synopsis: alysa came back for her sophomore year at UCLA, only to find herself crushing on her roommate
β° zoe
Whoever decided to shedule shop week into a single week instead of several days, clearly hates seeing college freshmen be happy.
Also, apparently, Sy hated herself enough that she signed up for 10 classes at shop week, and would then have to reduce them to 5. Sounds like hell, right? It totaly was. Sy spent the entire week running through campus to get to each lecture hall on time, running solely on caffeine and orange tic-tac's.
Come friday afternoon, she unlocked the door of her dorm room, her key looking bare in her fingers as stepped into the room, closing the door behind her, and sighing, placing her head on the hard cold wood.
She was exhausted, physically and mentally.
She wanted to do anything besides college right now.
But this had been her ultimate goal for years.
To leave the confines of her new york aparment. To leave her mother's judgmenetal stares behind. To be free. To be unique.
To go out into the world.
But here she was, and suddenly, the world had never felt so small, as she turned around and looked at her dorm room.
She sighed, looking down at the folders with syllabus between her arms, and walked over to her desk, setting them down.
Checking her phone, the clock striking 5:27 pm, she remembered her mom yelling at her years ago.
"MamΓ‘." A little zoe would be groaning, knees against her chest as she sat on the chair in front of her desk, staring at the history homework in front of her.
A woman, brown shaggy hair like Sienna's would shake her head, arms crossed. "No, I told you, you study, then do stupid things."
"MamΓ‘, but I'm hungryβ"
"No food." Her mother would scold, hands on her hips. "Get 100, then eat."
Years of harsh hours of studying, of endurance, had tormented Sienna, but if she had learnt one thing. It was to set her needs aside, and lock the fuck in.
β° alysa
Alysa was getting tired of never talking with her roommate.
For an entire week, they hadn't spoken, at all, only, "don't forget your keys'," and 'try to eat today'.
To her credit, Sienna had been reading syllabus' and career requirements all week, only stopping to leave for classes, the bathroom, or sleep.
Alysa hoped that since it was Friday, Sienna had settled down, maybe she only had to pick her classes, then they could bond again.
Because Alysa was certaintly dying to get to know the girl. There was just something about Zoe.
β° alysa
War flasbacks, Alysa mumbled to herself, as she opened the door and was once more faced with a sight to behold.
Zoe was sitting at her desk, her phone propped up against a waterbottle, a live clock on. Her laptop was open, the UCLA classes guidelines website open too. She was slightly hunched over, a notebook open next to her, a highlighter in hand as she read through another syllabus. A pair of black headphones over her cute shaggy hair, and a look on her face, Alysa physically felt like flinching.
It was the look of those girl's she'd seen before she was homeschooled, those girls who studied for hours and could recite entire textbooks, but could never remember where they'd left their will to live.
Alysa wondered, for a second, if she could interrupt, or let Zoe be, let her exist in that bubble she'd created around herself.
She closed the door, then headed over to her bed, and decided to just wait and see.
β° alysa
She waited for three hours. Found herself staring at the girl highlighting syllabus' at 12pm.
Another hour went by, Alysa's brain slowed down to a nothing, and despite her concerns, she fell alseep at 1.20am.
β°
Though she expected, when she woke up, to find the girl fast asleep, the sight in front of her made her sleepy brain uncomfortable.
Sienna was still working.
Alysa glanced at the live clock Zoe still had on. 8am.
That meant, this girl had been working for over ten hours.
And still, she was leaning back in her seat, headphones still on, writing something down in a red notebook.
Alysa felt like she had to intervene.
So she did, a few minutes later, she walked over, and tapped the girl's shoulder.
Zoe didn't move, only hummed softly, still working. She was so focused, so concentrated, it almost made Alysa feel guilty about wanting to pull her away from it. Almost.
Alysa tapped Zoe's headphones, finally snapping the girl out of it.
"I'm assuming you've lost the concept of time?" She asked, as Zoe lowered her headphones.
She shook her head, looking at her notebook "Uhβ no, I'm justβ almost done."
"Okay, but, what are you even doing? I don't even do this much, and I'm a year ahead of you." Alysa said, sitting back down on her bed, trying to alleviate some of the girl's obvious stress.
"I'm mapping my classes." Zoe said, slightly sheepish.
"For the next decade?" Alysa joked.
Zoe kept quiet.
Alysa had to double back. "Wait, no kidding?"
"I mean, I was just checking what classes I would need to take and when, how many units they were worth, long term availability, career focus, Iβ" Zoe stopped, perhaps noticing the probable look on Alysa's face, one of both awe and confusion. "What?"
"You're.... really going for it." Alysa mumbled, taking a breath. "Wow, okay."
"Iβ like being prepared." The girl shrugged.
"And I like breakfast, so How long until you're done?"
Alysa looked back, now standing at the door of the room. She pointed a finger at the girl. "Not asking, Sienna, you need a break. Food, substenance, energy, the shit."
And as she walked back in, she couldn't help but catch the girl's hesitation, almost fear.
β° zoe
It was nice of Alysa to get her out of the room, especially when Zoe had spent 13 hours mapping our her entire college academic experience and what classes would lead her to what qualifications for what career paths and.... a bunch of other stuff.
And don't get her wrong, Zoe really, really thought it was nice of her. But she didn't have the healthiest relationship with rewards.
Her mother had made sure of that.
"You want to watch meaningless videos." Her mother had answered, incredulous, as she stared into her phone.
"No, mamΓ‘, I want to be entertained." A young Zoe would smile, trying to convince her mother.
"Entertained? Be entertained with your studies! You think I am entertained when you do meaningless things?" The woman would scoff, shaking her head.
"But I've been studying all weekend, it's only fairβ"
Her mother would explode. "I decide what's fair! Not you, you miserable child! Now go, study more. No dinner for you."
Simply put, she stopped believing hard work should be rewarded a long time ago, she thought hard work wasn't the extra, it was the bare minimum, the standard to achieve.
And food?
That was a whole different issue.
Still, she wrapped everything up, and decided just this once, she would comply with Alysa's idea. Just to let loose, understand some of the college experience, bond with her celebrity roommate, then focus. Just this once, she would relax, then she would lock in.
β°
By the time she got into the bathroom, Zoe's adrenaline had worn off, her body felt like it would pass out.
According to her useless weather app, it'd be slightly chilly outside, and to a New Yorker, slightly chilly California was distinct, so she brought jeans, a light blue tank top and a black jacket.
As she stepped into the shower, the contact of the hot water inmediately felt like heaven to Zoe.
She relaxed, washed her hair, and got rid of the stench of stress of her skin.
β° alysa
"And the dead come back to life." Alysa joked, the reflex almost instinctive as Zoe walked out the bathroom.
She was wearing jeans, a baby blue tanktop and a jacket zipped up halfway.
But that wasn't what caught Alysa's attention.
Sienna's hair was in a ponytail, and though the hairstyle had nothing new, Alysa noticed a simple tattoo behind her left ear, a simple outlined arrow, the spear pointing upwards.
"I was just mappingβ"
"Out your classes, yeah I know." Alysa finished. "Still, you have not slept, you have not eaten. I suggest, the biggest cup of coffee ever. Wait, how old are you?"
"Turning twenty soon."
She grinned, and spoke up again. "Jeez, that sucks, I was going to suggest getting you vodka or something."
Zoe laughed, and Alysa felt a small weight lift of her chest.
β° zoe
Hanging out with Alysa was nice, she was surprisingly (not) in touch with reality despite being a celebrity.
They walked through campus, reached the main entrance and walked out into the streets. Alysa was wearing baggy jeans and a green "dope" hoodie, with the 'p' written the other way around.
They talked about everything and nothing, light conversation, nothing deep, about the weather, about Alysa's experience as a freshman, the sort.
It was lively, and though she loved lively and energetic places, the smell of freshly baked pastries, chocolate and sugar, and the couples giggling in the corner made Zoe sigh.
It was the kind of environment her mother would despise.
