bit.
Ellie already had her shirt and pants secured, but she refused to buy some of those fancy shoes you tried to convince her, but after some insisting you caved and let her wear those worn out convers of hers with the condition she let you choose her tie.
And that’s exactly what you were doing right now. Just the two of you, because Jesse and Dina decided to sit outside of the shop, exhausted from walking.
“You know? It’s a shame you haven’t asked anyone to prom…” You said, busy grabbing a few ties that you liked “You could’ve matched the tie with their dress. It would’ve been cute”
You were completely oblivious that Ellie had stiffened slightly at your words. She found herself imagining her tie matching with your dress. Her stomach made that tiny flip that it did every time you were near, or you made her feel flustered.
She was so fucked
Ellie tried to compose herself the moment you turned around. “I’m going to give you the privilege of choosing from these ties,” You said, laying all your options out in front of her.
She cleared her throat and leaned in to look. When she pointed out the one she liked, you immediately softened into a small, pleased smile “Great choice”. You put the other ties back in their place and grabbed her pick as you stepped closer “I’m going to assume you’ve never tied a tie in your life. So watch and learn.” You didn’t even wait for her to confirm, you already knew you were right.
You looped the tie around her neck and begin knotting it. Your movements are slow and delicate, it having your full attention. Ellie, meanwhile, couldn’t take her eyes off you, off the way your brows furrowed in concentration, off the way you lips pressed together on a tight thin line in focus.
She melted into a gentle, involuntary smile. You were completely oblivious to her raising pulse, ironic, considering your fingers were hovering so close to it she swore you should’ve felt it pounding through her skin.
When you finally finished, you took a step back to admire your work. You puffed out your chest proudly “You look amazing, Els. You’re going to have all the girls’ attention the moment you take a step into to that room”
She knew that it should have felt like a compliment, but it didn’t. Not to Ellie. Because the only attention she wanted, that she cared about, was yours. But in her mind, she was the last person you ever thought about that way.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she muttered, forcing the words out, though her voice lacked any real enthusiasm. “Let’s just buy it and get this done with” she added, taking the tie off.
Hours before prom night, Ellie has already chugged a beer. She would’ve much rather stayed in her room drawing, playing the guitar, watching trash movies— anything but this. But she had promised you that she would go, mostly because you insisted she’d regret it if she didn’t go.
Doubt it.
Still, she forced herself out of bed and started putting on the clothes she bought for this “special occasion”— your words, not hers. And since she didn’t pay one ounce of attention when you were showing her how to tie the stupid tie, she now had her phone propped up on her desk, leaning against a pile of comics, playing a ‘how-to’ tutorial for the hundredth time.
Once she realized it still looked awful and it wasn’t going to look good any time soon, she gave up with frustrated and threw herself on her bed. “This is bullshit,” she muttered into the sheets. She didn’t have much time to sulk, though, because minutes Joel’s voice echoed from downstair “Kiddo! Your friends are here.” Another groan. But she got up anyway.
Dina and Jesse were talking to Joel when she trotted down the stairs. Sarah stepped out of the living room, brows already drawn “Where is y/n? I assumed she was going with you guys” she asked looking at Ellie.
Ellie shrugged, trying to loon unbothered even though the annoyance was obvious. “She said she’d meet us there.”
“Well, then have fun, guys. Keep dad updated” Sarah adds deciding not to ask further, ruffling Ellie’s hair as she walked by. Ellie shot her a glare, swatting her hand away and smoothing her hair down, trying to undo the damage.
Jesse drove them to prom, but when they arrived…no sign of you. No sign of Ian¡. No sign of his idiot friends. “Did she text you she was going to be late?” Jesse asked Ellie, leaning back in one of the cheap plastic chairs. She can just shake her head.
Ellie pulled out her phone to leave you a message.
Are you on your way?
But half an hour passed with no response, and the worry started creeping in. All her questions were answered the second Ian and his group of douchebag friends walked in with their dates and, only for a slight moment, Ellie relaxed.
Until she noticed the girl Ian had his arm around. That wasn’t your dress. That wasn’t you. Her blood boiled instantly. It didn’t take long for Dina and Jesse to notice too.
“That motherfucker is so fucking dead,” Ellie snarled, already pushing up from her seat.
But Dina grabbed her arm. “Don’t” Ellie snapped her eyes to her “The fuck do you mean ‘don’t’? Do you not see what I’m—”
“Ellie, we are not blind,” Dina cut in, calm but firm. “Just… let us handle this and go pick her up”
Jesse nodded beside her. “Seriously. We’ll take care of him”
And this was exactly why Dina and Jesse were always the voice of reason. Because if it weren’t for them, Ellie would’ve already been throwing punches.
