⋆˚࿔ Black lipstick stains her glass of red wine...
Lethe or Guts | she/her | 18 | loser lesbian | cuban american | fic writer | lover of tlou women | weird au fanatic
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⋆˚࿔ I am your servant, may I light your cigarette?
So sorry I haven’t written anything in so long😭I’ve found employment! I’m working as a prep cook which is cool (writing Order Up influenced my career path I swear) but I’m also so fuckin tired and highkey do NOT feel like writing. So as of now Rooted is on hiatus until inspiration strikes. Could be in a week, could be a few months, idk. So sorry for those who have been looking forward to it. Also those of you who have sent requests I have not given up on them!!! Someday trust.
Again I’m so sorry😭 I’ll still be lurking around though so idk idk man my brain is fried.
these are all with a x waitress!reader in mind just an fyi! the headcanons are all sfw, but I can always do some nsfw ones later if anyone is interested. enjoy babes xx.
line cook!abby is scary. at least, that’s what you’d heard before you even stepped foot in the kitchen of the point bravo bar & grill. majority of the front of house staff are terrified of her, and honestly? you can absolutely see why. coming in at five foot nine and built like a ox, abby’s sarcastic, brutally honest and intimidating without even trying.
but to make matters worse, she’s ridiculously hot.
which seems incredibly unfair considering she spends most of her shifts sweaty, mildly irritated and covered in grease. her shirt sleeves are always rolled up past her broad shoulders, dark ink and muscles on full display. but it’s not even her physical physique or devastatingly pretty face that rendered you speechless that first day.
no, it was how she looked you in the eye after you royally fucked up an order half-way through the dinner rush. how you were fully expecting the hostility that everyone had warned you about, only to receive a soft, “hey, relax. it’s no big deal.” before she quietly remade the order without giving you any grief for it.
line cook!abby has two different modes during a lunch or dinner rush: weirdly calm and terrifyingly competent or one minor inconvenience away from burning the entire restaurant down.
line cook!abby works the grill and flat-top primarily, usually alongside her roommate (and best friend) manny. the two of them argue like an old married couple most of the time, which you find hilarious.
line cook!abby has a personal beef with ticket machine. she had broken at least 5 in the entire time she’s worked there, and marlene tells her that the next one is coming out of her paycheck. but it never actually does.
line cook!abby who says things like, “behind”, “move”, “corner” like a drill sergeant.
line cook!abby’s work uniform consists of an array of oversized band tees or cut off tees, cargo shorts or sweatpants and a bleach stained apron. she wears her hair in a neat braid down the middle of her back, or in a messy bun. but if her hair is pissing her off that day she’ll throw it into a low ponytail, put on a backwards dad hat and call it good enough.
line cook!abby apparently “has a thing for pretty waitresses” according to manny. but the only waitress she’s ever been soft on is you.
line cook!abby is addicted to caffeine. she cannot go a whole shift without pounding at least two energy drinks or an extra large iced coffee.
line cook!abby constantly checks to make sure you’ve eaten during your shift. and if you try to tell her you’re too busy or you forgot? suddenly a basket of fries or a grilled cheese will appear next to you while you’re ringing in an order at the kiosk. and she’ll mumble a stern, “go eat. now.” before disappearing back behind the line like it’s no big deal.
line cook!abby who runs extremely hot. if she’s not on the line you can usually find her in the walk-in trying to cool herself off and grumbling about how, “marlene needs to fix the damn air conditioner already.”
line cook!abby is always in control of the aux in the kitchen when she’s working and is not afraid to smack anyone who tries to change the music. you and manny can usually tell what kind of mood she’s in by what genre of music she’s playing. so if creed, matchbox twenty or theory of a deadman is blaring when you clock in, you already know she’s been having a rough afternoon.
line cook!abby wears her irritation and annoyance plainly on her face. she’s snarky and short with almost everyone, but the minute you ask for something? she visibly softens, and does whatever you asked for without question.
“abs, can I get another basket of fries, please?” and with a soft flutter of your lashes or a warm smile, she’s folding immediately—dumping a fresh batch of fries into a basket and sliding them into the expo window without uttering a single complaint.
“christ, you are so fucking whipped, cariño.”
line cook!abby keeps a bandana in her back pocket or a clean towel draped over her shoulder to be able to wipe the sweat from her face throughout her shift. the one time she didn’t seem to have one and had to use the hem of her t-shirt, you nearly dropped an entire tray of food.
line cook!abby has the biggest praise kink. you tell her something she made was delicious? instantly bashful, ears turning pink as she ducks her head and tries to pretend you didn’t just turn her insides to mush. and you’re absolutely tucking that information away for later.
line cook!abby gets weirdly possessive over kitchen tools. she once threatened manny that she’d scrub their toilet with his toothbrush if he ever touched her knives again.
line cook!abby absolutely cannot flirt like a normal person. so she shows her affection in subtle ways like: not complaining or giving you shit when you mess up an order, carrying the ice bucket up to the bar for you because it’s “painful to watch you struggle”, staying late to help you roll silverware after she finishes her own closing duties, playing paramore’s entire discography during a shift that you’re both working together just because she heard you tell leah that they’re one of your favorite bands.
line cook!abby always walks you to your car if the two of you are scheduled to close together. even if she finishes her closing duties faster than you.
line cook!abby absolutely despises remakes or substitutions on orders, and she’s not afraid to let someone know just how much it annoys her.
“the menu says no substitutions, can’t people fucking read?”
“abby, they’re literally allergic to onions.”
“sounds like a personal problem.”
line cook!abby always has a toothpick or pen shoved behind her ear, or stuck in between her teeth. she’s also constantly chewing gum—mostly because she knows it annoys the hell out of manny but baby girl has a oral fixation. she just doesn’t want to admit it.
line cook!abby will absolutely complain about having to close, but it’s secretly her favorite shift to work. especially if you’re on the schedule.
line cook!abby takes a lot of pride in her work, even when she’s slammed and is glaring at every new ticket that comes through like they personally insulted her. but even then she never lets a plate go out on the floor looking like a damn mess.
the one exception she ever made was the time your ex came in and made it their personal mission to make your night a living hell. so when she found you crying in the walk-in not long after, she ‘accidentally’ let that burger burn to a crisp before sending it out with a satisfied smirk.
line cook!abby who always seems to smell like a combination of fresh citrus, old spice and smoke from the grill, no matter how often she washes her clothes.
line cook!abby is constantly burning her hands on something. half the time she doesn’t really react anymore besides cursing under her breath or mumbling a barely audible, “yeah that was fucking dumb, abigail.” to herself.
but if you are in the back when it happens? you’ll insist on helping her bandage it until she finally relents with the most adorable scowl.
line cook!abby is terrible at hiding her jealousy. while she doesn’t cause a scene, or become overly possessive—if she sees a customer flirting with you, she absolutely makes it everyone else’s problem.
she’s slamming pans harder than necessary, muttering constant curses under her breath at the grill, shouting for “someone to run this fucking food already!” the second it appears in the expo window. lev finds it a little too hilarious and is always roasting her when he’s bringing clean dishes up from the pit.
line cook!abby is extremely sentimental. you wrote her a little thank you note on the back of a discarded receipt once before you two started dating and she still has it taped to the inside of her locker.
line cook!abby isn’t big on pda, but when she realizes how much her touch seems to affect you, she makes any and every excuse to get her hands on you when you’re working together. whether it’s a hand against the small of your back as she passes behind you in the kitchen, curling a finger into the loop of your jeans to pull you out of the way when another staff member is dashing around the corner, sneaking up behind you to rest her chin on your shoulder when you’re ringing an order in.
she thinks she’s being subtle most of the time, but abby is about as subtle as a bull in a china shop.
Guttt what happened to rooted? Is it cancelled?? 😫😫😣😣
HIII I’m alive I’m so sorry I’ve disappeared but I am alive I am still here!!!
Rooted is NOT CANCELLED I promise I will finish this fic. I have started writing the next chapter, I have no idea when I will finish it but I definitely will.
Love you all hoping to be back writing at a good frequency soon <3
pairing: new farmer reader x emo ellie OR artist abby
Quitting your corporate job and moving to your dead grandpa's run-down farm might have been a bad choice. Especially when you realize that Pelican Town is weird as hell. Though, there are some nice parts...
content & warnings: men & under 16 dni ; stardew valley au ; game knowledge not required ; abby focused chapter ; short chap sorry chat
wc: 917 words
masterlist
It’s that time in the afternoon when the sun is just starting to dip, but hasn’t yet let up on the heat. Your muscles have been in a constant state of aching ever since your first day in the valley, but today has been particularly brutal. Watering your crops, feeding the chickens, repairing the fences, it’s all been a lot. And now you’re clearing out some trees on a far corner of the farm, swinging the axe as exhaustion sets in.
You’ve just finished hauling the lumber back to the farmhouse when you hear footsteps on the dirt path. It hooks your attention straight away— it really isn’t very often that someone comes to visit instead of you having to seek them out.
You straighten up and wipe the sweat off your forehead, turning to look with a smile that grows wider when you see Abby walking towards you. She’s got something in her arms, something big covered in a white cloth.
“Hey,” you say, putting a hand up across your brow to shield your eyes from the sun.
“Hey.” Abby smiles back at you. “Are you busy right now?”
You shake your head and pull off your work gloves. “Just finished. What do you have there?”
She looks at the object in her arms and adjusts it a bit, like she just remembered it.
“Right, that,” she says with a slight, embarrassed chuckle. “It’s nothing. It’s for you, but you don’t have to take it if you don’t like it.”
You stop. It’s for you. You’ve been so focused on giving things to everyone else that you haven’t realized that this is the first time in a very long time that someone has given something to you.
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I think I already like whatever it is.”
The thud it makes when she sets it down makes you realize it must be a lot heavier than you initially thought— she just made carrying it look easy.
She grabs the edge of the cloth, then hesitates just long enough for you to start getting impatient before she finally takes a deep breath and reveals it.
Beneath the cloth is a sculpture. Smooth carved wood in shapes that you didn’t realize wood could make. You recognize it a little bit. It’s the same sculpture you’d seen in her cabin, now finished.
You tilt your head a bit, stepping aside to look at it from another angle. This way, it becomes a little more clear what it is. It’s still abstract, but you can see a human form in the wood, hands outstretched. There’s something hanging a couple inches away from the figure’s hands, and you can’t really tell what it is. You can just see the longing in the figure’s shape.
“This is beautiful,” you murmur, carefully running your fingers over one of the smooth sections of wood. Just to make sure it’s real.
“I almost didn’t finish it,” Abby says. “Wasn’t sure what I was doing with it.”
“What made you decide?” You ask, finally looking away from the sculpture and up at her. She still looks unsure.
“...Well, remember that day you came over? When you brought me the blueberries? That’s when I figured it out.”
It’s not exactly an answer, but at this point you know her well enough to hear what she’s trying to say. It was you. Not the blueberries, or the day itself.
“Are you sure you want to give this to me?” You ask quietly. “I can’t imagine how long something like this must take. And there are people who would happily pay thousands for this.”
Abby shakes her head quickly.
“No, it’s for you,” she insists. “Unless you don’t want it. Which is fine, I won’t be offended.”
You laugh. “It’s definitely not that— I want it. It’s amazing. It’s just a little hard to comprehend that you’re giving it to me.”
“You’re always giving people stuff,” she points out. “Now you’re going to stand there and tell me you don’t understand a gift?”
You sigh. “Fair point.”
It’s quiet between you two for a bit. Abby seems more comfortable now, definitely less unsure. You’re back to admiring the sculpture, walking around to discover all the new angles and what they reveal.
“Like I said,” Abby says quietly. “You don’t have to keep it. I can take it back.”
You look up at her again, brows furrowed. She seemed comfortable a moment ago, but now she’s shifted back to being on edge and unsure.
“I’m not giving this back,” you say. Because yeah, there’s no way you’re giving it up without a fight.
Abby laughs and rubs a hand over the back of her neck.
“Alright, alright. Relax, I’m not trying to take it from you.”
“You better not.”
Abby rolls her eyes, but you see the fondness in her smile before you turn your gaze back to the sculpture.
She gives you a long moment to look before she speaks again.
“I better get going before it gets dark.”
You nod. “Of course. Thank you for this.”
She gives you one last awkward nod, then takes a step back before turning and walking off. You watch her back until she disappears past the fence, then look at your gift again.
The sun has dipped low enough to soften the light, changing the angles and shadows and shifting the shape of it. The space between the hands seems smaller now. Or maybe you’re just standing closer.
a/n: HELLOOOO I'M BACK !!!!
lots of stuff going on irl but i will do my best to keep up with my updates. so sorry for how short this chapter is i couldn't even break 1k but idk i didn't want to stretch it out unnecessarily? anyway. next chapter will be ellie focused and after that big things are coming.
I'm still waiting for the next chapter of Stardew Ellie and Abby 😟😟😢😢
I'M SO SORRYYYY 😭😭😭
ik i said it would be soon but shit happenedddd i made a liar of myself BUT. i am writing next chapter at this very moment. this time when i say soon i really mean it!!!!!
i've been on that grind fr,,, i graduated w my AA degree which i'm super excited abt so now i'm figuring out next steps.
hope you are doing well anon, your wait will not last much longer!!!!!!
Heyyy, when ru gonna continue writing the next chapter of rooted? I lowk miss it 🥲🥲🥲
hellooo!!!!
ok so it's going to be SOON very soon rlly.
I have a v important test in a few days that i've been studying for and then i'll hopefully be graduating (🤯) and dealing w my college's weird system so i'd say like. a week? before i can get back to writing.
tysm for the ask ily, i miss it too i can't wait to get back to it.
pairing: new farmer reader x emo ellie OR artist abby
Quitting your corporate job and moving to your dead grandpa's run-down farm might have been a bad choice. Especially when you realize that Pelican Town is weird as hell. Though, there are some nice parts...
content & warnings: men & under 16 dni ; stardew valley au ; game knowledge not required ; ellie focused chapter ; really just fluff
wc: 1.2k words
masterlist
You’re not really sure why you head to the mountains today. You’re too tired to fish, and it’s too late to try the mines. But you’ve got a backpack full of gifts that you packed up without having to think about it, and you’re not going home until you’ve given them all away.
Linus is appreciative as always of the wild spice berries you give him. Marlon and Gil refuse to accept the blueberries you’d brought them, but that’s alright.
You open up the door to Joel’s shop and step inside.
“Looking for Ellie?” He asks.
You pause for a moment. How the hell…? “Well, yeah. But first, I brought you something.”
You pull his gift out of your backpack and set it on the counter with a dull thunk. It’s a nice piece of mahogany— perfect gift for a woodworker.
He doesn’t quite smile, but it’s close. His eyes definitely soften a good bit, and crinkle at the corners.
“Now that’s a quality piece of wood,” he says, a little less gruff than usual. “Thanks. I’ll put it to good use.”
You stand there expectantly for another moment, watching as he examines the mahogany.
“Ellie’s out in the garage,” he says without looking up.
You smile and step away.
“Thanks.”
Sure enough, when you head outside, you can hear some faint shuffling from the garage. And there she is.
Ellie’s sitting beside a motorcycle, grumbling quietly about something. The bike looks old, but well taken care of.
“Dina?” She says when she hears your footsteps approaching on the gravel. “I’m kinda busy—”
You stop walking as she turns around.
“Oh, sorry,” you say. “I can come back another time.”
She shakes her head, then quickly turns back to what she was working on. “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind if you stick around.”
It’s not much, but it’s a little flattering when she says that. She doesn’t mind if you stick around, but she was going to tell Dina that she was busy. So you walk over and take a seat on the stool by the work bench, just watching her work for a moment. There’s a little bit of grease smeared on her jaw, and a lot more on her hands. Her fingers keep slipping around on the wrench, and each time she mutters a little curse but doesn’t bother to wipe her hands off.