But Alysa inhaled the scent of the room, and sighed profoundly.
"This is the life." She mumbled, nodding and looking around.
It made Zoe want to laugh, Alysa was so at peace with her life.
It almost made Zoe envious. Almost.
Just today. Zoe thought, then followed Alysa as she walked to the counter. Just for today.
β° alysa
After quick small talk with the cashier, she finally decided it would be decent to actually place an order.
"One matcha latte, and a chocolate croissants please, also," She turned to Zoe, who had been staring at a couple in a booth in the corner laughing and holding hands. "Zoe?"
"Oh! Uhmβ" The girl turned around, smiling politely at the cashier. "Chilled mocha frapuccino, please."
The cashier nodded, and tapped on his screen. "Great, anything else?"
"No, thank you." Zoe shook her head.
"You don't eat anything?" Alysa mumbled, frowning. She was seriously starting to understand why she had a gut feeling about Sienna. The good kind.
"No, not reallyβ"
"Nonsense. Make that two chocolate croissants, please."
"That'll be right up." The cashier smiled, and added it on his screen.
Alysa saw Zoe digging through her purse, and tapped her card before the girl could react. "Thank you!" She told the cashier, then dragged the girl over to a booth.
"Wait, no, whatβ?" Zoe blinked, slipping into the seat in front of Alysa. "Don't do that, how much do I owe you?"
Alysa grinned, and tilted her head. "Nothing, my treat."
"There's no such thing as that." Zoe would frown.
"I promise, there is." Alysa said, holding up her pinky.
"You know if you break the promise I get to cut your pinky off." Zoe said, slightly amused.
"I do." Alysa nodded, because Amber had once told her.
"Okay." The girl said, then hooked her pinky with Alysa's.
β° alysa
Alysa learned three main things that moring.
Sienna loved chocolate, it was in her mocha, and in the croissant she loved, though Alysa had to push her to eat it,
Sienna loved her mocha frappuccino or chilled frappuccino or whatever it was called, to the point where Alsya could catch the difference in her smile before and after,
Sienna was the most interesting person Alysa had met in a long while
She realized the girl was pensive, thoughtful, somehow quiet in nature but explosive in energy.
As they talked, Alysa had to ask about the tattoo.
"So, an arrow, that's an Apollo, sunlight, wow, thingy too?" Alysa spoke up, gesturing at Zoe's ear.
"Uhm, no, actually, it's for love." Zoe answered, her hand reaching up to her neck.
"Love?" Alysa had to blink in confusion.
"Uhm, yeah, I don't know if you notice, but it's not an arrow, it's supposed to be one of Eros' like, lovestruck spells." She explained, playing with a strand of her hair.
Alysa's eyes zeroed in on the tattoo.
"Oh. Oh."
"Why love though? Is there an actual someone you haven't told me about?" Alysa joked, and though she really didn't find herself that interested in Zoe, she wanted to keep the field clear.
"No, no, I just really, really want to find love." The girl shrugged.
Alysa laughed, then had to ask. "How is it your mom won't let you dye your hair but let you get a tattoo?"
"She doesn't know, I'd wear concelear and my hair down." Zoe mumbled, fidgeting again with her hair.
"When'd you get it?"
"Uhm, a year ago, maybe?"
"Walking around with your hair down for a year. Jeez, I could never. Your mom sounds super strict."
β° zoe
Your mom sounds super strict.
Hadn't Zoe heard that same phrase, thousands of times, and convinced herself they were lying?
Your mom's abusive. You cannot feel free living like that. Won't she let you live a little? She's not supposed to do that.
She'd heard everything, in every shape, way, and form, but when Alysa said it, it sounded different, not pitiful, not a factual observation, not an accusation, not a figure of speech, just something. Her mom sounded super strict, she didn't make it sound bad, deadly, lethal or good. She just said it.
Your mom sounds super strict.
"Fun fact, I was born from a surrogate, so I'm immune to your mom jokes." Alsya suddenly said, taking a sip of her matcha.
Zoe had to laugh.
She and Alysa would get on just fine, she decided, maybe even more.
β° zoe
The saturday morning breakfasts became a regular thing, and Zoe actually sheduled some of her studying around it, just how she noticed Alysa moved her saturnay mid-evening training to a different hour.
It was nice, for the both of them, she thought, to talk and relax for a couple hours over sugar and caffeinated drinks.
Alysa got her to try different sandwiches and sugarized pastries, it was fun. More than fun. Sienna enjoyed the routine.
β° alysa
Alysa's gut feeling had been right, Sienna was fun, so much fun. She was interesting, curious, witty, slightly quiet, vulnerable and honesty but quirky and also slightly annoying in that way that made Alysa's heart race.
Even as she practiced her programs, and ran laps around the rink, she kept thinking back to their saturday breakfasts, and her heart would race and she would either skate the most incredible run through of her life, or she would stumble and slip on her toe pick.
She was too hyped.
The last time she'd felt this excited, she had been quitting figure skating, piercing her skin, dyeing her hair, then returning to skating and dyeing her hair again
Her body needed a way to fight the hype, wait, scratch that. Her body needed a way to accept the hype.
So she decided to take drastic decisions.
β° zoe
"We should dye your hair."
Zoe's brain lagged, taking longer to catch up than it usually would. She looked up from the essay draft she had been writing for her initiation class, blinked twice and Alysa, and took way too long to answer.
"Come again?"
"You told me, like, five weeks ago, that you'd like to dye your hair." Alysa set, closing the door and setting her bag and stuff down on her bed. She had a white bag in hand, and Sienna could vaguely see the outline of hair dye boxes.
Zoe still didn't understand, but she nodded. "I, did, yes."
"What color?"
"I don'tβ"
"Zoe, you've definitely thought of it. What color?" Alysa said, softer, rummaging through the white bag.
"Red.... the brownish kind." She mumbled, after a second.
Alysa hummed, then picked out two boxes of hair dye. "Peekaboo, right?"
"Yeah, how do you even know?" Zoe said, a small smile on her lips, as she pushed her papers and notes away. She wasn't going to get anything done today.
"I stalk your pinterest."
"Wow, okay."
Alysa only shrugged, setting both boxes on Zoe's desk before pulling out another one. "You've got good vibes going on."
Zoe smiled, more genuine this time. "Huh, thanks."
"So, these are semi permanent, and I think, if we mix some of the red, the brown and black," Alysa said, sitting on the floor in front of Zoe, gesturing at the three coloured boxes. "We'll get a nice color. It should stay a month or two, tops, then wash out."
"You know how to dye hair?" Zoe said, then laughed at the look on Alysa's face as she gestured her blond halo rings.
Alysa grinned. "I mean, I used to do my own, these are from a hairdresser in the bay area, but I used to dye my hair."
"So I can trust you won't kill my hair with bleach?"
"Bleach makes it more permanent, and that's what we don't want. Because in case this is too much for you, we switch it out."
"You lost me at bleach." Zoe said, waving her words away. "I trust you."
Because truth be told, she did.
She trusted her Olympic champion roommate.
β° alysa
Alysa loved Sienna's hair.
It was one of the very first things she noticed about the girl, her shaggy short brown waves, and the way it was also mostly straight, it was weird, and Alysa liked weird.
And so the entire evening, they laughed, tried to prevent the dye on Alysa's gloves from getting onto the walls of the bathroom, the bathroom tiles, and on the sink.
Zoe was now sitting on the bathroom counter, and they'd just been vibing to music for a while.
Alysa had learned Zoe's music taste was pretty much alternative too, much more punk and rock-y than Alysa's, which was always a mix of indie artists and underground sounds.
As they listened to 'thick skull', by paramore, one of Zoe's apparent favorites, Alysa couldn't help but admire Sienna.
She was pretty.
Not the pretty kind Alysa had gotten used to in figure skating when she was younger.
Not the pretty kind she realized she crushed on during her two year long retirement.
And not the kind she found when she started finding herself.