She lets out and exasperated sigh “Yeah, yeah— umm, I’ll be back” Jesse tossed her his car keys and pointed at her threateningly “If you crash my car, you’ll be the one dead tonight, Williams”
Ellie let out a weak chuckle, though her mind was miles away.
You
Once Ellie knocked on your door your mom was the one to greet her. She let out a relieved sigh. “Oh, thank goodness you are here, darling.” She opened the door wider to let Ellie in. “She won’t come out of her room. I’ve tried convincing her to go anyway, but she won’t listen. Maybe she’ll listen to you, love”
Ellie offered your mom a reassuring smile “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, heading toward your room. She already knew one thing for sure, she wasn’t going to leave without you. And you were leaving that room, whether liked it or not.
She didn’t even knock, just pushed the door open and walked in like she always did. “Mom, I already said I’m not going, and no, I’m not hungry” you mumble into your covers. Ellie rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall.
“You aged me a few years there,” she said. Hearing her voice made you lift your head. Your make up was smudged, and you were still wearing the dress. Ellie’s heart cracked a little at the sight of you, but underneath the ache was anger that that asshole made you feel this way. But wasn’t what mattered right now.
You were.
She walked over to your bed and sat beside you “Get up. We have a prom to attend,” she said, nudging you gently. “Let’s clean your face, get you all nice and pretty, ant then we’ll go have fun.”
“I’m not going anywhere” you say, burying your face into the pillow again. “Besides, you didn’t even want to go, anyways. You said it was stupid”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind” you scoff at her statement, not buying it for a second. “Now get up. Fuck that prick, he doesn’t know what his missing” Ellie added, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “Come on”
You finally lifted your head and sat up, hugging your knees. You gave her a weak smile “Your tie,” you pointed out.
“What? It’s good”
You chuckled and shaking your head “No, it’s not.” Relief washed over Ellie at the sound of your laugh.
She nudged you again “Okay then, get up, get ready and then you help me with the stupid tie” she held her hand out to you, helping you stand. And this time, you finally gave in.
It didn’t take you nearly as long as Ellie expected to get ready, since you were already dressed. Still, it was embarrassing how she almost fell off your bed when you stepped out of the bathroom all dolled up and pretty. She even stumbled over her own words when you fixed her tie, and you teased her about her being incapable of wearing that wasn’t baggy or casual.
As you both walked downstair to leave, your mom practically leaped out the leaving room “Oh! You’re leaving?” her tone was bright, almost giddy, clearly relieved to see your mood had shifted. “Okay, girls, wait here, let me take a picture of the two of you before you leave” You immediately protested, groaning, but your mom ignored you completely as she rushed to grab her phone “Get closer together and give me a bright smile!” she said once she was standing in front of you with the phone up
Ellie takes a step closer. You give her an apologetic smile before, completely unprompted, you wrapped an arm around and rested your head on her shoulder. Ellie froze for a second, her whole body going rigid, but then she forced herself to breathe. Relaxed, she slipped an arm around your shoulders, and gave the camera a soft smile.
To say you all had a night was an understatement. You danced and drank without caring about anyone else. You didn’t think about Ian not even for a second. He probably saw you walk in, and sure, you could’ve gone up to him asking for explanations or just to scream at him. But you didn’t bother to do that because he wasn’t important enough to care. Besides, your friends made you forget about him, because they made sure you had the night of your dreams.
Especially Ellie.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly how you’d pictured prom as a kid, but somehow it felt like a better version of it.
Eventually, the four of you ditched prom entirely to find someplace more fun. Somehow that place ended up being Ellie’s garage. The four of you sitting on the concrete floor, playing cards, smoking, drinking cheap beer.
“Bullshit” you say, narrowing your eyes. “Ellie, you’re literally shit at lying”
“No, she’s shit at lying to you” Jesse adds, earning a glare from Ellie and a chuckle from Dina. But what everyone was unaware was the fact that your heart skipped a beat for a moment there.
Jesse groaned as he stands, stretching “I think I’m heading out. Does anyone need a lift?” He asks and Dina pushes herself up “Yeah, I’m exhausted. I’m coming with.”
You shake your head “I think I’ll stay here for a little longer…” Then turn to Ellie, suddenly shy “If that’s okay with you?”
“No— yeah, that’s fine” she says, stumbling over her words in a way that makes Dina smirk knowingly.