She catches your gaze, and you blink a few times to clear your head. She looks way more embarrassed than you do, though, and she looks away quick.
“So,” she says, clearing her throat. “Why’d you come here?”
The first thing that pops into your mind is ’because I wanted to see you’, but then you remember the real reason you’re here.
“Oh, right. I found something I thought you’d like.”
The wrench slips out of her hand and clatters onto the floor. Ellie startles, then curses under her breath and dives for it. Like if she picks it up fast enough, you won’t notice that she dropped it.
You hide your smile behind your backpack as you rummage around, then finally pull out a hunk of raw obsidian about the size of your hand. It would probably be worth a good amount if you decided to sell it, but you’re making enough money now that you can more than afford to give away some gifts.
Ellie straightens up, wrench in hand, then freezes when she sees what you’re holding.
“Whoa, holy shit.” She wipes her hands on a rag and reaches out to take it from you, eyes fixed on the dark surface of the stone. “You found this in the mines?”
You nod and zip up your backpack. “Yeah. It was in a big-ass geode.”
She turns it over in her hands, studying how it seems to swallow up the light.
“This is exactly what I’ve been looking for,” she says. It’s quiet, mostly to herself, but you hear.
“Got any plans for it?” You ask, leaning forward and resting your chin on your hand.
Ellie nods. “Yeah— I was thinking I could shape it into a dagger.”
She pauses, like she just heard her words echoed back to her.
“Or something,” she adds. “I don’t know. A dagger would be pretty stupid.”
You shrug. Good god, why is she so cute when she’s embarrassed?
“I think it’s pretty cool. Maybe not the most practical, but it would be cool.”
“Actually, obsidian blades can get way sharper than any kind of steel. Like, a cutting edge of three nanometers. Pretty crazy. But since it’s a type of glass, it’s way too fragile for any practical use. It would be cool to have, though.”
You listen with a smile as she talks about the possibility of an obsidian blade.
Ellie carefully sets the piece of obsidian down on the work bench.
“Thanks,” she says as she turns back to the bike. “Hey, could you pass me the ten-millimeter?”
It takes a moment for you to figure out that she’s asking you to pass her one of the tools. You scan the set, trying to guess which one is the right one. You’ve got no clue, so you select one at random and pass it over hopefully.
“...That’s a screwdriver,” she says, entirely unimpressed.
“That’s not what you were asking for?” You say with a slightly embarrassed laugh. The look on her face is really making you wish you’d taken more of an interest in fixing things. Back in the city, it was easier to just pay someone else to do it while you were at work.
“No. Ten-millimeter wrench,” she clarifies.
You nod, and turn back to the set of tools, trying to figure out which of the wrenches is the right one. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? Anyone could have made that mistake.”
Ellie rolls her eyes, but when you glance back at her for a second, you catch a little smile that she’s trying to control. You’re really starting to like making her smile.
“And,” you add, this time just to keep that smile on her face. “That screwdriver kinda looked like a wrench.”
When you glance back again, you see her biting her lip to stifle a laugh.
“It absolutely did not. Have you never seen a wrench before?” She asks.
“Oh, shut up.”
You finally find the right wrench— the one that says ‘10 millimeters’ on the side of it— and pass it over with your best impression of a lowly servant offering up a king’s request.
“Took you long enough,” she mutters, taking the wrench and going back to work on the bike.
A laugh tumbles out of your chest. Not even a ‘thank you’, but you don’t mind. The little half-smile on her lips is enough thanks for you.
You don’t go anywhere after that. She keeps asking you for tools, and you keep handing her the wrong ones before you give her what she needs. And when the sky gets dark, she doesn’t ask you to leave.
a/n: hi so! i may be taking a little break from this series because i have a ton of stuff going on and i just need to step away from writing a series for now,,, i'm not abandoning it, the break should only last a few weeks. during that time i will probably be writing and posting some fun little oneshots though bc i don't want to completely stop writing.
pairing: ellie x fem reader - eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot...
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.
content & warnings: men & minors dni. heavy angst ; toxic relationship ; depressed ellie ; reader has undiagnosed / unspecified mental illness ; background dina / jesse in one scene ; brief suicidal ideation ; use of sleeping pills ; mentions of past self harm ; reader has a drinking problem ; panic attack ; joel is ellie's dad ; he's dead though
wc: 5.6k words
♬ˎˊ˗ now playing...
[daffodil lament - the cranberries]
[forget her - jeff buckley]
[deadhouse - katatonia]
[reminiscence - skyforest]
[i'm going to forget you exist - lillian vandaam]
[such small hands - la dispute]
[love song - jack off jill]
[starting over - lsd and the search for god]
[punisher - phoebe bridgers]
[playlist link <3]
The day Ellie met you, the sky was grey.
She thought it was a terrible day to go to the beach, but Jesse and Dina had dragged her along anyway. They’d said there would be good food and that maybe she’d have fun, but she’d only let them take her because she thought maybe she’d be able to make some friends.
Ellie had been sitting at one of the picnic benches. Away from the sand, away from the sound of laughter and conversations she wasn’t a part of. She saw a head of green hair from afar and thought for a moment that anyone with green hair must be fun to talk to. Especially someone with green hair and an orange sweatshirt. Next time she looked, though, you weren’t there.
There was sand in her sneakers, despite how carefully she’d walked over the beach. Grit between sock and shoe, between her teeth, in her eyes.
“Anyone sitting here?”
She’d looked up, startled by the sudden voice. There you were. Green hair. Orange sweatshirt. You looked like you’d wandered into her life from an entirely different story, one that Ellie didn’t have any place in.
“No,” she responded, so quietly she barely heard her own voice.
You sat without any more reservations.
“Mind if I-?” You didn’t even finish your own question before reaching over to Ellie’s paper plate, snatching a chicken wing and laughing.
She cracked a smile. Literally– she felt the skin pulling at the corners, dry from the cold air and from staying in that perpetual frown.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
“It was like she didn’t even recognize me.”
Ellie paces back and forth in the kitchen of Jesse and Dina’s apartment, nearly tearing her hair out. It’s been a little over a year since she first met you, and exactly three days since you left her.
The first two days, Ellie didn’t bother getting out of bed. The third day, she had the idea of finding you. So she did. She rolled out of bed, didn’t shower or change her clothes before she was out the door. She couldn’t look at the dent in the side of her car without thinking of that bad night, so she didn’t look.
As soon as she walked through the doors of the bookstore, she spotted you. Your hair was blue– last time she’d seen you, it had been orange. The change didn’t surprise her.
When she reached the counter, you’d smiled at her. That’s when she knew something was wrong.
Now she’s pacing while Jesse sips a beer and Dina folds laundry.
“She looked at me like I was just another customer,” she goes on. “She asked if I needed help finding anything. What the fuck?”
“Maybe that means it’s over,” Jesse suggests. “She’s moved on. I think you should just accept it. You know, move on. Meet someone else. Someone who’s good for you.”
“I can’t do that,” Ellie scoffs. “And besides, you have to admit that it’s weird. It’s not like her to just– to pretend she doesn’t know me.”
Jesse sighs loudly, and Dina shoots him a warning glance.
“What?” Ellie asks, glancing between them.
“The thing is–” Jesse starts, but Dina interrupts.
“Don’t.”
Jesse rolls his eyes. “She’s got a right to know.”
“That’ll make things worse.”
Ellie cuts in.
“Can one of you just tell me what’s going on?”
They share a look. Jesse looks away first, grabbing a small envelope from a pile of mail on the coffee table and handing it over.
She takes it and tears it open with shaky hands. She can hear Dina’s annoyed voice behind her, and Jesse’s insistence that she deserves to know.
Y/N L/N has had Ellie Williams erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again.
Thank you.
LACUNA INC.
Ellie reads the words. Reads them again. Flips the paper to find nothing on the back but an address, which she reads over until it’s memorized. Flips it again. Reads it again.
Erased from her memory. How? Why? Why?
Jesse and Dina are fully arguing now. Their voices are loud, but not as loud as the ringing in her ears. Not as loud as her heart pounding. She folds the paper as best she can and tucks it into her pocket, then stands up. Her legs threaten to buckle beneath her, but she forces herself to walk out the door.
You forgot her. On purpose. She’s heard of this memory erasing thing, someone at work made a joke about it one time. She never thought you’d do something like this.
She’s in her car before she can talk herself out of it, repeating that address in her thoughts. Clinging to it. What else was left to cling to?
She drives on autopilot, looking at signs without thinking about what they mean. She needs answers.
She loses count of how many wrong turns she takes on the way, too distracted to pay attention to where she’s going. Each turn she doesn’t think about is leading her to where she knows she could find you.
Eventually, she makes it to the address, after about double the time it should have taken. The building is unassuming, a plain white block in a mostly residential neighborhood.
The bell on the door jingles cheerfully when Ellie pushes through into the waiting room. A middle-aged man holds his head in his hands, and an old woman cries silently into a tissue.
She ignores both of them, pushing herself forward to the front desk.
“Is this real?” She asks quietly, pushing the folded paper across the counter. “Is it some kind of fucking joke? It’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.”
The woman behind the counter unfolds the paper quickly, glancing between it and Ellie.
“I’m sorry, miss. Could you tell me who showed you this?”
“That doesn’t matter. Is it real?”
“I’m afraid so. If you’d like, I could– wait, miss? Miss! You can’t go back there–”
Ellie’s already storming down the hallway, shoving open every door on the way. Weird medical equipment greets her in every one, until she reaches the end of the hall and shoves open the last door. This one is more of an office, with an older man sitting at a desk and looking through a file.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” the receptionist says from behind Ellie. “I tried to stop her.”
“That’s alright,” he says with a sigh, setting the file down and taking off his glasses. He turns to Ellie.
“How can I help you?”
“You’re the guy in charge here?” She asks.
He nods. “Yes, that’s me. Doctor Jerry Anderson. And you are?”
“Ellie. Ellie Williams. You–”
She doesn’t have to finish the statement. Doctor Anderson nods in recognition.
“I see. I assume you’re here about your ex-girlfriend?”
Ex-girlfriend. She’s been your ex-girlfriend before. Times when you said you were done, but one of you would always come back to the other. But there’s nothing to come back to anymore.
“...Why?” She asks weakly. She doesn’t have to elaborate.
“It would seem that Miss L/N was not happy in your relationship,” the doctor sighs.
“Not happy,” Ellie repeats. “She’s never happy. Neither am I. That’s why we work together. We have rough patches sometimes, that’s all it was. You let her do something permanent over a fucking rough patch.”
“She’s a grown woman,” the doctor says calmly. He sounds like a parent trying to lecture a child. “She can make her own decisions, and she’s made one that you need to respect, or at least accept.”
Ellie takes a deep breath. It feels like her ribs are cracking, squeezing around her lungs. It’s a familiar feeling, but it’s never been like this. Usually she knows it’ll be okay, that you’ll be back. That’s not the case anymore. You won’t be back. You don’t know her anymore. You don’t love her anymore.
She bites her tongue hard enough to make it bleed, then turns and walks out. She doesn’t stop moving until she’s in her car, where she just takes a second to be still.
The first sob is choked, the kind that tears itself out of one’s throat and sinks into the air like something physical. Like arms wrapping around her, not to comfort but to constrict. Her forehead presses against the top of the steering wheel, arms wrapping around it like holding on to something might help this all seem less like the end of everything.
On the drive home, she can barely see through the tears. Part of her hopes she’ll crash, wrap her car around a tree before she can get to the apartment and face the fact that you’re not there.
She tries not to think about the disappointment that eats at her when she gets home safely.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
Two days after finding out that you forgot her. Five since you left.
Ellie hasn’t gotten out of bed more than a few times to go to the bathroom. She hasn’t gone to work all week. There’s a few voicemails left in her phone, and one of them is probably her boss telling her to not bother coming back. She doesn’t care.
A half-empty bottle of tequila sits on the nightstand on your side of the bed. She can see the print of your lipstick on it, and she’s been staring at that for at least an hour now, trying to imagine that you’re still here with her.
You’re not. She feels the absence of you as strongly as she would feel the presence of anyone else. Because you’re not completely absent. There are traces of you everywhere she looks, the ghost of you haunting her every moment, awake or dreaming.
The smell of your conditioner still lingers on your pillow. She can’t count how many times these past two days she’s buried her face in it, inhaling the smell and screaming into it so hard that her throat gets sore and she has to resort to quiet sobs.
The smell of you doesn’t fade like she’d expect it to. It lingers on the sheets, in the air, in the back of her throat with every gasped breath.
She doesn’t know what exactly gets her up, but she rolls out of bed and slips on her shoes. She barely remembers to grab her wallet and keys before heading out the door.
This time, she remembers the route. She doesn’t detour. She doesn’t try to find you again.
By the time she reaches that white block of a building, she’s just beginning to realize what she’s doing. It doesn’t stop her, though. She walks into the sterile waiting room, once again ignoring the people sitting there. There’s no point in looking anymore.
She walks up to the front desk and slams both hands down on it, trying to hold back the growing feeling of sickness in her stomach.
“Do it,” she says desperately. The words feel like they have thorns. “Do it to me. Erase her, I can’t do this.”
The receptionist blinks.
“Miss, we can’t do walk-ins,” she says gently. “You have to call ahead and make an appointment. Valentine’s is tomorrow, this is our busiest time.”
“No, you– you don’t understand.” Ellie runs a hand through her messy hair. “I can’t do this. You need to make me forget.”
“I’m sorry, but–”
Another voice cuts in, one she recognizes as the doctor.
“Let her in.”
Ellie looks up with exhausted eyes. Dr. Anderson gives her a nod of recognition, then waves her towards the back.
Her legs carry her forward into his office, where she drops down into a chair and buries her face in her hands.
“I shouldn’t be doing this.”
He ignores her.
“The first step in the process is to gather every physical memory,” he starts. “I’ll need you to go to your residence and find every object that reminds you of the one you wish to forget. Can you do that?”
Everything that reminds her of you? She’d have to gut the place.
“What if everything reminds me of her?” She whispers.
“That happens more often than you think. Just find everything that has a concrete memory attached to it.”
She closes her eyes and leans back in the chair. There’s still a lot– her life was basically empty before you crashed into it. And if it means that she won’t have to feel like this anymore, she’ll do it.
She nods without saying anything.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
Half an hour later, she’s back in her apartment, holding a black trash bag and throwing in everything with a memory of you attached. The clothes you’d left behind. The necklace she’d bought you, planning to give it to you on Valentine’s Day. The snowglobe she’d bought you at the gift shop in Montauk.
By the time she’s done, three of those bags are filled near bursting with memories. Her apartment barely smells like you anymore. Her hands are shaking when she drives back to the Lacuna clinic.
This time, they make her wait. So she sits in that sad, sterile waiting room with three bags full of things that you’d left behind. She doesn’t look at the others sitting with her, just like she’s avoided looking at mirrors for as long as she can remember.
It feels like hours. She memorizes the pattern of the tiles on the floor, every crack in the ceiling. There are 28 roses in the painting on the wall. The air vent is blowing on a plant with 41 leaves. The first time she counted, she thought it was 39. But no, 42. She’s counted five times since to be sure.
“Ellie Williams?” The receptionist calls out.
For a second, she doesn’t recognize her name. Then she’s up, dragging the bags behind her through the hallway.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
She doesn’t cry on the drive home. Maybe there are no more tears left. Maybe she already spilled them all, sitting in that little examination room. They’d gone through the bags, holding up every object and having her react to it. Not describe. They didn’t let her speak. Didn’t let her talk about the memories, just had her run through them in her mind as they hooked her up to all kinds of machines she didn’t understand. Halfway through, she was sobbing harder than she ever had in her life.
By the end, she couldn’t feel anything at all.
When she gets home, it’s nearing eight pm. She watches something stupid on the tv for a little while, trying to pay attention. She doesn’t hear a single word.