A pretty that seemed refreshing, but also tightening, in the sense that Alysa's heart would stop sometimes, or it would speed up, and she could almost feel her blood rushing in her ears.
The best part about Zoe being pretty?
Her personality was even prettier.
She tended to smile small, but when her most genuine smiles were teeth and all, and the very corner of her eyes would crinkle.
She laughed in this way that was impossible to map or recall, only leaving Alysa wishing she'd hear it again.
She was insanely dedicated, sometimes refusing to back out of study groups with people in her class (Alysa overheard the late night calls), just because someone else backed out.
She was too persistent too, and would not listen to anyone, and Alysa often felt like she had to bribe her to come back down to earth and behave humanlike.
She was weirdly authentic too, the kind that one could only find after years of repression.
Which led Alysa back to her main question about Zoe.
She was bisexual, sure, but was she really? In everyone's eyes?
In her mother's eyes?
She'd noticed. Alysa truly had. Whenever someone talked about their parents, especially about their mothers, Sienna would shrink, and shrug, merely mumbling some short sentence about not being close to her mother.
Alysa ended up assuming, after everything she'd learned, that Zoe's mother wasn't very supportive.
She saw how, even when she was free, Zoe would inmediately hang up on her mother, but take her father's phone calls without hesitation.
And for some reason, that rebellion and defiance, even if maybe just Alysa's assumption, made her even prettier.
Even now, seeing her simply humming the words to the song and swinging her feet on the counter as they waited for her hair to come out, she looked really pretty.
And Alysa was never one to shy away from her thoughts. So,
"You're like really pretty." Alysa blurted out.
Zoe's head snapped up so fast, Alysa laughed, covering her lips in a slightly shocked expression.
Her cheeks were now tinted a dark pink, and Alysa had never seen Sienna so caught off guard, so flustered.
"Youβ I β come again?" She said, blinking rapidly at Alysa, as if she was trying to catch up.
"I said," Alysa said, slower this time. "You're like really fucking pretty."
"That's.... kind, thank you." Zoe answered, blushing and looking down at her feet, but for some reason, her answer felt so rehearsed, practiced, like she wan't used to compliments or being flattered.
Alysa lowered her head, from where she sat on the closed toilet. "I mean it."
The way Zoe's eyes quickly glanced away, and the color on her cheeks darkened, and the way Alysa's heart jumped at the sight, only confirmed one thing.
Alysa had caught feelings.
Alysa was college crushing.
β° zoe
Forget being stressed.
Alysa being much more attatched to Zoe these past few weeks was intense.
Maybe she'd always been like, this, and Sy had never noticed.
But that wasn't a huge issue.
The issue was trying to watch Alysa's figure skating programs, without looking like a creep, but also not getting caught by Alysa, because it was, evidently, slightly creepy.
So one Wednesday afternoon, when Alysa had rink practice, Zoe sighed and flopped on her bed, opening her lap top.
She had a specfic playlist on youtube for figure skating.
Evgenia Medvedva, Yuna Kim, Sasha Trusova, Alysa, Wakaba Higuchi, and some other skaters.
She scrolled through the videos, and opened one of her favorites. Alysa's first rendition of the McArthur Program, before the version she skated at Worlds or the Olympics, one where the sountrack and jump layout was distintctive.
The first one Zoe had watched of Alysa after she came back.
And so, as the hour passed, and Sy lost track of time, all she did was watch her roomate competing on youtube videos.
But not just that, warm ups and training too, because Zoe was obsessed with how Alysa cracked her knuckles as she ran laps, obsessed with how she stretched her neck before competing.
She watched her triple axels, her attempts at quad lutz's.
And even when she knew all the competitions, all the jump cues, by heart, she kept yelling at her screen.
The ending of her McArthurt free skate. "Biellman, biellman, biellman, and point at the sky!"
The middle of the promise program. "Spin, spin, spin, lift, double axel! Yess!"
The end of her lady gaga free skate. "Camera, look at the camera!"
Her triple axel's in pratice. "Arms in, unwrap that leg."
She was always so hyperfocused on Alysa, she hadn't even noticed the key turning in the door, when she was humming along to the ending of Alysa's original bad romance free skate, at the lombardia trophy in '24.
"Wow."
Zoe's attention snapped to the figure in the door, shutting her lap top close as she turned to look at Alysa, her hand still on the knob, and a grin on her lips as she looked back at her.
"I mean, I know you said you were a fan, but this feels stalkerish level."
"I'm just catching up." Zoe groaned, suddenly defensive as Alysa laughed, closing the door and stepping inisde.
"On what? Pretty girl, I live two feet away from you."
Pretty girl.
Over the past few weeks, Alysa had taken to calling her that, on top of everything else. Usually, it only made Zoe slightly flustered, she was getting used to it.
But now, when she was already embarrassed? It only made matters worse. "On, stuff, I mean, preparation for when they announce what grand prix events you're competing in June."
Alysa pointed at herself. "What? They announce that in June?"
"How do I know this and you don't?" Zoe said, feeling lighter.
"Mmm, maybe 'cause you're stalking me?"
"First of all, you stalk my pinterest and my tiktok reposts all the time, I notice, Second of all, in my defense, I'm catching up on Ami, Trusova, Petrosian and Isabeau, just like, it's not just you?"
"Who's your all time favorite?" Alysa said, diverging the topic as she sat down.
"Evgenia Medvedeva," Sienna said, without missing a beat. "Love her to death. I'm still depressed she didn't win gold in pyeonchang or make the team for beijng."
"Y'know when I was youngerβ"
"You were the american Medvedva, I remember." Zoe nodded, smiling.
Because how could she not, she'd freaked out over the comparison for too long to not remember.
"Wow, you're a huge fan, then?"
"You're a great skater, leave me alone!" Zoe groaned, burrying her face into her pillow.
Alysa only laughed, then spoke up again. "You should come by the rink sometime."
"No way." She snorted, shaking her head.
"Why not?" Alysa raised an eyebrow.
"One, new scenarios make me nervous. Second, I'm a fan, not a friend in this context, I shouldn't be getting any special privilege." She said, opening her lap top again.
"Mhm, fair enough. My offer still stands though."
"Who's your favorite?" Zoe asked, deciding to ask whatever she thought.
"Probably Yuna Kim, or Michelle Kwan." Alysa said.
"Want to watch Wakaba Higuchi skate?" Zoe suggested, scooting over on her bed.
"Love that, also, I've seen her live multiple times, y'know?" Alysa said, sliding in next to her.
"Humble, much?" Zoe snorted.
"Obviously. I recommend the elle gouding one."
"The short?" She asked, opening her youtube playlist again.
"That's the one." Alysa hummed.
And as they spent the entire afternoon watching skaters cry and fall, and land combinations, Sienna felt strangely close to Alysa. More than just physically, emotionally too.
Technically, skating was Alysa's world.
But fangirling over edges and crying at wobbly triple axels behind a screen?
That was Sienna's world.
And she was glad to welcome Alysa into it.
β° alysa
"I still don't know how you do this." Sienna was groaning from the bathroom, trying to mix her hair dye into a bowl.
"You're doing okay! Just stir and add the dissolvent, it'll probably be fine." Alysa called out, stepping back into the room.
She'd only walked over to her desk to get her phone to play music for the vibes, but as she stepped in, she ehard soft vibrating on Zoe's desk, an incoming call.
She made the mistake of picking up.
"Yeah?"
"Hello? Who is this?"
Alysa had never heard a voice so cold in her life. "Alysa Liu, are you looking for Zoβ Sienna?"
"This is her mother. Please pass her the phone."
Alysa wasn't so sure Zoe would appreciate that. "I think her hand's are busy right now, but I can take a message." She offered.
"No, that will simply not do. Put her on the phone, now."
Alysa was tempted to hung up, but she didn't want to worsen the situation she had started.
She muted the mic on Zoe's phone, then walked over to the bathroom. "Pretty girl, I swear, this was not on purpose."
β° zoe
Zoe blinked at the look on Alysa's face, then glanced at the phone she was holding.