“We’ll see you around then,” Jesse calls as they leave.
The door closes, and suddenly it’s just the two of you. For a while, neither of you says a thing, you just pass the blunt Ellie had light up moments ago back and forth. It’s not an awkward silence, but rather a comfortable one.
And you stay like until Ellie finally speaks. “Was it like you imagined?" she asks, taking a drag before heading it back.
“Honestly? Way better” You turn to her a smile so warm it makes her stomach twist. You couldn’t help but be grateful of the amazing friends you had with you. And Ellie? She was relieved because the only thing she wanted was for you to have a night worth remembering.
“Thank you” you say softly “For everything”
Ellie waves her hand around dismissing it “It was nothing. You would’ve done the same for me no questions asked”
“Well… yeah. But still” you pick at the label on your beer “I’m grateful you came to get me. That you tried so hard to pull me out of bed and make me go and enjoy the night”
“Don’t even mention it,” Ellie says “What’s important is that you didn’t spend all night moping over a guy who never deserved you in the first place”
And silence settled over the garage again. But you didn’t mind, because with Ellie, even silence felt right.
You lifted your half-empty beer and took as sip, the bottle barely reaching your lips when Ellie suddenly said “I was going to ask you to prom, you know?” Her words almost make you choke on your beer.
“Ellie, you are drunk. And high—”
She cuts you off “I had everything planned out in my head. I even told Jesse and Dina. But I kept postponing it over and over again, because I was terrified you’d say no and ruin our friendship. I couldn’t bring myself to ask.” Her eyes stay fixed straight ahead “And then you came all giddy that day, telling us how you got asked by Ian in a stupid piece of paper and I was jealous. So fucking jealous. But you were so happy, and I couldn’t do anything about it”
You say nothing, partly because she won’t let you speak, partly because you’re completely stunned.
“And I even matched my tie to your dress for some stupid reason, as if you were my date. Gosh I’m so stupid” she mutters, almost laughing at herself. Your gaze flicks to the now-loosened tie on her neck, then back at her. At the mall you hadn’t even noticed the similarity of the colour of her tie with your dress.
“And you looked radiant today. Like… the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Even when your makeup was smudged from crying.” Her jaw tightens “I wanted to punch that motherfucker’s face for making you feel this way. And then your smile— fuck, your smile, was gorgeous, and I couldn't stop staring at your lips all night because I wanted to kiss you so bad. But you were so oblivious” She leans her head back against the wall, exhaling hard.
“What’s worst is that I’ll probably regret saying all of this tomorrow. But I need a some liquor courage or I’d never be able to tell you all of this” Then, slowly, she turned her face towards you. “Would’ve you said yes if I asked you to prom?”
Your voice comes out barely above breath “Ellie… God— of course I would’ve said yes. I was expecting you to ask me—”
She interrupts you again, but this time her voice is soft, small “Can I kiss you?” her fingers gently tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, and the world seems to stop.
You nod, almost shyly, and Ellie leans in.
She moves slowly, like she’s giving you every possible chance to change your mind. Her hand hesitates at your cheek before finally cupping it, her thumb brushing your skin in the lightest, trembling caress. You can feel her breath against your lips— warm, nervous, smelling faintly of beer, weed and mint gum.
When her mouth finally meets yours, it’s soft. So soft it almost doesn’t feel real.
Ellie kisses you like she’s afraid you’ll break. It’s a gentle press, careful and unsure, her lips barely ghosting over yours before she grows brave enough to deepen it by the smallest fraction. Your fingers find the fabric of her shirt, tugging her closer on instinct, and that’s when Ellie lets out the quietest, shaky exhale against your mouth.
Her nose brushes yours. Your lips move together in slow, hesitant sync, like you’re both learning what this means in real time. The world feels distant as if the whole garage has folded itself around the two of you.
She pulls back just barely, still close enough that your foreheads touch. Her eyes search yours, half-lidded and full of everything she never dared to say.
You can feel her smile ghost against your lips before she whispers “Fuck… I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” And you can’t help but smile back.
author's note: i'm backkk, idk how it happened but I made this fic double as long as my last one, which I didn't expect to happen at all. well, next week i finish my last exame so be ready to see more of me, because i have so many ideas. im thinking of making a tag list... so if you want to be included in it just comment and i'll add you. well, i just hope you enjoyed it as much as i did making it and as always like and repost is always appreciated ♡!!
i want to change my layout so badd and make it like dark goth aesthetic like my side blog but i know that if I do it I'll change my layout every week 😵💫😵💫