When the alarm goes off, she shuts the tv down and grabs the pill bottle they’d sent her home with. Taps the two little blue pills into her palm and downs them with a sip of stale water. They go down easy, like the antidepressants she used to take.
They don’t kick in immediately. She’s lying awake in bed for a while before she feels the pills starting to work, forcing her body to relax before her mind starts to fade.
The last thing she thinks is that maybe she’s making a mistake. And then it goes dark.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
The second she finds herself back in Dr. Anderson’s office, she knows it’s a dream. A dream, or a memory. Maybe something in between.
She watches herself sitting across the desk from him. The angle is strange, like she’s above herself looking down at the room. Like a child looking into a dollhouse.
The memory version of her is talking about you. She doesn’t know how she knows that, because what you’re saying isn’t making any sense. She keeps repeating words, then looping back to the start of a jumbled sentence, then jumping to another. Is she even saying real words? Ellie can’t tell.
Dr. Anderson looks up, directly at her. Not memory version, but the one who’s watching.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says. It’s not his voice. It’s her father’s voice, one she hasn’t heard since she was seventeen.
The lamp in the corner is getting brighter. It’s too bright, the light is washing out everything else. Then it dims and shifts, and she falls backward into a chair and then they’re taping cold wires to her forehead and shoving the snowglobe into her hands. It’s heavier than it should be, she can barely hold it up.
“We got that in Montauk,” she tries to say. Nothing comes out. She tries again, still nothing. She tries to say your name, and that works.
It comes out soft and sad.
She’s not in the clinic anymore. She’s back home, sitting in the ratty old armchair in the corner. No more cold wires on her forehead, just a lingering headache as the front door slams shut.
Footsteps. She recognizes them, heavy and mismatched. It’s you, but you’re drunk. Just like you were last time she saw you.
This is the last time she saw you. She’s back there, on that bad night when you’d collapsed onto the bed smelling like a dive bar.
“Ellieeeee,” you whine. “Come here. I want to cuddle.”
“You’re drunk,” she says.
You give her a look, that look that always makes her stomach drop. It always means the same thing– you’ll be leaving that night. For a moment, Ellie forgets that this is when you left for the last time.
“I’m not drunk,” you protest.
“You are,” Ellie insists. She tries to stay quiet then, she really does. She thinks she does, until she hears her own voice continuing. “I see you drunk more than I see you sober.”
No… no, no no no…
You push yourself off the bed, stumbling in your heels. “You’re lucky you see me at all,” you scoff.
“Lucky me,” she mutters. “I have an alcoholic girlfriend.”
“Fuck you, Ellie.”
She closes her eyes. She can’t watch you walk away, she never can. Instead of telling you to stay, she closes her eyes.
The door slams shut behind you.
When she opens her eyes, it’s a few days before that bad night. She’s still in the armchair, watching you stand on the coffee table, drunk and loudly singing the wrong lyrics to a song you used to know by heart. She sees herself lying down on the couch, pretending to be asleep.
It all goes black, like someone shut out all the lights. She can’t remember where she just was, and that’s when she realizes it. She’s forgetting. They’re erasing it.
Good. Good? She doesn’t know anymore.
She sees herself kneeling on the floor, cleaning up broken glass. Picking up one of the bigger shards and seeing the traces of blood on the edge, then putting it in the trash bag before she can think too much about it.
Ellie takes a step closer, trying to see, but she steps into the trash bag and falls in. Then she’s falling, feeling the wind passing by in the darkness.
She falls onto her knees outside the bathroom door, listening to the sound of you crying and not even trying to hide it.
She lets out a broken sob and tries to slam her head against the door, but it never hits. She falls forward. She’s in the kitchen now, in that strange angle like she’s looking into a dollhouse.
The version of her in the memory raises her voice, and you flinch. She tries to reach out, and you step away.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she hears herself say. “Please, baby, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not mad at you. I didn’t mean it like that.”
You say it’s fine and pour yourself another drink.
Ellie tries to run. She can’t do this, she can’t watch this again. But she trips on your body lying on the floor, too drunk to stand up.
She goes down on top of you, and suddenly the two of you are in her bed. She kisses you, and you start to cry.
Ellie rolls away, trying to escape. She falls off the bed into the car. The radio is too loud, playing a song she doesn’t recognize. You’re not speaking.
Her hands are on the steering wheel. They feel like they’re glued to it. She tries to steer off the road, but she can’t. All she can see ahead of her is darkness.
She closes her eyes and waits for the car to drive off the edge of the road. She never feels herself fall.
The steering wheel is gone. In its place is a grocery cart she’s pushing under fluorescent lights that make you look as sick as she knows you are. You split up, and when you meet her by the checkout, all you’ve gotten is vodka. All Ellie’s gotten is a box of the chocolate croissants you like, the ones she knows will go stale on the kitchen counter.
“I love you,” Ellie tries to say. Her phone chimes– one message from you. ‘I miss you.’ You’re one room away, but too drunk to realize that she’s right there.
She’s under the sheets with you, laughing like nothing’s wrong. She’s tickling you, you grab her wrists to stop her. You feel the scars there and the laughter stops.
“...Are we okay?” You whisper.
Ellie takes a moment too long to respond. She feels you slipping away from her– literally. It’s like the bed is tilting, and you’re falling away from her.
Then she’s falling too, falling into a crowd of people she doesn’t know. But you’re there with her, so it’s okay. For a little while, everything is okay. Your arms are wrapped over her shoulders, face pressed against her neck.
Then you order another drink. And then everyone is looking at her, laughing at her. She feels the panic rising, and next thing she knows she’s sitting on the bathroom floor, curled up with her head in her hands as you try to help. You’re trying to help her through her breathing exercises, but you’re too drunk to remember how they go.
She feels the memories shifting around her, but she stays like that. Curled up, head in her hands, trying to control her breathing as her lungs resist. She hears you crying.
“I don’t want to be like this,” you sob.
Then you’re laughing, dancing around the apartment without music. You’re not drunk this time, just happy. Ellie’s happy too. At least, the version of her that exists in this memory is. The version that’s watching is wondering if this was the last time she was ever really happy.
You take her by the hands and drag her along into the dance. You’re laughing. She’s laughing. You’re wearing her clothes, but you still smell like you.
“I don’t want to forget you,” Ellie whispers.
It’s like a hook in her chest pulls her back, away from you and into another scene. You’re arguing over a board game. For a second, her stomach drops. Then you start to laugh, leaning over the table to pull her into a kiss.
“Please don’t leave me,” you say. You say it like you’re joking, but she knows you’re not.
“I won’t,” she promises. “I won’t ever leave. I–”
She tries to hug you, but you’re gone. Gone again, and she can’t find you. She’s running through the apartment, searching everywhere for you until she finds you lying on the floor.
“No,” she whispers, rushing over and dropping to her knees beside you. You open your eyes and laugh.
“I’m fine,” you say, giggling. Ellie tries to laugh with you, but she still feels sick.
You’re laughing, and then you’re crying. You’re crying so hard, sobbing into her chest and digging your nails into the skin of your arms.
“Hey, hey, don’t do that,” Ellie whispers, trying to pry your fingers off your skin and put them on her own arms. “Don’t hurt yourself. Do it to me, I don’t mind. It’s okay.”
“I don’t know why I’m like this.”
She holds you tighter.
“I love you.”
It shifts again. Sunday morning, you lying in bed with her, half asleep. You’re so warm next to her, so soft. She wants to stay there with you forever.
The walls start to melt.
“Wait,” she says. The walls melt faster. “Wait, stop.” Louder this time.
“Stop,” she says again. “Stop! I don’t want this!”
You open your eyes next to her. “It’s okay,” you whisper.
“No, it’s not okay. I’m losing you. I’m forgetting you. I don’t want this anymore. Can you hear me? I don’t want this anymore!”
“Let’s run,” you say. Like it’s that simple.
But she’d do anything to keep you. So she grabs your hand and jolts up, pulling you with her out of bed. She ends up in the bathroom, brushing her teeth next to you and stealing glances at you in the mirror.
No, no– it’s another memory. She can’t let you disappear again. She grabs your hand and pulls you away, out of the bathroom, only to fall right off the edge of the floor, into darkness.
Then into the bathroom of a dive bar, holding your hair back as you throw up. This was the first time she’d ever seen you this drunk. She felt important when you let her help.
“No, no– we have to go. We have to go somewhere else.”
You groan, reluctantly letting her pull you up and out of the bathroom. Then it’s the middle of a house party full of people she doesn’t know. She remembers that night. You’d begged her to come with you when she’d wanted to stay home, and then you’d held her hand the entire time because you knew how she got around people she didn’t know.
“They’re going to keep erasing these,” you say plainly. “I mean, we can keep running, but that’s just making it go faster.”
“No, there has to be something,” Ellie says, wrapping her arms around you as the ground starts to crumble. “I don’t want to lose any more. What if we hide?”
“...That’s actually a good idea,” you say, pulling back slightly. “What if you hid me somewhere I’m not supposed to be?”
She thinks. Somewhere you’re not supposed to be. If she puts you in a memory where you weren’t there, maybe she can hide you. Maybe they won’t be able to erase all of you.
The house she grew up in is small, but it still feels like home.
She’s fourteen years old again, sitting on the couch and holding the guitar her dad gave her for her birthday. He’s teaching her the chords, guiding her hands.
But you’re sitting next to her now. And she’s not playing the first song she learned, she’s playing your favorite song.
“Your dad seems nice,” you say quietly.
Ellie nods, strumming gently. “I wish you could have met him.”
When she looks up next, he’s gone.
“Dad?” she says in her fourteen-year-old voice. “Dad, where’d you go?”
The walls go next. There one second, gone the next.
“Shit, they already found us?” You say, jumping off the couch as it disappears.
Ellie jumps up after you, dropping the guitar to grab your hand and pull you away. Another one. Something they won’t be able to find so easily, something darker. Something she doesn’t even want to remember.
The hospital lights are too bright, the smell of sickness and cleaner heavy in the stale air.
You stand in the waiting room, looking around. Ellie’s seventeen, sitting alone on one of the chairs.
“Ellie? Where are we?” You ask hesitantly.
“My dad just died,” she whispers.
You’re quiet as you sit down next to her.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
Ellie closes her eyes. “That’s the point.”
The hum of machines won’t let the silence rest. Distant beeping, off-rhythm, disrupts every chance at peace. The magazines on the table to the side are too cheerful, advertising recipes for quick weight loss and celebrity drama from years ago.
“You never talked about your dad,” you say next to her.
She doesn’t know why. Her dad had been the only stable person in her life. She should have told you about him. She should have talked about him more, not tried to forget him.
The lights flicker.
“They found us,” she whispers, grabbing your hand and standing up. “We need to go somewhere worse. The worst memory I have.”
“Ellie, no,” you protest. “They’re going to find us there too, it’ll just make it worse–”
It’s too late. Not that she would have listened to your warning anyway. She’ll do anything to hide you away from them, even if she knows it won’t work.
Ellie’s room is dark. She sits on the floor, still in the black suit she’d worn to the funeral.
“I don’t like this, Ellie,” you whisper. “I shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be back here.”
She doesn’t respond. She stands up and takes three steady steps to the door. When she opens it, there’s just darkness where the hallway should be. She steps in anyway.
She only realizes you’ve stepped into the darkness too when you rest your head on her shoulder.
“Ellie,” you say quietly. “You don’t remember this part, do you?”
She shakes her head, brows furrowed as she reaches out. There’s nothing out there in the dark.
“I don’t remember,” she whispers. “I don’t remember what I did.”
She takes another step forward, off the edge of a floor she can’t see. She holds on to you as she falls.
You land next to her in her bed, the apartment dark around you.
“This was the first time you stayed the night,” she whispers, brushing a strand of your blue hair back behind your ear. “I didn’t sleep all night because I was so scared you’d leave before I woke up.”
“I didn’t sleep either,” you whisper back.
Ellie smiles. “I know.”
She leans in to kiss you, knowing it might be the last time. She can’t run with you. She can’t hide you.
It won’t be long before you’re gone completely.
When she opens her eyes, she sees the stars above her. You’re next to her, lying down on the ice in Montauk.
“I think I love you,” she whispers. It’s the day after she met you. She was already head over heels.
You giggle. “You don’t know me.”
“I want to,” she says. “I want to know everything about you, so I can love everything about you.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m in love.”
“Remember me.”
The ice cracks. She falls through into cold darkness, closing her eyes. She only opens them when her feet land barefoot on cold sand.
The night of the day she met you. Walking behind you on the beach, following you while knowing that you don’t even know where you’re going. She’s laughing harder than she ever had. Her face is already sore from smiling more in the first few hours of knowing you than she had in years.
“This is a good spot.”
You drop down onto a towel that someone else left behind. She brushes some of the sand off before sitting down next to you.
“I think you’re a little crazy,” she laughs.
“I’m the fun kind of crazy,” you say with a smile.
“I don’t want this to end.”
It’s the end. She knows it is. The tide is rising, each wave getting closer to where she’s sitting with you.
You lean in close, resting your head on her shoulder.
“Meet me in Montauk,” you whisper.
Ellie nods. The water is swallowing up her legs.
“I will.”
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
She wakes up with a headache. Her apartment seems oddly empty, but she can’t remember it being any other way.
She sighs as she gets out of bed. Work. She has to get to work.
It’s not long before she’s sitting in the train station, watching the screen and waiting for her train to arrive.
Then her brows furrow. She needs to– she doesn’t know what she needs to do. But before she can stop herself, she’s jumping up and running. She doesn’t know where she’s going until she jumps past the doors of a train about to leave. A train to Montauk, of all places. Why the hell is she going to Montauk?
She sighs heavily. Well, she’s here. Going to Montauk. Probably going to be fired for missing work. But at least she’ll be at the beach. Not that she even likes the beach, despite the weird fond feeling in her chest when she thinks of it.
She sits down in an empty seat near the back of the train. The girl in front of her has blue hair. Blue hair and an orange sweatshirt. Colorful. Probably fun to talk to. At least, fun for someone who actually knew how to talk to strangers.
You turn around, and she quickly looks away, out the window. You definitely caught her staring.
When you stand up, she winces. You’re probably going to go sit somewhere else, away from the staring creep.
Then you drop down into the seat next to her.
“Is this seat taken?” You ask.
Ellie shakes her head quickly.
“No, no. Well, I guess it is now. By you, of course. Obviously.”
You smile and lean a little closer.
“What’s your name?”
“Ellie,” she says. “Ellie Williams.
“Nice to meet you, Ellie.”
a/n: been working on this one for a while, like over a month lol. eternal sunshine has gotta be one of my favorite movies of all time so yk i had to make it lesbian.
a lot of the scenes here esp in the beginning are yoinked straight from the movie bc i did want to keep it close but um yeah i hope ygs appreciate this bc it dealt psychic damage to me every time i opened the doc. anyway um hope you have a good day after reading this, take care of yourselves <3
pairing: loser metalhead abby x popular fem reader
Abby has no idea how she got lucky enough to be dating you. Inviting you to her band's first gig may be the worst mistake she's ever made. You stay anyway.
can be read as a continuation of scream bloody gore or as a separate story
content & warnings: men & under 16 dni. no smut. swearing ; modern college setting ; abby is very insecure ; established relationship ; newish relationship ; mild angst i guess but it's just bc abby is overreacting to nothing ; very fem reader ; fluff and comfort at the end ; reader wears a dress and bakes cookies ; no use of y/n
wc: 2.8k words
Abby messed up. Big time.
She’s been dating you for a few months now— three months and six days, actually. She still doesn’t know how she got this lucky, and sometimes she feels like she’s holding her breath and waiting for you to realize that she’s too much of a loser for you. But you always seem to know when she’s feeling like that, and you’re quick to reassure her that yes, you do actually like her.
But this time, she might have really messed things up.