Clear phone case and a volleyball polaroid.
Not Alsya's. Sienna's.
She glanced at the screen.
The contact name.
MamΓ‘.
Zoe's blood ran cold.
"Iβ"
"The mic is muted. I told her you were busy, but she insisted." Alysa said, slowly, strangely calm for how Zoe was feeling.
She'd spent so long, all these months, managing to avoid her mother completely, only quick texts, excusing herself with her mother's favorite justification, her studies. Her mother's only updates had only been coming in through her father, with whom Zoe talked with often.
But as she stared at the muted screen, she shook her head. "No, uhm, oh gods."
She took a second to breath, took the gloves off, and stared at her hands. "Oh, gamoto." She mumbled, staring at the bowl of dye.
"What, what's wrong?" Alysa said, setting the phone on the counter and staring at Sienna. "The dye won't dry, if that's what you'reβ"
"I haven't told her." Sinna shook her head.
"About, the hair?"
"Yeah."
"She probably doesn't know?"
Zoe's heart was beating out of her chest. "What if she does?"
"She probably doesn't."
Sienna spiraled. "But what if she does? Oh, di inmortales, she's going to send me back to New York, and I'll be miserable and coped up againβ"
"She won't, breathe."
Sienna's eyes widened. "Oh, gamoto. What if she knows I'm bi? Fβfuuck."
"Youβ you're not out to your parents?" Alysa said, blinking at Sienna.
Zoe shooked her head, fast. "No, I only told my dad. No one back home knows."
"Wow, wait thenβ"
"Sienna! I will not tolerate your ignoring any longer! Pick up!"
Her mother spoke, and Sienna froze completely.
She could recognize her mama's voice anywhere.
Sienna took a breath, and picked up the phone, unmutting the speaker and lowering the volume stepping back into the room and leaving Alsya alone in the bathroom.
"Yes, mamΓ‘?"
"You haven't answered my calls."
"I have been busy, mamΓ‘, studying, making sure money doesn't go to waste." Sienna said, the answer almost robotic to her.
"No time for your mother?"
Sienna thought of Alysa consuming her entire shedule.
"No, mamΓ‘, I have just been busy."
"Good, you are not being ridiculous then?"
Sienna thought of Alysa dyeing her hair and watching stupid shows with her.
"No, mamΓ‘."
"You are not eating stupid food?
Sienna thought of Alysa making her try Californian sweets and desserts, the chocolate croissants, the matcha ice cream.
"No, mamΓ‘."
"No boys and no relationships?"
Sienna thought of Alysa, in a way that shocked her, because it went beyond frienship, but answered quick. "Of course not, mamΓ‘."
"Good. You should answer my calls more."
"I will do my best, mamΓ‘."
"Good, Now study. Make mamΓ‘ proud."
"Of course, mamΓ‘."
It ended as quick as it begun, and the knot in Zoe's chest loosened, but it was still there.
She threw her phone on her bed, then she backed herself against the wall, and slid down, taking a deep breath.
No time for her mother? She certainly didn't.
No being ridiculous? She was being way more than ridiculous.
No eating stupid food? She'd gained weight, that she was still trying to loose.
No boys and no relationships? Well, "no boys", was right. No relationships though?
She didn't have one, but...
Then there was Alysa.
What was even going on there?
She could feel the staring, the soft spoken tones and the smiled that bloomed whenever Zoe laughed with her.
And Sienna couldn't even pretend she didn't like it.
Because it felt so nice, to have someone pay attention.
But Alysa was Alysa.
She was everything.
And Sienna was, just Sienna.
She was nothing.
Not even brave enough to tell her mother who she really was. Not brave enough to try out for the UCLA volleyball team. Not outspoken enough to materialize her feelings for Alysa....
Her feelings for Alysa.
Because the truth was that she did have feelings for Alysa.
It wasn't love, or was it?
Half a second later, Sienna snapped back to reality.
"I finished mixing the dye." Alysa said, standing in the bathroom doorway. "If you still want to retouch the strands. Though, I can still add in other tones, like, say, redder?"
Zoe could only smile.
Alysa new how to cheer her up. "Sure, why not?"
"Good, don't want you to stay plain, pretty girl. Now c'mon, I'm trying to figure out if we play Eminem or Zara Larrson." Alysa said, moving back into the bathroom.
Zoe laughed, as she got up and slowly walked over.
She glanced back at her phone on her bed, then at Alysa mumbling the words to some Eminem rap beat.
Zoe was in for it.
She really was.
She'd heard of this, situationships and stuff in college.
But she never thought she'd actually be college crushing.
β° some stories don't need a narratorβ°
In the dead of the night, nearing midnight, two girls both slept in the same room, each in their own bed.
However, none of them slept.
A girl with a shiny smiley piercing above her teeth was staring at the wall next to her bed, her back turned against the girl with brown and red dyed hair, in the opposite side of the room.
Said girl was laying the exact same way, her back against the pierced girl, turned towards the wall. She stared down at the capybara plushie between her arms.
Almost one after the other, they seemed to realize the exact same thing, in the exact same sequence.
They sighed, shut their eyes close.
But when they did, all they could see was each other.
A pierced girl with halo coloured hair.
A greek girl with a small but charming smile.
And nearly a second after seeing each other's face, they both had to admit to themseleves once more.
They were truly, and undoubtedly, college crushing.
β°
/justagirl: ya'll, this took me DAYS to write, 'cuz i was soo busy with school and stuff, but i'd rather take months to write a paragraph than to ask chat gpt or stupid ai to write it for me, so, hope y'all like it, this took me soo long. as always, this is absolutely not proofread. HAHAHA, anyways, also, please notice my details, i work hard on them. finally, this is part 2 of 3, and i'm only doing three, but will maybe revive the characters once in a while for like a random day in their lives or smth
hope ya'll liked it!!
(obvi inspired by hayley kiyoko def recommend listening to the movie version of the song while reading)
the party was suffocating. your boyfriend reeked of cheap beer, arm lazily over your shoulder talking to his frat brothers. they were all well past their limit not making any sense. you smiled and nodded along with them as you looked for a way to escape. thatβs when you saw her for the first time, she was leaning against the wall scanning the room. your eyes locked and you smiled rushing over.
βim gonna grab a drink babeβ you yelled over the music. your boyfriend tried to offer his beer but you rejected it. he placed a sloppy kiss on the top of your head as you walked over to her.
βhiβ you smiled excitedly.
βheyβ she said smiled back.
βiβm y/nβ you stuck out your hand.
βalysaβ she shook your hand.
βyou looked a little lonely over here and iβve been dying to get away from my boyfriendβ
βyeah, i donβt really know anyone hereβ
βme neither, wanna go outside?β
she nodded and you grabbed her hand leading her though the crowd. the air outside was cool, refreshing. you decided to sit along the pool. you took your shoes off and rolled up your pants above your knees. alysa followed quickly sitting beside you.
βwhere are you from?β you asked.
βoaklandβ
βlike the bay?β
βyupβ
βim from oregon, very small town. ever been up there?β
βnopeβ
you nodded your head, kicking your feet lightly in the water. were you nervous right now?
βwhat are you studying?β she asked.
βpsychologyβ
βshut up me tooβ
βreally? what made you pick it?β
βi donβt know actuallyβ she laughed under her breath. she did know why but wasnβt going to say. you took a mental note of that.
βi want understand why people think the way they doβ
βyeah? what made you realize that?β
βnothing specificallyβ
this time you were the one holding onto the truth, she took note of it.
there was a pause in the conversation. leaving you two in an awkward silence, usually you were very social. telling your life story to anyone who would listen but with her you couldnβt.
βhow long have you been with your boyfriend?β she asked breaking the silence.
βsince we were fifteenβ you said beginning to mess with the polish on your nail.
βhigh school sweethearts?β
you nodded somewhat excitedly. you loved grant a lot, but you knew you didnβt want to spend the rest of your life with him.