When she first started dating you, she made herself a promise: to never, ever let you hear her band play. Never. Because that would be the end of things, without a doubt.
You know she’s in a band. But you don’t know how bad they suck.
And then one day she’d mentioned having practice later, and you’d started asking about it so sweetly and she really didn’t have any choice but to tell you that they had a gig on Friday. Then you, being the supportive girlfriend that you are, had said you’d go to watch. Abby never had a choice.
Well, she did have a choice. She could have just not said anything, preserved the best thing in her life. But no. She had to open her mouth. And now it’s Thursday night, and she’s losing it.
“It’s over,” she groans, burying her face in her hands as Manny awkwardly pats her shoulder. “It’s so fucking over— can you turn the music off for five minutes, dude?”
Manny quickly shuts off the bluetooth speaker, cutting off the song mid-scream. The dorm still isn’t quiet, though. There’s still the noise of a girl moaning nextdoor, seeping in through the thin walls.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. He does not sound like he believes it, even a little bit. “We’ll do our best.”
“Our best is absolute dogshit,” she says, flopping down onto the bed. “At this point, just kill me. Mercy kill.”
“Or you could pretend you’re sick,” he suggests.
“Dude. I am completely incapable of lying to her. One time, she asked me if I’d dated anyone else before her, and I said yes, and I lasted all of two minutes before I broke down and told her the truth. I’m so fucked, man.”
Manny sighs heavily.
“You know what? Yeah. You’re fucked. Major.”
Abby lifts her face off the pillow to glare at him. “Is that your idea of helping?”
“Nah. Just telling you the truth. Enjoy it while it lasts, you’re getting dumped tomorrow.”
“I hate you. I hate you so much. I can’t even describe how much I want you to trip and bust your head open.”
He pats her shoulder once more, then stands up, leaving her to deal with her agony alone. She’s probably better off without his advice, though. The neighbor’s moans reach a crescendo as Abby reaches for her phone. Maybe Manny was right about one thing (rare). She should enjoy it while it lasts.
She takes a moment to admire your contact photo, a picture of you smiling as Abby kisses your cheek.
It takes her way too long to draft up a message that just reads ‘can you call?’. But less than a minute later she sees the little indication that you read the message, and her heart does a backflip when her phone starts buzzing.
It’s a video call— she takes a moment to check her hair, smoothing it back a little before she answers. And there you are, looking as perfect as ever in an apron with a bit of flour on your cheek.
“Hey, Abby,” you say happily. “What’s up?”
Abby smiles, mood instantly lifted by the sight of you and the sound of your voice.
“Just wanted to see you,” she says. It’s a big enough part of the truth that it doesn’t feel like lying. “Baking something good?”
You tilt the camera to show her a bowl of dough that you’re currently mixing.
“Cookies,” you say. “Double chocolate.”
Abby groans. Your cookies are amazing. The first time she tried something you’d baked, she’d nearly passed out. You’re so perfect, it hurts.
“I was going to bring them to you and your band for tomorrow,” you continue. Abby’s stomach drops at the reminder. Right. Tomorrow. The gig. The end of everything good. “But now I’m not sure. I mean, cookies aren’t very metal. I’d probably get laughed at.”
Her brows furrow. She doesn’t know who made you think that, but she doesn’t like it.
“Hell no,” she says quickly. “Bring the cookies. Please. I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I love your cookies. And everyone else will too. If anyone even thinks about laughing at you, I’ll break their legs.”
You laugh and turn the camera back to your face.
“Okay, fine, I’ll bring the cookies.”
“Good.” At least she’ll get to have one last taste of your baking before you realize she’s a loser and leave her in the dust.
You set the phone down on the counter so you can do something with the dough, leaving Abby watching the shadows from the spinning ceiling fan.
“So,” you say after a moment of comfortable silence. “How was your day?”
She tells you about her day then. Not all of it, of course— she doesn’t mention the nauseating anxiety that’s been consuming her for the past few days, but she does tell you about her classes and her professor’s latest bout of insanity. She tells you about the bird that tried to steal her sandwich, and you tell her about the raccoon you spotted near a dumpster last night. And when there’s nothing left to talk about, she falls asleep to the sound of you humming a tune she doesn’t recognize.
────────────
The next day is the one she’s been dreading.
Backstage at the venue is a strong contender for Abby’s least favorite place she’s ever been. She can’t stop pacing, walking back and forth on the crusty floor while the rest of the band relaxes on the half-destroyed couch. There seems to be a layer of cigarette ash and dried beer covering every surface, from the floor to the walls to the ceiling hanging low overhead.
She thought she was at least a little prepared for this. She’s nowhere near it.
When she woke up earlier, her phone was dead. Meaning her alarm never went off, and she’d slept in until noon. Worse, she no longer had your voice in her ear to ease the sick feeling of knowing the end was near.
She hopes you don’t show. She hopes you stay home, so she’ll have more time before you inevitably dump her. But there’s a voice in her head that’s just screaming your name over and over, because you’re the only one who’s ever able to ease her constant doubts.
A pair of footsteps other than her own approach, crunching faintly over the debris on the floor. Abby freezes, turning around slowly to see you standing there holding a brown paper bag. You look so pretty in that dress you’re wearing, even in the shitty lighting. But she knows you enough to notice that you’re uncomfortable. It’s in the stiffness of your shoulders, the way your smile is just a little flat. Nothing anyone else would notice, but with the amount of time Abby spends looking at you? It’s obvious.
“Hey,” she sighs. All her doubts are forgotten for a moment, too focused on you to think about her own problems.
You walk over to her, setting the paper bag on the coffee table and giving her a one-armed hug. Abby doesn’t let that slide— she wraps both arms around your waist and pulls you in close, resting her cheek on the top of your head. She can smell your strawberry shampoo and the faint perfume you wear, and it’s all worth it. Even if you do leave her tonight, at least she got to love you for a while.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmurs against your hair. Quiet enough that the band won’t hear, though they’re very obviously trying to eavesdrop.
She can feel your muscles start to relax as she holds on to you. The hug is long enough that when you finally pull away, your brows are slightly furrowed with confusion.
“Is everything alright?” You ask quietly.
No. Abby wants to tell you that no, nothing is alright. Telling you would probably make it better. But she’s too scared to tell you despite how much she wants to, so she just nods.
“Yeah. It’s fine, everything’s fine. Just— are you sure you want to be here?”
As soon as she sees that discomfort come back, she wants to kick herself in the teeth.
“Wait—” she says quickly, hands resting on your shoulders. “I didn’t mean it like that. I want you here. I’m just scared.”
You relax again, leaning into her touch.
“Scared of what?”
“I’m scared that you’ll realize—”
She’s interrupted by one of the venue staff knocking on the open door.
“Wolves? You guys are up. Good luck out there, weird crowd tonight.”
The rest of the band gets up from the couch, and Abby pulls you into one last hug that’s near tight enough to crush you.
“I’ll be watching,” you murmur. “You’re going to do great.”
You really believe it. She leans in to kiss you softly, lips sliding against yours. She’s trying to memorize it— the softness of your lips, the way your lipgloss tastes like candy, the way your nose bumps against hers and the sound of your breath.
She finally pulls away when Manny coughs pointedly. Usually she’d be embarrassed, but she’s too busy studying your face to care who saw.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Then she forces herself to step away, grabbing her guitar and heading out onto the stage.
Before the first note rings out, she knows without a doubt that the show will be nothing less than a disaster.
Her guitar strap feels too loose. Then too tight after she adjusts it. But the crowd is watching with hostile eyes, so she leaves it like that. Her pick falls from between her fingers, skittering off the edge of the stage, and nobody picks it up. She pulls her backup from her pocket with shaky fingers, then strums a tentative chord to test the sound.
The tests actually go alright. The mic smells like sour beer and old spit, and she tries not to gag.
“Check, check,” she murmurs. Thank god, the sound guy did his job.
She’s dreading the count-in, each number down feeling like one step towards the edge of a cliff. Manny comes in on the drums half a beat too early, and she has to rush in to keep up with the intro. Some guy near the front of the crowd is talking about how his dog threw up on his shoes, loud enough that it’s clearly audible over the music. She hits a wrong chord during the first verse. She doubts anyone noticed, but it happened.
The second song goes even worse. Mel’s going way too fast on the bass. One of Manny’s drumsticks snaps in half, and he has to scramble to grab a new one. Abby’s so focused on trying to keep the rhythm on her guitar that she forgets a lyric, just repeating the previous one and hoping the crowd thinks it's on purpose.
Someone laughs. It’s a loud, booming cackle. The crowd isn’t reacting to anything, just shifting uncomfortably. She doesn’t care about the crowd, not really. She only cares that you’re backstage watching this mess. You’re probably laughing. Actually, no. You’re too nice to laugh, which just makes it worse.
“Get off the stage!” Someone shouts during a lull in the song. A few others join in.
She’s been here in her nightmares before. Doing her best and being booed off the stage. She feels lightheaded. Her vision is just a tunnel, focused on the mic in front of her with everything else blurred out around the edges.
She steps away from the mic, pulling the guitar strap off her shoulders and setting the instrument down on a stand at the edge of the stage. Then she’s walking off stage, eyes stinging and legs shaking.
And there you are, standing just off the stage, watching her. She can’t read your face, and that terrifies her.
She walks right past you. She can’t stop to look at you for another second, too scared to face the disappointment in your eyes that she’s dreading.
Abby doesn’t stop walking until she gets outside, collapsing down onto the steps before the door to the back alley. It smells like a dumpster out here, but she doesn’t care. It’s a lot better than the stale air inside the venue.
She presses the heel of her palm into her closed eyes, trying to block out the images of your disappointed face that keep showing up.
She never should have done this. Even if you hadn’t been there, it still would have been a disaster. She can’t remember why she ever thought it was a good idea.
The door creaks open behind her, and she jolts up. You’re there, holding the now slightly crumpled brown paper bag. Still unreadable.
You sit down on the edge of the steps, then pat the spot next to you. Abby bites back the apologies on her tongue and sits down next to you.
“I saved you a cookie,” you say calmly, passing over the bag. “The venue crew kinda demolished the rest, but I told them you’d beat someone up if you didn’t get any.”
She lets out a choked half-laugh, half-sob when you set the bag down in her lap. Her stomach is churning too much for her to even consider eating it right now.
“I know it sucked,” she whispers. “You don’t have to pretend. I knew– I knew you wouldn’t want to stay with me after you saw that. I don’t know why I still did it.”
“Who says I don’t want to stay?”
She looks over at you, and she doesn’t see pity. She doesn’t see disappointment either, or disgust.
“I just thought—”
“You thought wrong,” you interrupt. “Yeah, that was pretty bad. But I didn’t come here for the show, I came here for you.”
Abby looks away and squeezes her eyes shut. The hope is starting to warm her chest, but she can’t let herself fall into it completely. She’s still waiting for the catch.
“Abby,” you say gently. Your head leans against her shoulder, and she leans into your touch. “If anything, seeing you up there just reinforced why I love you so much.”
She freezes.
“...What? How, why—?”
You nudge her lightly with your shoulder, and she shuts up immediately.
“Because,” you continue after a quiet moment. “You went up there knowing what you could lose, and you still did it. You played songs that you wrote from nothing. Even if it didn’t go as well as it could have, you still did it. That kind of bravery? I love it. I love you.”
Abby lets out a slow breath. At first, she doesn’t want to believe you. But she knows you wouldn’t lie about this. So she turns towards you and pulls you in, wrapping her arms tight around you.
“I love you too,” she whispers into your hair. “I was so scared of losing you.”
You laugh and return the hug, careful not to crush the paper bag any more. “It would take a lot more than a bad show to get rid of me.”
She kisses the top of your head, then brings her hands up to cradle your face and starts kissing you all over. You groan and weakly protest, but you don’t pull away even a little bit. You turn your face at the same time she tries to kiss your cheek, catching her lips.
The kiss is soft and sweet, a slow glide that you’re both smiling into.
You’re the one who eventually pulls away to catch a breath. Abby whines and leans closer to follow you, resting her forehead against yours. She can’t stand to not be touching you now that she knows you’re staying.
The crowd inside is still shouting for the next band. But out here, she can’t hear them. Out here, the world is quiet except for your soft laugh and your breath.
And Abby finally lets herself relax.
a/n: loser metalhead abby won the poll and it wasn't even close. which is perfect bc she's been marinating in my brain.
next chapter of rooted coming up soon, and after that i'm not sure but possibly something smutty😛no valentine's special from me because i have beef with valentine's day.
This is stupid but i wanna start a tag thing and see how far it goes
everyone share a fun fact about yourself for however many letters there are in your url
I can start:
I first learned how to use a sword when I was 10
I once did a shot of soy sauce as a dare
My first time getting drunk to the point where I threw up was directly after a school exam, we got drunk in the woods by our school
I can't smoke due to my asthma, I tried once and almost passed out
I'm very allergic to bubblegum, idk what in it but it makes my throat swell like crazy
When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad played rock for at least an hour each day cause he was determined to make me like rock and roll (it worked)
I have grape juice in my fridge at all times, and it's been this way since I was a kid
My favourite Monster Energy is Strawberry Dreams, but I'm tempted to try the passionfruit one so that might change
I'm American but I type with British English sometimes cause the teacher who taught me spelling in kindergarten was British
One time in high school, I got a papercut during bio and a bunch of us begged my teacher to let us look at the blood under the microscope like the little freaks we were and for some reason she did??? anyways it looked cool you could see the blood vessels and she kinda incorporated it into the lesson
I've been roof-hopping before
I got my first boxing wraps when I was 8 visiting cousins in Mexico, they decided it was time. Now I keep putting off buying new ones and I just use bandages
My theme/the whole siren thing is based on the fact that I sing :)
I used to joke about running away to join the circus then I made a friend who was actually in the circus and I chickened out
Ooh this looks so fun! Thank you for the tag, I love these omg :>
1. I’ve never broken a bone
2. I was homeschooled from second grade to all through high school
3. I did dual enrollment my last two years of high school, so I should be finishing my AA degree hopefully by the end of this month
4. I hate drinking water, it’s the bane of my existence. Luckily I hacked it and if I add a splash of juice then it’s drinkable. Cranberry juice my goat
5. I currently have a 615 day Reddit streak (im sorry)
6. I did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a few years, got a blue belt before I stopped
7. I don’t watch a lot of tv, but my favorite movie is either Zoolander or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. My tastes vary.
8. I have been in more fistfights than relationships (3 to 0)
9. I love cooking and baking. I make a chocolate cake that’s pretty life changing
10. I looooove making characters
11. I had whooping cough once when I was a baby
12. I once used sharpie as eyeliner. I’ve also used black gel pen, crayon, and a burnt toothpick. I do have real eyeliner now though lol
I never know who to tag on these, i don’t know many people on here 😭
⊹ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — After the absolute wreckage of last night, you and Ellie are drowning in shame and heartbreak—not to mention killer hangovers. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, production shifts to Aspen, Colorado. But the real kick in the teeth happens at check-in, you in the same suite as the co-star you’ve been helplessly pining over. Now that you’re both trapped in the snow, will they finally face the feelings you’ve been hiding, or are they going to keep running in circles?
⊹ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓— 13,7K
⊹ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — smut, switch!ellie x switch!reader, oral sex (r!receiving), scissoring, confession of love, media scrutiny, mentions of alcohol use, non-consensual tape leak (off-page), yearning as illness, AFAB!reader. minors and men DNI.
A special thank you to @andieprincessofpower and @letmebeurbaby for helping me proofread this chapter, love you both so so much ♡
𝐖hen the world was small and there weren’t eyes on you all the time, the universe consisted only of Ellie’s eyes. You were sixteen, standing on the precipice of everything, yet convinced that the only things that mattered were right here, tangled in a room in the suburbs.
The late afternoon sun poured through the blinds, painting stripes of gold and across her room. It was a museum of her brilliant, nerdy heart. A poster of Hamilton hung above her bed, the gold star silhouette watching over you both like the patron saint of ambition. On the adjacent wall, Peter Parker was mid-swing in a vintage print, his masked face frozen in perpetual heroism, while stacks of Nintendo cartridges formed precarious towers on her dresser, guarding the television.
Ellie was a masterpiece of casual disarray, as always, a young girl composed of faint edges and hidden depths. She wore a faded, oversized flannel shirt of blue and grey plaid, unbuttoned over a graphic tee. Her jeans were ripped at the knees and her auburn hair was pulled back in a messy half up, escaping in tendrils that framed a face free of the hard lines the future would one day carve.
You sat opposite her, wearing your favorite dusty pink sweater, the sleeves pulled down over your hands and a pleated skirt that fanned out around you on the floor. Between you laid open a calculus textbook, a minefield of numbers and letters that had threatened to bring you to tears only an hour before.
She had invited you that afternoon to help you with the homework, since she was always a genius for numbers. She hadn't sighed even when you confused the axis for the third time. She simply took the pencil from your cramping fingers, her touch cool and sure as she dismantled the equations with a patience that felt like love.
She turned the terrifying abstract into simple, solvable logic, whispering the steps until the panic in your chest unspooled into relief.
"See?" she had murmured, drawing a box around the answer. "Easy."
With the homework finally conquered and shoved aside, the atmosphere in the room was much more calm. You reached into your backpack and pulled out your secret comfort: a coloring book.
You both were always a little childish, in the best way. While others were rushing to grow up, to sharpen their edges, you clung to the soft things. To the whimsy of filling in black-and-white lines with pastel crayons.
You lay on your stomach, feet kicking idly in the air, losing yourself in a page, while Ellie leaned back against the frame of her bed, reading a vintage issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.
A gravelly croon filled the spaces between the dust motes. It was Pearl Jam’s Ten, a CD Ellie treated like a relic because it was a gift from Joel. Eddie Vedder’s voice was a heavy blanket over the room, a grungy lullaby that clashed with the pink crayon in your hand but matched the soul of the girl reading beside you.
You hummed along, your hand moving across the paper. You were coloring a kitten, of all things—a small, fluffy kitten standing in the center of a grand theater stage, surrounded by red velvet curtains.
"I wanna be in Heathers," you declared suddenly, the thought jumping from the page to your tongue. Your voice cut through the lazy dust motes dancing in the light, competing with the electric guitar. You stopped coloring, tracing the pattern of the rug with a finger, your eyes fixed on the imaginary spotlight hitting the kitten. "I relate to Veronica. She’s trying so hard to be good, to be decent, in a world that just wants to burn everything down."
Ellie looked up from the comic, her eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that made your stomach flip. "You’d kill as Veronica. Literally," she teased. "But you're too nice to burn down a gym."
"Acting," you countered, bumping your knee against hers. The contact sent a warm jolt through your chest, a current of electricity that felt infinite. “But if we’re talking dreams? Real dreams? West Side Story."
"Maria?"
"Maria," you confirmed, clutching a throw pillow to your chest as if it contained all your hopes. "It’s just... it’s better than Romeo and Juliet. I know we did the play last year, and it was great, but West Side Story has more grit."
Ellie set the comic down, leaning back on her hands, the flannel slipping off one shoulder. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling, a thoughtful, wistful smile playing on her lips.
"I’d want to be Tony," she admitted. “But I know that will never happen.”
"You’d make a perfect Tony."
"Please," she scoffed, a self-deprecating laugh bubbling up from her chest. "I can’t sing for shit. I’d open my mouth and the glass in the windows would shatter."
"You are such a liar!" you said as you reached out, "You sing along to the radio when you think I’m asleep, and I really like when you sing and play guitar. You have this... this rasp. It’s really good."
A flush crept up her neck, pinking her cheeks, a sudden bloom of color against her freckled skin. It was a rare thing to catch Ellie off guard, to see the bravado strip away to reveal the tender underbelly beneath.
She ducked her head, looking at you through her lashes. "You really think so?"
"I know so."
The silence that followed was heavy with the things you were too young to articulate but old enough to feel in your bones.
"If you ever won an award…" she started, her voice hushed as if she were speaking in a library. "Like, a big one, an Oscar. What would you say?"
You started wandering, the hypothetical pulling you into a daydream. You looked past her, toward the Hamilton poster, imagining a blinding stage light instead of the afternoon sun, the roar of a crowd instead of the hum of the air conditioner.
Wait for It started playing in your head. (And if you ever get the chance to see Hamilton in a theatre, watch it.)
"What would I say?" you mused, tilting your head. "Well, I don't know... I mean... if I won an Oscar..." you let out a breathy laugh, the absurdity of it mixing with the desire. "I would thank Ms. Dalton, obviously. And the drama club. I would say that I grew up dreaming of this moment in rooms just like this one."
You looked back at her and the playfulness died in your throat. The spotlight in your mind faded, leaving only her face, illuminated by the golden hour.
"And I would thank... well, I would thank you, Ellie."
She went still, her breath hitching. "Me?"
"You," you whispered, the truth of it sitting heavy on your tongue. "I mean, you were my first friend in this hellscape of a high school. You’re the reason I can stand on a stage without shaking and you helped me so much to get rid of my fears. I wouldn't be me without you."
Ellie stared at you for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable, a mixture of awe and something like fear—the fear of being left behind.
"If you won an Oscar," she asked, her voice barely audible, not confident, "do you think I would be there?"
The question broke your heart a little, the insecurity of it, the idea that she could ever be a footnote in your story.
"I know you'd be there," you said sure of yourself, leaning forward, invading her space because you needed her to understand. "Why wouldn't you be? There isn't any award I would like to win if you weren't watching. It would just be a piece of metal, Els. It wouldn't mean anything."
You took a breath, holding her gaze, willing her to understand the absolute permanence of her place in your life.
"And even if you weren't there... say you were stuck in traffic, or on the moon... I’d still thank you, because I’d know you’d be listening."
The auburn stayed quiet for a second, her eyes widening, brightening with a wet, glassy sheen of awe at your words. She could imagine it perfectly. She could see you in the gown, holding the statue, speaking her name to the world.
She leaned across the small distance between you, her hand coming up to cup your cheek, her thumb brushing your cheekbone. She kissed you then, and it tasted like chapstick and promise and the orange soda she’d been drinking earlier. It was hesitant, and then firm, a seal on a contract written in the breeze.
When she separated, her forehead rested against yours. You breathed the same air, two kids in a room full of superheroes, believing you were invincible.
𝐓his morning, the sun is even harsher than any other day in the Californian sky. It’s one of the hottest days there has ever been in the history of Los Angeles, and the temperature matches the hot truth that is about to be said on live television.
Rachel stands at the epicenter of the glare.
She is a silhouette cut from obsidian, her vintage Mugler there even when she should be wearing something that lets her breathe better. The dark fabric absorbs the light, making her frame appear even slighter, yet infinitely more dangerous. She stands before the limestone steps of the courthouse, exactly as she promised she would be. She also wears oversized Chanel sunglasses—black shields that render her eyes invisible, turning her face into an unreadable mask.
The reporters circle her like crows. They are hopping over one another to get the best angle, to peck at the pieces of meat she is about to offer. But Rachel knows this ecosystem better than anyone. She knows she is not the carcass; she is the hawk.
"We have discovered gross mismanagement coming from Mrs. Erin Hill regarding her representation of her client, Ellie Williams," the chocolate brunette announces. Her voice is not loud, but it is calibrated, crystal clear.
The reporters erupt. "What charges are they?" "What does Ellie Williams think about the situation?" "How is the case going to go?"
Rachel raises a single, manicured hand. The silence that follows is obedient.
"The charges are for embezzlement, fraud, breach of contract and invasion of privacy," she lists, each word dropping with the weight of a gavel, striking the pavement with finalized authority. "Erin Hill is now being investigated and will face the consequences of her actions. We are trusting the justice system to rectify years of systematic exploitation."
"Furthermore," she adds, "I will be personally acting as lead counsel for Ms. Williams in this matter. We are prepared to litigate this to the absolute fullest extent of the law, and the truth will finally be dragged into the light."
She lets the words settle, letting the frantic scribbling of pens and the tapping of phones catch up to the gravity of the accusation. But the press is a hydra; cut off one head, and another grows. They sense the blood in the water, but they are distracted by the scent of something even better: drama.
"So," a woman reporter says loudly, her voice nasal, shoving a recorder forward. "Both your clients, Ellie Williams and Y/N Y/L/N, are going to be in a movie together, is that correct?"
"Yes," she responds. "They are currently filming a project, and it’s moving forward as scheduled."
The reporters go insane. The camera flashes intensify, a strobe-light storm warring with the midday sun. The questions overlap, a tidal wave of curiosity that threatens to drown out the legal proceedings entirely. Nobody cares about the law anyway, even though they should, because the person writing this is a law student.
"So does that mean we will see them both?" "How are they handling it?" "Is it true they haven't spoken in years?"
She tries to step back, but the wall of sound thickens.
"Rachel!" a man in the back screams, desperate. "Isn't it a conflict of interest? Representing two ex-best friends? Or were they more? Sources say they were high school sweethearts!"
"Is there bad blood on set?" another man shouts, spit flying. "We heard reports of tension, can they even be in the same room without a mediator?!"
And then, another voice cuts through the din, loud and insinuating, slicing right to the bone. "What happened last night at the event? Resources say there has been an altercation between both stars. A screaming match? A fight? Did security have to intervene?"
The memory of the rooftop party flashes behind Rachel’s dark lenses—the alcohol, the burning stares, the violent conversation on the dance floor between you and Ellie. She adjusts her sunglasses, tilting her chin up just a bit. A smile, razor-thin and devoid of warmth, graces her lips.
"Rumors are rumors," she says, her tone dismissive, brushing the question away like a piece of lint on her lapel. "There is no proof that anything of the sort happened and they maintain a strictly professional relationship on set. We are focused on the work, and I suggest you focus on the facts."
"Wait!" someone yells as she turns. "Is it true the script is based on them?"
Rachel ignores the final bait. She turns on her heel and leaves, leaving the crows cawing at her back, hungry for a feast she refuses to serve.
Hours later, the adrenaline has curdled into misery. The sun filtrates through the heavy curtains, waking you up in the most violent of ways.
As soon as you gain consciousness, a violent headache fills your senses, a drum taking up residence behind your eyes. You groan, the sound scraping against your dry throat, the hangover making the room spin and throb.
"Fuckkkk," you groan into the fabric, squeezing your eyes shut as if that will stop the world from tilting.
But as you force your eyelids open, fighting the glue of sleep and mascara, you realize you aren't in your own bed. You are buried in sheets as black as midnight. satin, cool, and expensive.
You don’t have to look at anything else to realize you are in Rachel's place, and the next thing you register is her voice being far too cheerful for the condition of your internal organs.
"Rise and shineee," she singsongs, breezing into the room
She hovers over you, extending the holy grail: a glass of water and an ibuprofen. Her room is a gorgeous display of refined modernism, vast and intimidatingly clean, but you currently lack the energy to admire the architecture. You just accept the water and the pill with shaking hands.
"Hello, my little hungover angel," she beams, sitting on the edge of the mattress, looking impeccably fresh as if she didn't drink her weight in vodka just hours ago. "While you were sleeping the sleep of the wicked, I served major cunt on the courthouse steps. The press is eating out of my hand, and I denied what happened last night."
And just when she mentions last night, the flashbacks hit you like a freight train. You let out a guttural scream, throwing your head back against the pillow with full force, burying your face in the black satin to muffle the sound of your own mortification.
"FUCK!"
"Yeah, well, that is exactly the reaction I expected," Rachel says, sitting right beside you. She crosses her legs, looking irritatingly composed while you are currently trying to off yourself.
"I fucked everything up, I fucked everything up, I fucked everything up, I fucked everything up," you keep repeating, the words muffled into the fabric.
"Yeah, well, accurate."
"YOU AREN'T HELPING!" you shout, lifting your head just enough to glare at her with one bloodshot eye. The movement makes your brain slosh against your skull.
"The fuck am I gonna do now?" you keen, rolling onto your back and draping an arm over your eyes to block out the offending sunlight.
"Feign dementia," she suggests casually, taking a sip of her own coffee. "It’s a classic legal defense.”
"Not enough," you groan. "I’m going to lock myself forever in your house. Can I move here? If you say no I’m moving to Argentina and adopting two cats and nobody will ever know anything about me again. I’m gonna name the cats Lana and Bey. For Lana del Rey and Beyoncé. And I’ll change my name to... Maria. No, too cliché. Valentina. That's better."
"Okay, Valentina, that’s a little too much. But, Argentina is in fact the most gorgeous country ever. The wine and the girls alone are worth the flight." the brunette muses, unbothered.
"Oh my god," you whisper, the reality crashing down harder than the headache. You shoot up to a sitting position, ignoring the vertigo. "I fucked it up with Abby, and now Ellie knows about the contract with Chris! And she broke up with Dina because of me! She literally ended a relationship and I didn't say anything! I just ran after Abby and left her standing there like an idiot!"
You rake your hands through your tangled hair, pulling at the roots.
"I mean, I'm still mad about the fact she kept the tapes, that is a violation of privacy and I stand by tha,t but she must fucking loathe me now! I left her alone right after she blew up her life for me!"
Rachel sighs, setting her mug down on the nightstand. The playful demeanor evaporates, replaced by the dark makeup user and lawyer who eats press conferences for breakfast.
"First of all, swallow the damn ibuprofen," she orders, pointing at the pill. You obey, swallowing it dry because you deserve the pain.
"Second," she continues, counting on her fingers. "Ellie knowing about the contract with Chris isn't the end of the world. It levels the playing field. She knows you aren't actually in love with him. That's dangerous, but it's also... leverage."
"It's not leverage, it's humiliating!" you argue. "She probably thinks I'm pathetic for faking a relationship and that I'm the worst person alive and—"
"She doesn't think you're pathetic, she knows how mean this industry can be," Rachel corrects. "And regarding the breakup... look. Did she tell you she broke up with Dina for you? Explicitly?"
"YES!" you exclaim, flopping back down. "She said and I quote ‘we broke up because I looked her in the eye and I told her I still love you!’ And then I just... I panicked. I saw Abby leave, and I felt guilty, and I ran. I literally ran away from the girl I've been pining over for MORE than a decade."
"Let's just say… this entire situation is the biggest mess I've ever heard of, I mean, even I wouldn't know what to do in your place" she says, her voice softening. "But yes, leaving Ellie standing there in the middle of a rooftop party while she was probably waiting for a grand romantic gesture? That was... suboptimal."
"Suboptimal," you repeat deadpan. "I’m gonna vomit."
"Don't you dare!” Rachel warns, pointing a finger at you as she stands up, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her trousers. “These sheets are a hundred percent silk!"
"Rachel what am I supposed to do..." you whimper, rolling onto your side and curling into a ball of regret. You ignore her threat, your mind stuck on a loop of the previous night. You can still see Ellie’s face—the way her jaw went slack, the way those green eyes, usually so devoid, looked completely broken and glassy. "I fucked it all the way up. I left her there. She finally chose me, in her own twisted way, and I ran."
The older woman sighs, the sound pitiful. She sits back down on the edge of the bed, her hand resting briefly on your shoulder.
"Honey, look at me. You didn't fuck it all up," she says, her voice dropping the sarcasm for a rare moment of sincerity. "The whole party was a bomb, and it blew. But you are both adults. Ellie will understand. Or maybe she won't. It’s messy, but it’s not fatal. I swear."
"How am I supposed to even look at her now?" you whisper, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes until you see white spots. You’re too deep inside your own head, drowning in emotional distress to fully accept her logic. "I still have to see her on set. The filming isn't even over. I can’t just walk in there and pretend I didn't shatter her heart on a rooftop in West Hollywood."