βwhat about you? anyone special?β
she shook her head and you told her she was lucky. she looked at you puzzled and you went on about how relationships hold people back. youβve recited this monologue hundreds of times to your friends and when they would question why you were still with grant. youβd told them he was the exception.
the night went pretty well after that. you started to get comfortable with each other, as comfortable as people who just met can get. until grant came through the sliding glass door stumbling.
βbaby iβve been looking for youβ he proclaimed attempting to kiss you. his lips tasted like cheap beer. he completely missed your mouth too, basically kissing your chin. you shoved him off, getting up. he leaned his whole body against you making you stumble back, alysa got up helping catch you. you thanked her wrapping grantβs arm around your shoulder starting to walk out.
βhey wait!β you turned around leaving grant at the door where he hit his head against the glass. he mumbled a quick ow before rubbing his head.
βgive me your phoneβ you demanded reaching your hand out.
there was no hesitation from her, she reached in her pocket handing it to you. you smiled when you saw her wallpaper, a picture of her and her siblings. you turned the phone to her to unlock the face id and opened her contacts app. you added your number and sent yourself a quick hello to have her number. then you handed her phone back.
βtext meβ you said rushing back to your boyfriend.
the night went on after that. you walked with grant back to his dorm. he didnβt make any sense, you had completely tuned him out. all you could think about was your new βfriendβ alysa. from the short conversation you had with her you knew you wanted her around more. you couldnβt put your finger on what, she was just intriguing to you. you got grant home and into bed, then when you got home you couldnβt sleep. you decided to text alysa.
you: hey
alysa: hi
you: wanna get breakfast in the morning?
alysa: sure
what time?
you: whenever! just text me when youβre up
alysa: sounds good
you woke up the next more with a new found excitement. alysa had texted saying sheβd be ready soon. you stumbled all over your dorm in attempts not to wake your roomate before rushing out the door. you were practically running to the dinning hall before grant called you. he was sort of angry at the fact you chose to meet with someone else for breakfast.
βyou have nothing to be upset for. iβm meeting a friend, i can have friends grantβ you whispered yelled.
βiβm your boyfriend! i should be your priority. iβm hungover, i want to be with you.β
βyeah well iβll come over laterβ you hung over before he could say anything else. you spotted alysa sitting in the corner scrolling through her phone. you smiled, fixing your hair and smoothing out your top before walking over. she smiled at up you.
βhey you look niceβ she complimented.
βthank you! so do youβ you compliment her right back.
βthanks, how was getting back home last night?β she asked as you walked over to get in line for food.
βit was fine, i hate dealing with drunk peopleβ
βyeah i feel you. my roommate was throwing up all night.β
βjeez, how is she doing?β
βsheβs fine, sound asleepβ
you nodded. you were kind of nervous, you couldnβt understand why. you didnβt really have any friends, most of your time you spent with grant. it was probably just that, the common nerves of meeting someone new.
you grabbed your food and walked back to the table. it was mostly silent between the two of you as you ate, you didnβt mind it though. it was a comfortable silence.
βare you alysa liu?β someone asked from behind you and alysa looked up.
she smiled nodding before the person asked for a picture and told her they were sad about her retirement. you looked at her puzzled, who was this girl?
βi used to skate growing upβ she told you nonchalantly picking at her food.
βskate?β
βlike ice skatingβ
βoh cool. did you go to the olympics or something?β you asked half jokingly, you knew nothing about skating. the most you knew about it was about tonya hardingβs story. you watched her movie with your mom a while back.
βyeah i didβ
βthatβs coolβ was all you said and you shrugged continuing to eat your food. itβs not that you didnβt care, but if it meant a lot to her she wouldβve told you last night. clearly she wasnβt willing to share that side of herself so who were you question it any further.
βyou do sports growing up?β she asked trying to steer the conversation away from herself and skating.
βsoccerβ
βoh yeah? do you still play?β
βnope, quit my junior yearβ
βcan i ask why?β
βi just didnβt like it anymoreβ you said picking at your food. that wasnβt the truth, you just didnβt want to have to reopen the wound. alysa caught the hint immediately and didnβt push further. it was quiet again between the two of you. both of you just picking at your food hoping the other would start a new topic of conversation. alysa was about to open her mouth but someone called your name from across the dinning hall. you didnβt have to turn your head to know who it was. you rolled your eyes continuing to pick at your food, not daring to turn your head around.
βbabe iβve been calling and textingβ he was out of breath, sliding into the chair next to you. he kissed the top of your head and put his arm around the back of you chair.
βgrant i told you i was meeting with a friendβ you said still not batting an eye his way.
βi know but you donβt really have any so all of sudden to hear you doβ he said it condescendingly.
you scoffed, shoving his arm off the back of your chair. alysa watched carefully not wanting to overstep in anyway. her mind was already set though, she hated grant.
βiβm grantβ he reached his hand over the table for alysa to shake.
βalysaβ she shook it quickly before quickly folding her arms over her chest.
βhey alysa did you still want me to come help with your-β
βyeah i canβt handle my roommate aloneβ she turned to grant, βsheβs been throwing up all morning. iβm scared she might have some kind of poisoningβ
βyou should call your ra thenβ grant suggested, resting his arm on the back of your chair again.
βand risk getting in trouble? come on arenβt you in a frat, donβt you know calling ra is like a death wishβ alysa replied grabbing both your trays getting up.
you followed quickly behind her, leaving grant alone at the table.
βthank youβ you said as you walked out the dinning hall.
βof course, that guy is-β
βan asshole. i know and i really want to break up with him butβ
βbut what?β
βi canβt get rid of him. he just lingers, ive tried and he always traps me back inβ
alysa didnβt say anything she just continued looking down at the pavement.
βhey i need to get shampoo, want to come with me?β you offered.
βyeah of courseβ she said almost a little too excitedly. you laughed at her excitement, grabbing her hand and dragging her behind you. it was nice being able to hang out with someone who wasnβt grant. alysa was easy to talk to, she was funny, and very caring. you couldnβt believe you hadnβt known her a full twenty four hours yet. she felt like your soulmate, platonically of course.
βi had so much fun todayβ you said walking into your dorm building.
βi did tooβ
you smiled at her, you really didnβt want her to leave.
βdo you want to come up and watch a movie?β
βof courseβ
you giggled excitedly letting her into your building. you were lucky your roommates werent in the room for once. you set your things down. alysa stood in the doorway in awe of your room. she looked at all your posters and pictures you had up.
βi love pink pantheressβ she said pointing to one of your posters.
βshut the hell up, youβre the first person to know who that isβ
you grabbed your laptop jumping on your bed and invited her over. you scrolled for what felt like hours trying to decide what to watch.
βyouβve never seen how to loose a guy in ten days?β
βnopeβ
βthatβs unacceptable, we have to watch itβ
alysa was focused on the movie the entire time, as if she was taking notes. you would pay attention here and there, but most of your focus was on her. how is that you clicked so instantly, you felt like you knew her forever.
she looked over to you and you quickly focused your attention back to the movie. she nudged your shoulder and you lightly pushed her back. then both of you turned your focus back to the movie.
βgood huh?β you asked closing your laptop once the movie was over.
βactually yeah, i really liked itβ
βim gladβ you hopped off your bed. she followed behind you starting to grab her stuff.
βwhat classes do you have tomorrow?β you asked leaning on your desk.
βcalc and bio, you?β
βdo you have calc at 12 with the ginger lady?β
βyeahβ
βi do too! sheβs so annoying, i canβt understand her half the timeβ
βme neither what! we should meet up before classβ
βof course!β you put started putting on your shoes, βim going to walk you homeβ
βyou donβt have toβ
βi want to, wouldnβt want someone kidnapping youβ
those next weeks you two only grew closer. you would walk each other to class, sometimes even sit in on the others class when you had nothing to do. sleepovers became common, so much so alysa knew your roomates starbucks orders. she put in the effort to get to know them, something grant never did. grant kept you isolated away from everything. alysa encouraged you to meet new people and try new things. it was refreshing.
grant wasnβt happy about this new found friend of yours. he hated the way she made you laugh more than he did. the way you started devoting all your time to her. the final straw was the way you looked at her. you looked at her as if she was the only person in the room. no one else mattered to you when alysa was around and he hated it.
you couldβve cared less about how grant felt, you were waiting for him to break things off. he didnβt, he kept trying to lure you back in. taking you to nice dinners, buying you flowers, and getting you away from alysa.