Rachel checks her Rolex, a grimace flickering across her face. She bites the inside of her cheek, weighing her next words carefully.
"Well... funny you mentioned the set…" she starts, her tone shifting into brisk and professional. "Steven called about twenty minutes ago while you were drooling on my pillow."
You lower your hands, peering at her suspiciously through one eye. "Why?"
"Production update…" she explains, "They’re moving the location for the finale because they want real snow. You’re going to Aspen."
"ASPEN?!"
"Yes, Aspen…" She pauses, a knowing look in her eyes. "To film the emotional climax of the movie where Grace and Andy are trapped together in the snow…"
The blood drains from your face.
"And," Rachel adds, checking her watch again, "you have to be at the hangar in... oh, about three hours."
For some seconds, there is silence in the room.
Then, you grab the pillow, slam it over your face, and let out a scream so high pitched it probably made Mariah Carey herself jealous.
𝐓he smell of burnt butter and caramelized blueberries fills Ellie’s place. Making pancakes as breakfast for her was supposed to be a form of peace offering, or at least, a kind of sweet glue for her heart after all the disaster that went down. A domestic embrace to pull her out of her inevitable crash out.
In the warmed lit kitchen, Chris and Jesse move in tandem. Chris, wearing an apron that looked comically small in his broad frame, flips a stack of pancakes onto a ceramic plate with a flourish that suggests practice. Cooking had always been one of his secret passions. Jesse, in the meanwhile, arranges a tray: fresh orange juice, a single rose he had stolen from the vase in the hallway, and some pieces of bacon.
“Do you think she’s awake?” the blonde man asks, keeping his voice low in the fear of waking his new made friend out.
“I haven’t heard a sound” Jesse mutters, placing the silverware on the tray. “Which is probably worse. Silence usually means she's either plotting a murder or her own ending.”
“Let’s go with the pancakes first.”
They walk down the hallway, the hardwood floors cool beneath their socks. They try to be as quiet as they can, but as they approach the master bedroom, the silence Jesse had feared was violently replaced. It started as a low sound, the little riff of a guitar, and then, as they got closer to the heavy oak door, it clarified into the wailing scream of a guitar solo.
Purple Rain.
Jesse stops in his tracks, “Oh no…”
“Is that… Prince?” Chris asks, tilting his head.
“It’s the final boss of heartbreak anthems.” the brunette whispers, a look of genuine terror crossing his features. “We’re code red.”
He then doesn’t knock, because he knows it would go unheard over the maximum volume of the music. He simply pushes the door open, nudging it with his shoulder, and the two men step into the cave of Ellie’s grief.
The room was a tomb of darkness. The blackout curtains were drawn so tight not a single ray of the Californian sun dared to enter, and the air was thick, smelling of stale perfume, whiskey, and the salty tang of tears.
And in the center of the king sized bed, is Ellie.
Sitting upright, looking like the survivor of a natural disaster. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that had even more years than the years you and her had been together, her hair a bird’s nest of knots. Her face in ruins, eyes swollen, nose red, and cheeks stained with the dried tracks of tears.
She didn’t even look at them when they entered. She was in a trance, swaying back and forth, clutching a pillow on her chest.
“...Ellie?” Jesse tried, raising his voice.
She took a ragged, shuddering breath, her chest hitching, and then as Prince’s voice soared into the falsetto, she joined him.
“I ONLY WANT TO SEE YOU LAUGHING IN THE PURPLE RAINNNNN”
It wasn't a smooth rasping alto, it was more like the sound of a fifteen year old girl who has just had her heart broken for the first time.
“PURPLE RAIN… PURPLE RAIN…” she sobs, squeezing her eyes shut, fresh tears leaking out to join the old mascara from last night’s disaster.
She throws her head back. Addressing the ceiling, addressing the universe, addressing the ghost of the woman who had run away from her in front of her eyes. She keeps singing, or at least tries to to keep up with the notes, collapsing forward onto the pillow with a groan that sounded like a dying animal.
Chris stands frozen in the doorway, the tray of pancakes also frozen in his hands at the dramatic scene. He then looks at Jesse, “I don't think pancakes are gonna fix this.”
Jesse sighs, the sound of a man who had been through this war before. He walks over the nightstand, navigating through the water bottles and tissues, and turns the volume down on the phone.
The silence is deafening. She sniffles, a wet sound, and finally cracks an eye open. She glares at him with a death stare.
“I was listening to that.”
“You were screaming, El.” He corrects gently, sitting at the edge of the bed “And Prince doesn’t deserve that.”
“I hate everything.” the auburn haired mumbles, burying her face back into the pillow. “I hate the sun. I hate parties. I hate rooftops.” She pauses, a fresh sob bubbling up in her throat. “And I hate her.”
Chris steps forward cautiously, offering her the tray after faking to be the boyfriend of the woman she has been in love with for years—like it could fix anything. “We made you blueberry pancakes…”
Ellie lifts her head just enough to look at the food and for a second, the smell seems to reach her, batting the misery. But then the memory of the night before —of your back turning away, of the emptiness of the space beside her— crashes back in.
“I’m not hungry" she whispers, her lip trembling. She grabs her phone again, her thumb hovering over the ‘Restart’ button on the song. “I just wanna rot. Can you guys just leave me alone? It’s better for everyone.”
“No rotting,” Jesse says firmly, taking the phone out of her hand and sliding it into his pocket. “And no more Prince until you eat the last piece of pancake. You have a flight to catch in three hours.”
Ellie stares at him, her eyes glassy and confused. “A flight?”
“Aspen,” Chris supplies unhelpfully. “Rachel just called, Steven wants real snow for the final shots of the movie.”
Her face crumbles as she lets out a long, high pitched scream, pulling out the duvet over her head until she is completely submerged, a lump under the covers.
“I’m calling in dead” her muffled voice comes through the thick feathers. “Tell Steven to fuck off. And tell her… tell her I hope she has a nice life…”
From under the covers, her hand snakes out, blindingly patting the mattress until it finds the remote control for the stereo system on the wall. She clicks a button.
I never meant to cause you any sorrow…
Jesse looks at Chris, shaking his head
“Put the pancakes down. This is gonna take a while.”
𝐀s soon as you get off the jet—after two hours and a half of reflecting on your entire life choices looking at the window—you know this is going to be trouble. The wind in Aspen bites, a predatory chill that snaps your exposed skin with icy teeth. The cold takes you by surprise, a shock to the system that has nothing to do with temperature but everything to do with the fact that you have left the smog warm of Los Angeles.
The mountains rise beautifully around the tarmac, indifferent, covered in pristine snow that reflects the grey sky. The landscape triggers a memory, a vacation two years ago, or a lifetime ago. You remember the press photos, the curated smile and the way Chris held you on the slopes. You were the “perfect couple” skiing in the most photogenic place in the states, dressed in designer clothes and lies.
But now, there is no Chris to save you. You are shivering in a coat that isn’t thick enough, standing on the tarmac with a horrible hangover and a thousand unresolved issues.
You slide into the back of the waiting limousine outside, and the leather is cool against your legs. The car is new, the scent of it mixes with the lingering nausea in your stomach. As the driver navigates the winding roads towards the hotel, you watch the world blur past the tinted glass. The pines are heavy with snow, the world is monochromatic. An unforgiving canvas compared to the neon chaos of the prior night.
The silence in the car is louder than the music at the party ever was. Your thoughts are unforgiving—Ellie’s words, Rachel’s warnings, Abby’s upset look, and your own cowardice— echo endlessly.
The car pulls up to the location, a sprawling timber of a hotel nestled deep in the valley. It screams old money and power, illuminated by golden lights that make the snow sparkle brighter. You step out, your boots crunching on the icy ground.
Steven is awaiting you near the entrance, bundled in a thick parka that makes him look like a lost child, though his eyes are blue and piercing. He isn't alone —assistants scurry around him with clipboards and walkie-talkies— but Ellie is nowhere to be seen. The absence of her is a physical space, and you don't know if you feel relieved, or even more afraid.
“Hi! You made it!” Steven calls out, his breath pluming in the frigid air. He walks over, looking apologetically enthusiastic.
He scans your face, likely noticing the dark circles and the tired bloodshot eyes, but he categorizes it as ‘dramatic moodiness’’ rather than ‘hungover regret’.
“I’m sorry for changing everything so quickly,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the majestic frozen landscape behind him. “But look at this! We needed it. We wanted real snow for the shots and a genuine atmosphere, we couldn’t replicate this on a soundstage.”
“I understand, no problem.” You respond, even though you are not entirely happy with his rushed decisions. You needed at least three business days to rot in Rachel’s place.
He claps a gloved hand on your shoulder, steering you towards the massive double doors of the lodge.
“Ellie isn’t on set yet, she’s flying in a bit later,” he adds, oblivious to the way your heart stutters at her name. “And we’re losing the light fast, so we’re scrubbing the schedule for today. Go check in, get warm. You can spend the night in the hotel, and we start first thing tomorrow when the sun hits the ridge.”
“Perfect, then.” You mutter, watching as the hotel employee takes your luggage up.
Steven slides the key card into your palm, the sliver of plastic feeling heavier than it should, a passport to solitary confinement. You mutter a thank you that gets lost in the wind, turn away and navigate the labyrinth of the lodge until you find the door that matches the number in your hand.
The lock clicks, and you push inside.
The hotel room is luxurious, designed to make you forget the world, yet all it does is remind you more of the space you are currently occupying alone. It smells of pine and expensive linen. A gas fireplace flickers in the corner, a hollow imitation of warmth, casting dancing shadows against the white walls. But it is the bed that dominates the space, a massive king sized expanse of white duvet.
You don’t bother to take out your boots or your coat. You simply let gravity win the war against you, body collapsing onto the mattress with the grace of a felled tree.
Outside the floor to ceiling windows, the day is surrendering. the sun, having lost its battle with the horizon, bleeds out over the mountains. It paints the snow peaks in bruised shades of violet and orange—the alpenglow, they call it. It is breathtaking, and it makes you want to tear your skin off.
You stare at the ceiling, tracing the grain of the wood. The silence of the room is aggressive, and in the absence of noise and people, your mind is forced to replay the highlights of your own self destruction.
You see Ellie’s hand tightening in her glass. You see the hope that had flickered in her eyes when she looked at you, and you watch yourself extinguish it with your back turned, going after Abby. All of these memories meld together like watercolors of sorrow and regret.
You think about where she is right now. Is she in the air? Is she suspended somewhere between the smog of LA and the chill of Aspen, looking out a window at the same dying sun, hating you?
The thought generates a physical constriction in your throat. Your eyes start to water with the stinging leak of genuine remorse. The tears slide sideways across your temples, disappearing into your headline, cold and hot at the same time.
You pull the pillow closer, inhaling deeply, hoping for a scent that isn't there. It smells like bleach, not like her.
Nothing will ever compare to her.
You don't really notice when night settles over the room, because you are still lying on top of the pristine duvet, fully dressed in your winter coat and heavy boots, a visual testament of your refusal to actually arrive. You are hovering in the limbo between exhaustion and consciousness, your mind a static loop. You are about to fall asleep —or perhaps pass out— driven by the sheer weight of your emotions.
Then, the silence shatters. An electronic sound of the key card is followed by the heavy groan of the door swinging.
The hallway light floods in, a yellow wedge that cuts across the darkness and hits you right in the face. You squint, your heart hammering in sudden surprise against your ribs, and you lift your head from the pillow, disoriented and defensive.
And there she is.
Ellie, standing in the doorway, her hand gripping the handle of her rolling suitcase.
She looks like a ghost, like a memory given mass, pulse and temperature. Her auburn hair is pulled back in that particular Ellie half-up, the rest of it falling in loose, wind tousled waves over the collar of her coat. The cold outside has bitten her cheeks, flushing them pink and making her freckles stand out in high definition against her pale skin.
But it’s her eyes that gut you. They are wide, startled, and devastatingly sad. They hold the same bruised look she wore years ago when you drifted apart, during that brutal winter in the city when you were young and broke, living in an apartment where the only heat came from huddling together. She looks exactly like she did then—innocent, tired, and beautiful in a way that hurts to look at.
You hadn't expected to see her, at least not tonight. Not on this side of the door where you have no script, no director, and no defense mechanism.
You stare at each other, paralyzed. The air between you crackles, thick with a million unsaid things, the years of silence, and the jarring intimacy of this collision.
“Hi,” she breathes, the word barely more than an exhale of vapor. She blinks rapidly, as if trying to clear a hallucination.
“Hi, Ellie,” you croak, your voice rough with disuse. You don't make a move to get up as you feel glued to the mattress, absurd in your boots and coat.
She stands there for an agonizing second, her gaze darting from your boots to your face, and then to the rest of the room. Confusion knits her eyebrows together. She takes a half step back, looking at the number on the plaque of the door, then down at the key card in her hand.
“I think I…” she trails off, her voice shaking. “I think I got the wrong room. I’m sorry, I just—”
She checks the card again, tilting it toward the hallway light. Then she checks the door, her shoulders slump, a physical defeat.
“Oh,” she whispers, the realization landing with a thud. “It is this one.”
She looks back at you, her expression shifting from confusion to a weary sort of resignation.
“They gave us the same room.”
You slowly sit up, propping yourself on your elbows. Looking around the cavernous suite, your eyes land on the singular, massive piece of furniture you are currently occupying.
“Yeah,” you say, the word feeling inadequate. “And there’s only one bed.”
Ellie follows your gaze to the king sized mattress. She lets out a sound that is half laugh, half choke—a bitter noise that scrapes against the timber walls.
“Classic Steven,” she shakes her head. “He probably thinks this is ‘method’”
She finally steps fully into the room, letting the door click shut behind her, sealing you both in. The tension is palpable, a third entity in the room, coiled and ready to strike. Neither of you take off your coats, feeling like two strangers with a lifetime of history trapped in a luxury box with one bed and nowhere left to run.
“I can… I can go sleep in the bathtub,” you offer weakly.
“Don’t be dumb.” She snaps, no heat in it. She leans back against the door, closing those sad green eyes for a moment. “It’s big enough. We’ve shared smaller.”
We’ve shared smaller. The reminder hangs in the air. You had shared a twin mattress on the floor of a walk-up for two years. You had shared a life.
“Right…” you whisper. “Right.”
Ellie sighs, and the sound is the only thing moving in the room, an exhalation of fatigue that seems to settle in the corners. She reaches for the buttons of her coat, her fingers fumbling with the wool loops. The heavy garment slides off her shoulders, dropping onto the armchair with a rustle.
Neither of you has the courage to look at each other. Her, out of sorrow. You, out of shame. You just stare at the pattern of the duvet, tracing the stitches with your eyes to avoid making eye contact with the reality of her existence.
“It’s really cold,” she murmurs. It's a statement of fact, but it feels more like an accusation aimed at you. Despite the fireplace the chill coming off her is what is actually freezing you. The room is actually cold, thought.
“Yeah,” you murmur. “It is.”
She walks towards the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight as she sits on the edge, mirroring your position on the opposite side. The vast expanse of the bed feels suddenly microscopic.
Without a word, without a signal, you both move at the same time.
You sit up to swing your legs over the side, she bends down. You reach for your laces, she grabs the heel of her boot.
It happens in a blur of muscle memory that bypasses the brain entirely. A synchronization forged in the cramped quarters of a shared life years ago, where space was so limited you had to move as one organism just to exist. You tug your left boot off; she tugs her left boot off. You drop it. She drops hers.
Then the right. You lean, she leans. You pull, she pulls.
The boots hit the carpet in perfect unison, a rhythmic measure that echoes in the silence. It is frighteningly domestic. Almost a coordinated dance, a choreography that you never stopped doing, even after years of dancing with other people. Your bodies still remember how to be a pair, even if your hearts are currently at war.