βhe really doesnβt like youβ you told alysa one night. you two had discovered a look out spot not to far from campus.
βi donβt really care. heβs just mad iβm stealing his girlβ
βim not his girl, i havenβt been for a whileβ
βyeah? and why is that?β
βi just donβt like him. heβs so possessive, annoying, and doesnβt know how to please meβ
alysa laughed at you, βplease you how?β
βweβre not thirteen alysa. you know howβ
βso you like youβve never-β
βnever made me cum ever! the first time we ever had sex he lasted all of thirty secondsβ
she bursted out laughing at that. at first you were slightly embarrassed, telling her to shut up. then you started laughing wit her, because what a pathetic thing grant was. once the two of you stopped laughing you looked at her, like really looked at her. without thinking you fixed her slightly crooked bangs. she watched your fingers as they moved across her bangs.
βyouβre like really pretty you know that?β you told her.
βyouβre really pretty tooβ she said without any hesitation.
you looked moved your attention from her eyes to her lips. up until this moment you hadnβt thought of her as anything than your best friend. she got you in no one anyone had, specially grant. thatβs what confused you, everytime you compared to her to someone it was always grant. there was something about alysa that made you feel different, and looking at her now. you realized what it was, and you hoped she knew it too. you leaned in slowly, cautiously leaving the right amount of space. if she want to meet you halfway she would, and if she didnβt she could back away. there was no hesitation from her, she kissed you. it started slow, then it become needy. her hands landed on your hips pulling you closer to her, your hands wrapped around her neck. she tugged on your hips begging for more. you didnβt hesitate, without breaking the kiss you went to straddle her lap. she began to rock your hips against her thigh, you threw your head back. she started to kiss your neck careful not to leave any mark, you could care less at this point. until you realized you were cheating on your high school sweetheart. you quickly stood up saying how this was stupid and you donβt meant to lead her on. alysa tried to plead with you, but you didnβt listen already walking back to your dorm. you cried the entire way there, you were confused. you knew your feelings for alysa, but what would people think? grant wasnβt a good boyfriend you knew that, but he also didnβt deserve to be betrayed this way.
you hadnβt even think about how this was going to go. you had tried to break up with grant countless times, each time unsuccessful.
you knocked on his dorm door quietly, hoping that maybe he wouldnβt hear you. that you would be able to avoid this conversation for another day. he opened the door, no shirt just some old basketball shorts.
βgod you look like shitβ he looked you up and down. for once he was probably right, you had been crying the entire way here. the wind had picked up leaving your hair a frizzy mess.
βshut up grant. i need to talk to youβ you shoved your way in.
βare you going to trying to break up with me for the millionth time?β
βyeah and itβs going to work becauseβ
βwho in their right mind is ever going to love you? youβre a real mindfuck you know that? youβre lucky iβve put up with you this longβ
you sat on the edge of his bed, looking down at the floor. his words hit you everytime, always hurting more than the last.
βbecause i met someone who loves meβ
βoh so youβre a slut? youβve been cheating on me? let me guess with that bitchβ
βyes! grant yes! eveything bad you have to say about me is true and nevertheless she loves meβ
βhow do you know huh? what if she just wants to fuck, realizes youβre no good then kicks you to the curb?β
βshe wouldnt do thatβ you said under your breath.
βhuh? youβre a fool to think that. i love you baby, so much. no one will ever love you the way i doβ he came up to you, holding your face with both his hands. wiping the tears falling from your eyes with his thumb, βhow will your parents feel when they hear you cheated on me? with some chick, do really think theyβll still love you?β
you didnt say anything, you couldnβt. you knew he wasnβt right, but you knew nothing other than him. how would your parents react? you never actually thought about what your parents might think, would they even accept you? you felt like a damn fool, but once again you fell into grantβs trap. he kissed your temple, telling you he loved you. he pulled your head back to look at him, and he had the same rage in his eyes. he didnβt have any remorse for his words as he kissed you. he lifted you to sit on the dresser by his window. you knew this wasnβt right, but grantβs words echoed in your head. what if alysa really got to know you and realized you were too much, or not enough for her. how could she ever love you the way grant did?
alysa knew she liked you from the moment you approached her at that party. she loved everything about you, especially the way you cared for others. one of the first nights you hung out, alysa overdid it at the pregame. you didnβt get mad at her, you immediately took care of her. much to grantβs disapproval you skipped out on the party that night. you brought her back to your dorm, and watched her all night. you slept on the floor and any movement you heard you got up to make sure she was okay. the next morning you sat with her on the bathroom floor, holding her hair and rubbing her back as she threw up. you never expected anything in return either. you were selfless that way, you loved with your whole heart. thatβs why she hated grant, he was selfish. he kept you all to himself, sucking the life out of you. she wanted nothing more than to get you away from him. then hopefully youβd realize you loved her more than just a friend. for the the past couple months it felt like you were finally seeing it. the way grant kept you isolated and alysa let you be free. the way alysa cared for you in ways he couldnβt. until the night you left her at the lookout, she really thought you were finally going to be hers. she gave you space thinking youβd eventually come around but you never did. it had been weeks since she last saw you, you never came to class and you stopped taking your usual routes around campus. her roommates saw the way your absence was affecting her and they couldnβt stand to see that way. they knew what she went through before this, how her love for skating was taken from her. they didnβt want her loose something else she held so close, so they invited her out. they knew youβd be there with grant and they had a plan to trap you two into talking to each other. alysa fought against the plan she didnβt want to see you, especially if you were with him.
βshe wonβt be there. the pledges are out on some retreat this weekendβ her first roomate encouraged her.
βwe donβt even have to stay! just drink their alcohol and dipβ the second one said pulling her by the arms up.
alysa didnβt fight back this time.
grant was like he was at every party, drunk beyond his mind. this time you joined him taking a couple shots. each one youβd hope help take your mind off alysa. it had been almost a month since you last saw her and everyday you missed her more. you knew kissing her wasnβt a mistake, but your mind couldnβt accept it. you belonged with grant right?
βare you fucking kidding?β grants friend, logan, shouted.
βwhatβs up my boy?β grant replied and you cringed grabbing his cup and chugging the rest. he smiled whispering into your ear, βthatβs my girlβ kissing your forehead.
βthat weirdo, i forgot her name. we messed around like once, her roommate is your girlβ logan pointed to you and you knew who he was talking about. grants grip on waist tighten.
βlogannnnβ alysaβs roommate sang from
behind all of you.
you all sighed in unison.
βi havenβt seen you in so long baby, what happen?β
βi got busyβ
βso am iβ she reached over him and grabbed a bottle.
βyo you canβt take all thatβ logan grabbed the bottle from her hand.
βiβm sharing it with my girlsβ
your breath caught when you saw her. she looked good, way too good. if you could have it your way youβd reached over the counter and drag her upstairs with you.
βnah, not with herβ logan pointed to alysa. she looked down embarrassed and then her roomates grabbed the bottle from logan, running off giggling. logan quickly chased after them and grant grabbed your arm dragging you outside.
βgrant stop youβre hurting me!β you yelled as he yanked you outside and slammed the door behind him.
βdid you know she was going to be here?β he yelled at you.