For a second the realization of it hangs in the breeze, a ghost of the couple you used to be. You can feel her pause, her breath hitching in her chest, acknowledging the accidental harmony.
But the moment shatters as quickly as it formed. Panic flares—the fear of intimacy, the fear of the memories. She scrambles back, retreating towards her side of the headboard. You mirror her, recoiling as if the mattress had burned you.
You both lay down, turning on your sides. You face the window and the dark mountains. You feel the mattress shift as she turns on her side, facing the door.
Your backs are to each other. Almost a foot of space between your spines, a “no man’s land” of white linen. But even without touching, you can feel her. You can feel the rhythm of her breathing, jagged and uneven. You are close, yet you feel so apart.
The silence is suffocating, colder than the Aspen wind howling outside, pressing down your chest and crushing your lungs until every breath is a labor. You can’t handle it anymore. You can’t handle the proximity of her body, feeling her across the inches that separate you, mocking you with the memory of what felt to be held by her.
You have been carrying a graveyard in your heart for six years, the weight like metal in your heart, heavy and aching. You can’t handle having the love of your life by your side and not be able to talk to her, touch her, love her like you want to.
You can’t handle this war anymore.
So you choose to finally surrender.
“Ellie, I’m sorry.”
You whisper into the darkness. Ellie doesn’t respond or even move, and for a terrifying moment, you think she might be asleep—or worse, pretending that you don’t exist. But you can feel the tension in her spine, the rigid line of bone facing yours. She is listening.
You didn’t even mean to keep talking, but your heart has hijacked your throat. Your brain has no say in the history of this love.
“I’m sorry,” you repeat, your voice cracking under the strain. “I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry for what happened at the party…for leaving you there. I swear, she doesn’t mean anything. But I’m not only sorry for that.”
You squeeze your eyes shut, the tears spilling over, tracking across the bridge of your nose and soaking the pillowcase.
“I’m sorry for all these years that we’ve spent apart. I’m sorry that I didn’t keep my promise of seeing you again. I swore I would, and I didn’t. I kept you waiting, and… and I let the silence grow and grow until it was a wall I didn’t know how to climb over.”
You take a ragged breath, the confession clawing its way out your throat.
“I’m sorry that all these years I’ve been with Chris, lying to the press, lying to the world, and lying to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you anything about it. I’m sorry for not talking, not texting, not calling you even when I had my phone in my hand and your contact every single night. I wanted to. God, Ellie, I always wanted to. But I was so scared that you hated me now.”
The tears are falling faster now, a silent ugly crying that shakes your insides. You curl into yourself, but you still don’t turn around. You are too scared to face her, the fear of seeing what her reaction could be. If maybe it's rejection, or if she can't forgive you after everything. You stay facing the window, speaking to the glass, to the moon, to the mountains, to the ghost of the woman you love.
“I’m just so sorry, Ellie. The truth is… I am so lost. I haven’t been me since I was with you.”
The admission is absolute and devastating.
“Trough all of this—the movies, the magazines, the press and the commercials— the only time i was happy with myself, the only time I was really myself, was when I was with you. When I was just a kid. When I didn’t go to LA and had any roles and nobody told me to change everything about me.”
You choke on a sob, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as if that could help muffle the sounds, but the words push through your fingers like a waterfall of things you never had the strength to face.
“All of these years, I’ve been trying to fulfill this dream. I tried to do it without you, to be strong, to be the person the cameras wanted, to look for happiness in money and fame and other people. But the truth is, I’ve never been happy. I am not happy. I haven’t been happy since the day I left our apartment.”
You stare at the moonlight on the floor, the silver light blurred from your tears.
“It doesn't mean anything,” you whisper, “I could have all the riches in the world, but when I come home… you're not there. I’m alone. There’s nobody I love. And the only thing I've been wanting all these years —the only thing— is for you to be there like you used to be.”
“I understand if you can’t forgive me, or if you hate me, or if you don’t love me anymore.” you continue, “Honestly, I get it. Because the way I've treated you, and the way I've treated myself… It's something I’ll never be able to take back. I wish I could, but I can't take back time.”
You pull the duvet tighter around your chin, your body shaking with the force of the release, shivering in the cold room.
“But the only thing I can tell you… the only thing that is true… is that I miss you Ellie. I miss you every day.”
You stop, your heart laid open and bleeding in the pristine white sheet. You wait in the darkness, your back to hers, terrified that you have just spoken your final goodbye.
Until the mattress dips behind you, not away, but towards you.
Before your brain can process the movement, the space between you disappears. A sudden and overwhelming warmth presses against your back. An arm lays around your waist, desperate and tight, pulling you flush against a body that is shaking just as much as yours.
Ellie buries her face in the crook of your neck, her heartbeat against your skin. She holds you like you are the only thing that's solid in a world that is dissolving.
“I don’t care,” she chokes out, holding you fast against her as if she’s afraid you’ll vanish if she lets go, “I don’t care about anything else.”
Her voice is a vibration against your spine, muffled by your hair.
“I don’t care that you have dated Chris, or whatever that was,” she sobs, the words tumbling in a flood just as strong as yours. “I don’t care that you were with… with her. I don’t care about what happened—I don’t care.”
She tightens her grip, her fingers digging into the fabric of your shirt, anchoring herself to you.
“I’m the one who should be sorry” She cries, and the sound breaks your heart all over again, “I was the one who pulled away first, and i’m the one who also never called or texted, even when I’ve always wanted to… even when I rewatched our tapes all the time.”
Her confession also hangs, shameful and tender.
“I’m so sorry I kept them,” she whispers, “And I’m sorry that led to…t o everything that happened. This months have been hell and torture and neither of us deserved that. But it was my fault because I kept them—but I couldn't.”
“I couldn’t” she repeats, her voice cracking, “I couldn't do that because I couldn’t erase that last part of you. And I… I miss you so much too.”
She presses her forehead against the back of your head.
“I’ve tried to move on. I tried it with Dina, I tried to do movies, I won awards and none of that worked—and nothing will ever work because the only thing I want is you.”
“We’ve been running around,” Ellie continues, the realization striking her as if lightning, “We’ve been denying our feelings, being so mean to each other when the only thing we want… is each other.”
She takes a deep breath, pulling you even closer, eliminating every millimeter of air between your bodies.
“I’ll go back to that fucking apartment with the mattress on the floor if it means I can be with you,” she vows, her voice fierce and broken at the same time. “You’re the only thing I want.”
You turn in the tangle of sheets, the movement desperate, until you finally face her. The silence of the room has been replaced by the ragged rhythm of your shared breathing.
It feels like fever, burning your insides. You look at her in the moonlight, her forest green eyes red-rimmed and swollen, her eyelashes spiked with tears, her pink lips trembling. She is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.
“I love you, Ellie,” you breathe out, the declaration tearing from your lips like a jagged stone you're finally allowed to spit out. “I’ve never stopped loving you. I just want to be with you.”
You reach out, hand trembling as you cup her freckled cheek, your thumb softly brushing away a fresh tear that tracks through the salt already drying on her skin. “I don’t care about anything else in the world. If I don’t have you, I have nothing.”
“I love you.” Ellie whispers, the words barely escaping before her composure demolishes.
And then, gravity collapses.
It is a crash. A violent, starving crash of lips. Your mouth finds hers with a desperation that borders on pain, a frantic attempt to consume and be consumed. It is the kiss of two people who have been drowning for six years and have finally broken the surface.
A war and a peace treaty all at once. Sloppy, wet with tears. Tastes of salt and the metallic tang of adrenaline. Her hands tangle in your hair, gripping your scalp with strength that aches, pulling you closer until there's no space left for the past to exist between you.
A cataclysm of lust in its rawest form—a hunger that has been starved into madness. You devour her sighs, her whimpers, the little noise of relief that vibrates in her throat and that you remember too well. You kiss the corner of her mouth, her bottom lip, the paths of tears in her cheek, and then back to her mouth, deeper, harder.
You can feel her heart hammering against your chest, a bird beating against its cage, matching with yours. The cold of the Aspen night is obliterated, replaced by a friction so intense it feels like you are both catching fire.
“Ellie,” you gasp into her mouth, the name a prayer and a curse all at once.
She swallows the sound, taking the invitation to meet your tongue with hers, tangible, warm, but most importantly, real.
The kind of kiss that rewrites the future awaiting. That erases the contract with Chris, burns the tapes, erases Dina and Abby and silences the press. In this dark room, there is only the wet heat of her lips and the desperate cling of her hands. It unspools your soul and knits it back together with hers.
You are crying, she is crying, and you are kissing through the sobbing, unable to stop or pull away, because to separate now would mean to die. You kiss like it is the last thing you will ever do, and the first thing you have ever truly done.
The need to feel her skin is a violence in your blood. Your hands are everywhere, clumsy with desperation, fumbling with the hem of her sweater. She is doing the same to you, her fingers hooking into the bottom of your long-sleeved thermal shirt.
“Take it off,” she gasps against your mouth, a command that is a plea. “I need to see you. God, please, take it off.”
You pull away just enough to obey. You yank the shirt over your head, the fabric catching briefly before you discard it onto the floor, not caring where it lands.
The cold air of the room hits your torso, but you don’t feel it. You only feel the heat of her gaze.
Ellie’s hands hover over you, trembling.
In the wash of the Aspen moonlight, you are a map she no longer knows by heart. Six years is a lifetime in the geography of a body. She stares at the changes, at new scars and new tattoos that she has never touched, stories she had never heard, pain she wasn't there to soothe.
But there’s the ink that will always remain. Her fingertips graze You have bewitched me, body and soul. Her touch is feather-light.
“I missed this,” She whispers, “I missed all of this.”
Then, her eyes travel up. She looks at your breasts, rising and falling with your fast breathing. She notices the shift, the way womanhood and Hollywood have settled into your frame, changing the softness of your younger self into the curvature of twenty-six.
She reaches out, her palms cupping them, her thumbs brushing the supple skin with a tenderness that makes your insides melt.
“You look…” she shakes her head, tears spilling all over again, catching the silver. “You look so different… so beautiful.”
“I had to,” you choke out, your hand landing on her shoulders, gripping her to keep from falling.
“But I’m here now.”
She kisses your chest, a hot and wet brand right over your heart, and then her hands move lower. It is unbearable. You need more, you need less fabric and more Ellie.
You fumble with the button of her jeans, she helps you. Her hands shake as she shimmies out of them. She attacks your waistband, shoving your pants down, kicking them away until they join the pile of discarded clothing. She hooks her fingers in the clasp of your bra, letting it fall from your shoulders. You shimmy down your panties. Everything happens in less than a minute.
You straddle her completely, utterly bare.
The moonlight pours through the window, turning your skins into marble. You are exposed, vulnerable, stripped of every defense you built since the day you last saw her. But you have never, ever felt so safe.
Ellie looks at you like you're the only source of light in the universe, her gaze feels physical, a caress that slides from your neck to your navel, drinking you in.
“God,” she trembles as she speaks, “I can't believe you're real.”
“I’m real,” you whisper, getting closer, your thighs brushing hers. “Touch me, Ellie. Prove I’m real.”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat—a whimper of pure, unfiltered want.
This is not the tentative exploration of teenagers anymore. This is the starving primal demand of two grown women who have denied themselves for half a decade. You push her back against the pillows, your hands roaming her body, reclaiming every inch. You strip her down until she matches you, skin against skin.
You run your hands down her sides to feel the solid reality of her freckled hipbones, the softness of the pale skin of her toned stomach.
“You’re the love of my life,” you tell her, the world dripping with sweat, tears and romance hovering over her face. “You hear me? There’s no one else. There never was.”
She tangles her fingers in your hair, pulling your face down to hers.
“You’re the love of my life.” she sobs, kissing your jaw, your neck, your collarbone. “I’ve tried so hard to hate you, but I only ever loved you.”
The feeling is suffocating. It is lust, yes—thick and heavy and dripping—but it is also pain. It is the mourning of lost time being burned away by the heat of the present.
“Make me forget,” you beg, your hips arching to meet hers, seeking peace, “make me forget everything but this.”
“I will.” she promises, her mouthing finding yours, sealing the vow in breath.
The shift is sudden, a collapse of gravity that pulls you back against the mattress, the white duvet rising up like a cloud around you as you lay down. Ellie moves with a single-minded focus, sliding down the length of your body, leaving kisses behind, her hands mapping the curve of your waist, your hips, her touch leaving trails of fire on your skin.
She hooks your legs over her shoulders, pinning you open to the cold air and her burning gaze.
When her mouth finally finds your center, the sensation is a shockwave that arches your back. It isn’t like those times you remembered all too well, when you were both young and inexperienced. Ellie is grown now. And she has become a woman who has been denied water for years finally reaching the river.
She consumes you with a ferocity that borders on animalistic. Her mouth moving in an open mouthed kiss, her tongue flickering on your clit relentlessly. There is a desperate intensity to it, a hunger that says this is the last meal she will ever have, and she intends to savor every tremor she wrings from your body.
“Jesus! Ellie!,” You hands fly to her hair, gripping the dark strands, your knuckles turning white. A loud moan tears from your throat, echoing off the walls, loud and uninhibited.
This. This is what you were thinking about for years. This is what you were thinking about when you were intimate with other people. This is what you were thinking about during the sex scene of the movie. You remember the set, the cameras zooming in, Janet the intimacy coordinator watching like a hawk, the way you couldn't fake the passion while your heart was breaking because you couldn't actually touch her. You couldn't have this.
But here? There’s no Steven shouting directions, no lighting crew adjusting the shadows and the lights, there is no “Cut!” waiting to sever the connection. There’s no script to follow, no lines to memorize. This is unscripted.
There is no Dina waiting at home, there’s no Chris posing on the red carpet with you, there is no Abby, no Rachel, no Erin. No one else but you and her. As it was always, always supposed to be.
There 's only this. The heat of her mouth, the friction, the absolute and crushing reality of her devotion. The real intimacy that has been ruining both your lives. The truth dragged out into the moonlight.
The pleasure builds, sharp and blinding, unlike anything you have ever felt in your fucking life. It obliterates the room, it vanishes the mountains, the hotel. The only thing that exists is the pressure of her lips sucking on you, the rhythms of her tongue, the way she hums and moans against your skin like she's the one that is getting the most pleasure out of it—vibrations that travel straight to your marrow.
“Ellie,” you cry out, the name fracturing, “Oh god!”
She chases your release without stopping or breathing, like it's the only thing that will save her soul. She memorizes you with her tongue, reclaiming what she lost, proving that despite the time and the distance and the silence, you still belong only to her.
You look down through the haze of bliss and see her there. The sight of it, her hair fanned out over your thighs, the moonlight catching the movement of her shoulders, pushes you over the edge.
Your eyes roll back. You see stars. Maybe even the whole universe. White hot bursts of light behind your eyelids as your body seizes, shuddering through a climax that feels like death and rebirth all at once. You are shaking, unraveling, completely undone in the darkness and anchored to the earth only by the woman who loves you.
For a second, panic sets in. It feels too good, too perfect. Your hand flies to your forearm and you pinch your skin hard. A sharp sting of pain registers.
It 's real. She is real
She is relentless, even after she knows you have reached climax. She doesn't want to let go. Her hands grip your thighs when you try to escape, bruising, working you open. You can hear through the waves of overstimulation a guttural vibration against your center.
“You’re mine,” she murmurs, the words wet and possessive, “You hear me? You will always be mine.”
“Fuck! Yes, yes!” you struggle to talk, your throat feeling closed.
It breaks you. The realization crashes even harder than the pleasure. This is the summit. You could lose everything tomorrow, could lose the contract, the penthouse in the hills, the millions in the bank. You could be destitute, living in a cardboard box, and as long as you had this moment, as long as you had the weight of her head between your legs and the fierce devotion of her mouth, you would be the richest person on earth.
Nothing else matters. Fame is fake noise. This is real.