βwhat no? of course not.β
βyouβre such a fucking liar. i shouldnβt have taken you back.β
βyou didnβt take me back you moronβ
βoh yeah? then why am i still putting up with your bullshit?β
βbecause youβre scared grant. no one will ever love you, youβre pathetic.β
βi donβt know how drunk you are right now but im not some kind of mirrorβ
truthfully you were drunk out of your mind, you were seeing two of him at the moment. there was such thing as liquid courage though, because seeing alysa made you realize you were a fool. you werenβt the miserable and unloveable one in the relationship, it was always grant. in high school you were the most popular girl, no one ever had anything bad to say about you. grant took notice of that, and wanted you all to himself. star quarterback and popular girl, it shouldβve been a fairytale and it did start as one. he was sweet in the beginning then he showed his true colors. he couldnβt stand not having the attention in the relationship, he didnβt want to be known as your boyfriend. you were his girlfriend, so he took your insecurities and capitalized on them. slowly he turned you into a shell of the person you once were. then alysa came along and the same bubbly personality started to come out and he freaked out. you were finally starting to see past him and his evil antics. you wanted to be the old you, the one that was starting to show when you were with alysa. she didnβt hold you back, she wanted you to be the best version of yourself. you wanted to be that person too, not just for you but for her.
βno grant iβm just done with you. i donβt owe you an explanation or reason, im done.β
βweβll see how long that lastsβ
you just rolled your eyes and slammed the door behind you. there was people gathered around who clearly had seen the whole show you two put on. you could care less about what some strangers thought, you needed to find her. you rushed upstairs knocking and opening every door, nothing. you went downstairs pushing through people asking if they had seen her no use. you spotted logan in the corner making out with a new girl, perfect. you cleared your throat looking anywhere but the two of them.
βwhat do you want?β he asked harshly.
βwhere did the bottle stealers go?β
βthey leftβ
you rushed out the door knowing whereβd youβd find her. you didnβt fully comprehend how hard it would be to run across town drunk, so you stopped halfway to call an uber. he was a sweet older gentleman who listened to your story about how your high school boyfriend was holding you back from your true love. he told you falling in love that young never worked anyways. you thanked him and reached in your pocket reaching for cash to tip him. he tried to refuse, but you told him if he refused, alsya would also refuse you. he was your good luck charm you insisted on it.
you jumped out the car expecting to see alysa sitting there. alone, with the cheap bottle her and her roomates stole. she wasnβt there, you cursed under your breath starting to feel nauseous. you ran to the trashcan and threw up. you couldnβt survive another car ride in your state, the thought already making you nauseous. you also couldnβt walk without the possibility of getting caught by a cop. so you did the next best thing, you reached for your phone telling siri to call her. it went to voicemail immediately.
βi hate do not disturb you know that. iβm going to call you again and if you donβt pick up im going to text you. and im not gonna stop until you answer sooooooβ your words were slurred and you laughed before hanging up. calling her again, the phone rang too many times for your comfort. then on the final ring she picked up, there was music playing in the background.
βhelloβ
βhi please donβt hang up, please. i need you, i need to see you, pleaseβ you started to cry into the phone.
βholy shit okay where are you?β
βyou know where. i thought youβd be here too but you werenβt.β you said between broken sobs.
βiβm on my way okay? iβll be there in no more than twenty minutes.β you heard confused voices as she hung up the phone.
you decided the best way to solve your nausea was to sleep, so you laid against the trashcan and closed your eyes.
βmy god i gotta goβ alysa said to her roomates as she got up rushing out the door.
βwhat? this is supposed to be our nightβ her roommate augured.
βthatβs not entirely trueβ the second said.
alysa looked between the two of them
puzzled.
βwe knew she was going to be there and were going to trap you to talk to herβ
βyou what?β
βwe know how much you like her and couldnβt stand seeing you so sadβ
βweβll talk about this later, iβll be backβ alysa grabbed her keys and rushed out the door. she surprisingly wasnβt mad at her roommates, sheβd been dying to talk to you. seeing you with grant made her heart drop and she would be lying to herself to say she wasnβt scared. you hadnβt called in weeks, what if grant did something to you? what if you were setting her up somehow? she shoved those feelings down quickly as her uber pulled up, she couldβve walked but she needed to get you as quickly as possible.
βi just dropped off this lovely young lady at the same place. such a sweetheart truly, she left me a tip. told me if i rejected her the person she was trying to win back would reject her too. iβm good luck tonight she told meβ the man looked at her through the rear view mirror. alysa just laughed at the story, biting her thumb knowing he was most likely talking about you. she left him a generous tip as well, telling him she needed some of his luck. when she got out the car it was colder than she expected, she hugged herself and started looking for you. you werenβt that hard to miss considering you were in a bright colored dress sleeping against a trash can. she immediately rushed over to you, holding your face and shaking you awake. you woke up slowly smiling at her.
βalysaaaaaa you showed upβ
βi did, are you okay?β
you didnβt even expect to but you started crying, you shook your head.
βi fucked up, i know i did. i shouldβve cut things off with him so long ago. i was so scared what people would think of me. i mean i havenβt even soft launched to my parents that i might be gay or i donβt even know! i donβt wanna label it, i hate labels. my mom had this label machine growing up that used to freak me outβ you stopped yourself before you continued on your tangent. you stood up stumbling a bit before alysa caught you, holding your waist firmly. you wrapped your arms around her neck, βlook i know i messed things up with us but i need you to know. i like you so much, like itβs bad. iβm sorry it took me so long to get my head out my ass but iβm ready to be here for you. i could give less of a shit what anyone thinks, all i want is to be with youβ
she didnβt reply at first she just nodded, her grip on your waist slightly tighter now.
βi think youβre drunk and we should talk about this in the morningβ
βnope! no because im not as drunk as i was, like yeah im tipsy. i just really want to kiss you right nowβ you titled your head.
she laughed and shook her head and you let out another whine. she gave in and kissed you. you melted into her instantly, your hand starting to mess with her hair. her hand was steady on your waist and you smiled the entire time.
she pulled away first, your eyes were still closed hoping she just needed to catch her breath or something.
βdoes this mean youβre free from-β
you put your finger on her lips, βdonβt use that devils name, but yes.β
she smiled leaning into to give you another quick kiss. she insisted on getting you home and you begged her to stay with you. insisting that your roomates missed her but she knew you it was you who did.
you werenβt on sure how things would play out between you. you knew grant would try to come back, but heβd have to give at some point. you werenβt sure how your parents would react but you honestly didnβt care. alysa was your person, you werenβt sure on the timeline yet. you just hoped it would be a while.
At the Winter Olympics, everything is supposed to be about medals, records, and representing your country.
For Alysa Liu, figure skating has always been her worldβgraceful, controlled, and fiercely individual. After making history with her gold medal performance, she expects nothing more than media interviews, celebrations, and the quiet pressure of staying on top.
For you, Team USAβs star hockey player and newly crowned Olympic gold medalist, life is the complete oppositeβfast, physical, loud, and built on teamwork. You thrive in chaos, in the clash of sticks and ice, in a game where emotions run as high as the stakes.
You were never supposed to meet.
But one accidental collision in the Olympic Villageβliterallyβchanges everything.
What starts as a sarcastic exchange turns into late-night conversations, secret meetups between events, and a connection neither of you expected in the middle of the biggest competition of your lives. With cameras everywhere, national expectations looming, and your schedules pulling you in opposite directions, falling for each other is the one risk you canβt afford to take.
Yet somehowβ¦ itβs the only thing that feels real.
Because winning gold was supposed to be the highlight of the Olympics.
ππ ππππ ππππππ pt.1 (alysa liu x fem!oc)
SUMMARY β you find out Alysa made you a friendship bracelet with her number on it, and you can't help but text her about it.
WARNING β none
WORD COUNT β 3.5K
PT.1 PT.2 PT.3 PT.4
MASTERLIST
The noise of the Kia Forum was still buzzing long after the concert ended.
It wasn't music anymore. It was that chaotic mix of thousands of people leaving at the same timeβexcited yelling, rushed footsteps, stage crews tearing things down, overlapping conversations echoing through the arena halls.
And in the middle of all that, Alysa desperately wished she could go back four hours in time and slap herself.
"That was kinda cute," Madison said for the fifth time, trying not to laugh.
"No, no, no," Amber immediately lifted a hand. "That was clinically insane. Different thing."