Just when you’re about to scream caused by a second release, when you are trembling on the pinnacle, she shifts. She doesn't stop, but she adds to the fire, her fingers slip inside you, curling in a motion that hits a spot so deep it feels like she's touching your soul.
“Please, please," you sob, tossing your head back, heels digging into the mattress.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers, her pace quickening, matching the frantic rhythm of your hips, “Let go, baby. Let it go. I want everything”
And you give her everything, the climax a catastrophic failure of every single wall you’ve ever built. It’s not just the climax, it's the release of grief. You come so hard you see white, a blinding lighting. You cry out a broken sound, and your body seizes violently, releasing a flood that soaks her hand, soaks the sheets, a weeping that leaves you completely empty and filled all at once.
You push yourself up your elbows, your limbs feeling like jelly, to look at her.
Ellie pulls back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, breathless. She looks glorious. Her hair is a chaotic halo around her face, her lips are swollen and red, her skin flushed with the same heat that is burning you. Her eyes are dark, blown wide, shining with a mixture of lust and absolute adoration.
It is the most beautiful face you have ever seen. It is the face of your past, your present, and your future.
“Hi,” she whispers, a triumphant smile playing on her lips.
“Hi,” you breathe back, dazed.
You can't be apart for even a second. You reach for her, pulling her up the lengths of your body until you're face to face. You kiss her, tasting yourself on her lips, a seal that binds you together.
“I need to be closer,” you demand against her lips.
You reach down, your hands shaking, and hook your thumbs into the waistband of her boxers. You shove them down, kicking them away until there is nothing left but her naked center, and the auburn bush that you loved so much. She moves with you, understanding the need before you even voice it. She settles between your thighs, one leg interlocking with yours.
Then, she presses forward. The contact is electric. Wetness against wetness, heat against heat, swollen anatomy grinding against swollen anatomy. It is the most intimate friction in the world. You wrap your legs around her waist, locking her in, and you start to move togehter—a slow, grinding pulse that isn't about the finish line anymore, but about existing in the same space, fused together, scissoring your bodies until you can't tell where you end and she begins.
You pull her closer, your legs intertwining with hers, locking your ankles behind her knees to trap her against you. When you press your hips forward, the sensation is blinding. A collision of weeping flesh so perfect and agonizingly right, that sobs rip themselves from both your throats.
The best sensation of your entire lives, dethroning the first one. Nothing, absolutely nothing will ever compare. No award, no applause, no touch from another human being has ever come close to the soul shattering relief of having Ellie’s body grinding against yours.
“Oh my god,” you gasp, your head falling back into the pillows, your eyes rolling back, “Ellie, Ellie.”
She buries her face in the crook of your neck, her nose brushing against your pulse point, and lets out a sound that unmakes you. A desperate whine—a keen of pure bliss, unadulterated need. A sonic testament to how much she missed this, how much she missed you.
“I know,” she cries against your throat, her hips snapping forward to meet yours, seeking more contact. “I know, I know, I know.”
It sends each and every one of your nerve endings on fire. You can feel every centimeter of her, the heat of her center, the slide of her clitoris against you, a tactical spark that sends thunder straight to your spine.
It feels cinematic, but better. Cinema is pretending, this moment isn't choreographed. This is an authentic, material culmination of looking across her in rooms without being able to touch. Now, you are making up for every lost second.
You grab her face, forcing her to look at you, needing to see the pleasure wrecking her as you grind harder against her. Her eyes are glazed, deep olive pools of want, her mouth open in a silent scream of ecstasy.
“Look at us,” you pant, biting her bottom lip, tasting the salt of her sweat. “We’re finally here. It's just us.”
“It’s only you,” she moans, her hands gripping your shoulders, her nails digging into your skin to hold in the storm. “It’s always been you.”
The crescendo building is dangerous. Too intense, maddening. Your bodies arch off the mattress in unison. You are weeping with it, tears streaming down your face, mixing with the sweat, with the saliva as you kiss her again—deep, tongue heavy kisses that taste like iron and eternity.
You can feel her tremble, her muscles coiling and releasing. She is whining louder now, chasing the edge.
“Don’t stop,” she begs, her hips stuttering. “Please, please, don’t stop, I’m close, I’m so close.”
“I’ve got you,” you promise, wrapping your arms tighter around her, fusing your chest to hers. “I’m right here.”
And the world goes white once again. It starts with your toes and rips like a wildfire. You feel Ellie stiffen in your arms, a cry tearing from her as she shatters against you. Her orgasm triggers yours, your body convulsing, riding wave after wave of an ocean of pleasure you wish will never reach the shore.
You hold onto each other as the after shocks roll through you, hearts hammering in tandem against your shared tattooed ribs. You are tangled, sweaty, sticky, and exhausted, collapsed in a heat of white sheets and moonlight.
You will always remember this as the single greatest moments of your life. And as you lay there, you know no matter what happens tomorrow, you have already won.
The room slowly reassambles itself around you, piece by piece. The timber walls,the flickering gas fire, the indifferent moon—it all comes back into focus, but looking different now. It looks softer, bathed in a pinkish filter. The air in the room is still biting cold, but inside the fortress of the duvet, in the tangles, sweaty knot of your bodies, it is tropical.
You remain collapsed against each other, limbs heavy and boneless, woven together so thoughtfully that it’s impossible to detangle.
Ellie’s head rests on your chest, right over your heart, which is reluctantly returning to a normal rhythm. Her breathing is a warm gust against your collarbone. Her hand is splayed flat across your stomach, her fingers occasionally twitching, as if checking that you are still there.
It is a stunning afterglow. It feels like the calm after a natural disaster, when you walk out of the rubble and realize the sun is shining brighter than it ever was before. The tension that has held your shoulders for years has dissolved, leaving you as light as a feather, floating in the ozone of pure relief.
You stroke her hair, the strands sticking to her damp forehead. You trace the line of her spine, marveling at the reality of her here, now, in this bed.
For a long time, neither of you speaks. Words feel too little, or too big for the haze of the moment. You just breathe, just exist with each other, finally at peace.
Eventually, Ellie moves. She props herself in one elbow, wincing slightly as her muscles protest the sudden movement. She looks down at you, her hair a wild, beautiful disaster, a flushed map of satisfaction in her freckled chest.
She blinks, looking around the ravaged bed, then back at you.
“Wow,” she exhales, the word sounding punched out of her. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
You let out a breathy laugh, a sound that bubbles up from the bottom of your chest. You reach up to tuck a stray lock behind her ear.
“Yeah,” you smile, “I think the same.”
Ellie flops back down onto the pillow beside you, staring up at the high beams of the ceiling. She lets out a long, incredulous groan.
“We’re so ridiculous.” she states flatly.
“We are.” you agree, turning your head to look at her profile, her soft nose catching the pearly light.
“I mean, truly,” she continues, “We spent six years yearning, staring at walls, dating people we didn’t even like… just to end up in a bed. Sweating.”
“Efficency was never our strong suit,” you quip, grabbing her hand and interlacing your fingers with hers.
“Efficency?” she snorts, turning to face you, a playful glint returning to those green eyes after a long time of being taken away, “Babe, it’s like we drove off a cliff, swam through a swamp, and climbed a mountain barefoot just to get a glass of water.”
You laugh aloud, the sound ringing clear in the room. “Hey, the water was worth it, though.”
“The water was more than worth it. Excellent. Outstanding. Would do it all over again.” she conceded, grinning, before her expression changes into mock-annoyed. “But seriously, it took us a fucking while.”
“Better late than never?” you offer.
“If you say ‘good things come to those who wait’ I’ill kick you off the bed,” she warns, though she’s squeezing your hand tight.
“You wouldn’t dare,” you respond, rolling onto your side to face her, “But you have to admit… the tension added to the production value.”
Ellie rolls her eyes, but she leans in, pressing a soft peck to your lips. “Shut up. I’m never letting you leave this room. We’re living here now, we’ll order room service and bark at anyone who tries to come in. Even Steven.”
“Especially Steven.” you whisper against her lips.
“Especially Steven.” she agrees. “After all, he totally gave us the same room on purpose. I don’t know if I should thank him or punch him. Prolly both.”
You chuckle, the sound muffled by the thick feathers surrounding you. It's perfect in here, dark, warm, and smelling entirely of her and the aftermath of the last hour. But as the adrenaline fades, a new sensation creeps in. The stickiness. The reality that you are both coated in a layer of absolute exertion.
Ellie’s eyes glint, almost like she can read your mind.
“Although…” she starts, a playful lilt in her voice.
“Although?” you prompt, tracing the curve of her hip under the sheets.
“As much as I would love to ferment with you for the rest of eternity…” she pauses, running a hand down your damp arm. She bites her lip, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “I feel like we should follow this in the shower.”
You groan, a happy, exhausted sound, but the image of the steam, the hot water, and her naked body against yours is instant motivation. “Lead the way.”
“That’s why I love you,” She whispers, grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the bathroom. “Come on.”
𝐓he morning light spills in the room, pouring over the jagged rim of the mountains. It was like liquid gold, flooding everything with a brilliance that belonged only to the most holy of things.
Ellie wakes up from the sheer weight of silence, without an alarm or strange sound. She blinks, the crust of sleep falling away, and the first thing she sees is you.
You are sleeping in your stomach, the duvet kicked down to your hips, leaving the bare landscape of your back exposed to the light. The pale, winter sun paints you in strokes of ivory and blue. Dust motes dance in the shafts of light above you, crowning you as an angel on earth. Ellie stops breathing for a moment, afraid that her lungs might disturb the painting in front of her.
She traces the line of your spine with her eyes, from the nape of your neck down to the dimples of your lower back. It is a sight for sore eyes, one she thought she had lost, a territory she had been exiled from. Seeing you unguarded, naked, bathed in the glow, feels less like waking up in a hotel room and more like the after life.
If I died, she thinks, a clarity that is suddenly washing over her, this is what heaven would look like.
For minutes that could have been hours, she thought about a life with you. Away from the flashing bulbs, away from the contract that ties you to a version of yourself you hate, away from the expectations of strangers, and the filming that is just an hour away of happening. She thinks about waking up like this for the rest of her days, about admiring the rise and fall of your ribs, the smell of your skin, sweeter than the expensive cedar that surrounds her.
She thinks about the last years, the hollow awards, the forced smiles on red carpets, the sleepless night spent staring at the ceiling next to bodies that were warm but weren't right. It was torture, slow, agonizing torture. An amputation of her own heart. But looking at you now, with your hair messy on the pillow and your hand curled loosely near your face, she knows with certainty that she would do it all over again.
She would walk through the fire, endure and survive the silence, she would break her own heart a thousand times over just to land right here, in this morning, with you.
You shift in your sleep, letting out a contented sight that rattles her ribcage, just where the tattoo is. Ellie smiles, feeling the bliss of being around you, as those years you had spent together in your early days.
Carefully, as careful as she could possibly be, she slides out the warmth of the sheets. She grabs her discarded flannel shirt from the floor and wraps it around herself, padding barefoot across the cold floor and sliding the glass door open just enough to slip onto the balcony.
She needs to tell someone. She feels too full, like she might spill over if she doesn't speak it into existence.
The air is biting, freezing the breath in her lungs, but she doesn't pay no mind to it. She pulls her phone from the pocket, her fingers hovering over the contact list until she finds the only name that matters in a crisis, or in a miracle. Not Rachel, not Jesse, not Chris, not even an old friend.
Joel.
She knows it's an hour later in Wyoming. He's probably already up, since he was always a morning person. She knows he is drinking coffee on his porch, watching his horses. He is the only one she wants to talk with, the only one who saw you two before the world got its claws in you. The only one who believed in her dreams before they became a reality.
She knows he is the only person in the world who can understand the magnitude of what has just been rewritten for the future.
She presses call.
“Hello?” His voice is rough, textured like gravel.
“Hey, old man,” Ellie murmurs, her breath forming clouds in the cold air.
There is a pause, a shifting of a chair on the other end. A sigh of happiness. “How you doin´, kiddo? It's been a while since I got a call from you. Especially this early. Usually means you're in trouble or you won somethin'”
The auburn laughs, "No trouble or awards today.”
“How’s the filming goin´?” Joel asks, the warmth in his voice tangible.
"All good, all good,” she replies, looking back through the glass at you, checking to see if you are still sleeping, "Sorry for not calling, everything has been… chaotic."
"So, trouble?” His tone changes instantly, the protective edge always there.
"You could say that,” she sighs, leaning against the wooden railing, "Found out Erin has been stealing money for years, and she was the one who leaked the tape… the private one."
“What?” The word is a shocked, low growl. “Erin has been stealing from you? Give me an address, Ellie. I'll be on a plane in an hour.”
“Don´t worry,” Ellie says quickly, rubbing her forehead. The single mention of Erin produces an intense migraine every single time, “It´s handled, I fired her. Rachel Brown is handling the legal side, she's my new manager. And… she’s Y/N’s manager too.”
The line goes quiet, the only sound for some seconds being the wind whistling through the pines below.
“Y/N, huh?” Joel’s voice softens, dropping an octave. “Been a while since I heard that name comin’ out your mouth. You saw her again?”
“Well… yes, you could say that” she murmurs, her voice trembling a little, “I’ve been… filming the movie with her all this time. She's my co-star.”
“Wow…” he breathes, “That’s hell of a coincidence.”
“Yeah. I even broke up with Dina because of it,” she adds, ripping the band-aid off. “So, yeah. It's been a crazy week, probably the craziest week of my life. Everything just kinda blew up in my face.”
She waits for the lecture. For the ‘I told you so’ or the ‘you need to get your life together.’ But she also knows, she didn't call Joel knowing he would lecture her about something.
He remains quiet, and when he speaks, his voice is thoughtful. “You just dropped a bomb on your life, kiddo. Career, girlfriend, manager. That’s a lot of wreckage.”
“It is.”
“But here’s the thing,” he adds, “I don't hear you sad. You sound… light. Is there something else you wanna tell me?”
Ellie bites her lip, looking back into the room. The sun had moved, illuminating your hand now.
“Well… I…” She chokes up, smiling through the sudden tears. “I think things are good with her again. Like, finally good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I guess we finally came to terms with the fact that we can't be away from each other,” she whispers, emotion taking over her tone, “We tried, but it didn't work. Very movie-like, isn't it?”
Joel lets out a rusty chuckle. “Kiddo, this was known for a while by anyone with eyes and a heart. When I met that girl Dina, I knew. When you told me you got over her, I always knew you didn't."
Ellie laughs, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I was going through some old boxes the other day, and I found that polaroid from those high school plays y’all always used to do. You remember? When you two were playin´ Romeo and Juliet? You were fifteen.”
“Yeah, of course I remember.” the freckled one says, her heart squeezing.
“I looked at that photo,” he continues, his voice thick with memory, “And the thing is, I started remembering the two of you. When you asked to borrow the truck to take her to prom, and all those plays you used to star in, and when she used to stay for dinner, and how inseparable you were. Even when I helped you two move in together into that little apartment in the city. You were there for each other at your lowest.”
He pauses, and Ellie can hear him take a sip of his coffee.
“What you have with that girl… I’ve never seen it before, El. Not in my life and not in the movies. It wasn't just puppy love, it was always meant to be more. It has always been yours. Don't be scared about the future, because I know you callin’ 'cause you're scared.”
Ellie closes her eyes, letting this promise of peace wash over her. “I was so scared, still am. I thought I lost her. And I don't wanna lose her again.”
“You can't lose something that's a part of you. If you two stick together, you gon’ be fine” he says simply, a statement of fact. “Now, go back inside before you freeze to death. And tell her I said hello, and that I’ve missed her. You two need to give this old man a visit when you can, yeah?”
“We will,” she whispers, “Thank you, dad. For everything.”
“Anytime, kiddo. Don't mess it up this time—I’m talking to both.”