"Amber!" Ellie protested, even though she was grinning.
Alysa sank deeper into the white couch in the VIP lounge and covered her face with both hands.
"I wanna die."
"You can't die yet," Isabeau replied calmly. "We need to see how this ends."
That made Amber laugh so hard she almost spilled her drink.
The VIP area was lit with warm, dim lighting. Outside, they could still hear pieces of the stage getting dismantled, but inside everything looked ridiculously fancy: glass tables, untouched catering trays, overpriced bottled water, fresh flowers, giant couches, and the constant hum of the AC.
And there they were.
Amber Glenn sprawled out like she was watching the best reality show of her life.
Isabeau Levito sitting elegantly with her legs crossed, studying Alysa like a scientist observing a deeply concerning phenomenon.
Ellie Kam trying to be the only compassionate person in the group. And Madison Chock stuck between helping and laughing her ass off.
"In my defense..." Alysa muttered from behind her hands, "it sounded smart at the time."
"At the time?" Amber repeated. "Alysa, you wrote your number on a bracelet."
"The bracelet was cute!"
"And then you tried giving it to a literal global pop star in front of twenty thousand people."
"Because I had a plan!"
Everyone stared at her.
Alysa slowly lowered her hands.
"...sort of."
Amber leaned forward immediately.
"You had absolutely no plan."
"Well technically I did."
"What was it?"
Alysa hesitated.
"Hope fate did something."
Ellie accidentally snorted.
Madison covered her mouth.
Even Isabeau cracked a tiny smile.
"Oh my God," Amber said. "You're worse than I thought."
Alysa groaned in embarrassment and buried her face into the pillow again.
It had all started before the concert.
The bracelet had seemed like an innocent idea. Cute, even. She'd spent almost an hour making it: silver beads, tiny stars, letters lined up carefully.
And the beads with her number on them.
Not because she actually thought it would work.
Well.
Maybe a little.
But mostly because she had a massive crush on you and the whole romantic idea sounded adorable at two in the morning.
What she hadn't considered was one very important detail: how the hell she was actually supposed to give it to you.
Because imagining cinematic scenarios in her head was one thing.
Actually getting to the Kia Forum and realizing there was:
Security.
Barricades.
Staff.
Thousands of people.
And exactly zero realistic opportunities to get near you without being tackled by a six-foot security guard.
So for almost the entire concert, the bracelet stayed hidden in her jacket pocket while she silently suffered.
And then somehowβthrough some absurd, incomprehensible chain of eventsβ you found out about it.
That was the real problem.
She had no idea how.
Nobody did.
But around forty minutes after the concert ended, while they were hanging in the VIP area thanks to some of Madison's connections, Alysa's phone buzzed.
At first she barely paid attention.
Until she saw the name.
And felt her soul leave her body.
"What happened?" Ellie asked.
Alysa had gone completely still.
"...no."
"What?"
"No."
"Alysa?" Amber practically snatched the phone out of her hands.
And then she screamed.
A real scream.
Loud.
High-pitched.
Dramatic.
"She texted you!?"
Madison nearly choked on water.
Isabeau's eyes widened for the first time all night.
Ellie immediately tried grabbing the phone too.
"Let me see!"
"Amber!"
But Amber was already reading the message out loud with full telenovela narrator energy.
"I heard somebody made a bracelet for me and now I kinda need to see it because apparently there's a story behind it."
Amber slowly looked up.
The entire lounge exploded.
Ellie fell backward laughing.
Madison covered her face.
Isabeau was red trying not to laugh.
And Alysa...
Alysa wanted to spontaneously evaporate.
"Who snitched on me?" she asked in horror.
"That does not matter!" Amber was literally bouncing on the couch. "What matters is it worked!"
"It did not work!"
"She DM'd you on Instagram! That is literally the definition of working!"
"That wasn't the plan!"
"Then what was the plan?"
"I don't know!"
Madison was fully crying from silent laughter now.
Ellie finally managed to grab the phone and reread the message. And the more she looked at it, the worse the situation became.
Because it didn't sound cold.
It didn't sound like some copy-paste celebrity response.
It sounded genuinely curious.
And that was absolutely destroying Alysa.
"Oh, you're done for," Ellie said through laughter. "Look at this. She's actually interested."
"Don't say that," Alysa whispered, horrified.
"No, seriously, listen," Amber leaned closer again. "The important question here isβ"
She paused dramatically.
"Did you answer yet?"
All four of them looked at her.
Alysa looked away.
Amber's mouth slowly dropped open.
"Alysa."
"..."
"ALYSA."
"I panicked."
"What does that mean?!"
"It means I closed Instagram!"
The whole room lost it again. Even Isabeau was openly laughing now.
"There's no way," Madison wheezed.
"You closed the app?!"
"I didn't know what to do!"
Amber collapsed backward dramatically.
"I have never seen somebody sabotage themselves that fast."
"She's nervous," Ellie said, trying to defend her.
"I would be nervous too!" Madison admitted. "I'd literally pass out."
"Exactly, thank you."
"But it's still hilarious."
"Madison."
"Sorry."
She was not sorry.
Alysa grabbed a pillow and threw it at her.
Madison caught it while still laughing.
And in the middle of all the chaos, Alysa's phone buzzed again.
The entire lounge went silent.
Completely silent.
Alysa slowly looked down at the screen.
Another message from you.
Amber made a strangled noise.
"Open it," Isabeau whispered immediately.
"I can't."
"Open it."
"I can't breathe."
"That's not relevant right now," Amber said. "Open the message!"
With shaking hands, Alysa unlocked her phone.
The second message was short.
"so was the bracelet just an urban legend?"
For one second, nobody spoke.
And thenβ
"OOOOOOOOOH!" Amber screamed.
Madison literally fell onto the floor laughing.
Ellie started smacking the couch in excitement.
Isabeau covered her mouth, shocked.
And Alysa felt like she was about to die right there. Because now the problem wasn't the bracelet anymore.
The problem was that you were very clearly having fun with this.
Alysa kept staring at the screen like her phone had suddenly turned into a live explosive device.
The message was still there.
Small.
Simple.
Flirty.
"Text her back," Amber said immediately.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"No, physically I cannot."
"Your fingers work perfectly fine."
"My brain doesn't."
Ellie was already pressed against her side trying to analyze every micro-expression on her face.
"She's going into shock."
"She's been in love for months, that's different," Madison corrected while settling back onto the couch.
"I am not in love."
All four of them looked at her.
Alysa paused.
"...maybe a little."
Amber let out another victorious scream.
"She admitted it!"
"Keep your voice down!"
"Why? You think she's gonna hear us from backstage?"
And honestly, considering how the hell you'd somehow found out about the bracelet in the first place, nothing felt impossible anymore.
That was still the detail haunting Alysa.
Because she hadn't talked to you.
She never got close to you.
She hadn't even held the bracelet up during the concert because she was too scared of embarrassing herself.
So the only possible explanation was that somebody talked.
Or somebody saw something.
Or the universe had personally decided to destroy her emotional stability.
"I still wanna know who snitched," she muttered.
"Probably someone on staff saw the bracelet," Madison said. "Or overheard you hyperventilating before the encore."
"I was not hyperventilating."
Isabeau raised an eyebrow.
"Alysa, you said, 'If she looks directly at me, I'm gonna disintegrate'."
"Because it was true."
"And then you hid your face in my shoulder for like two songs," Ellie added.
"Yeah, that really doesn't help your case," Amber commented.
Alysa dropped backward again in defeat.
The VIP lounge still carried the distant echo of the event ending. People walking outside. Staff members coming and going. Faint laughter. The metallic clanging of equipment being taken apart.
But inside that room, time basically stopped around her phone.
Because you still hadn't gotten a reply.
And apparently that was killing the entire group.
"It's worse now because she knows you saw the message," Madison said.
"Don't say that!"
"How long has it even been?" Ellie asked.
Amber checked the time.
"Three minutes."
Alysa's eyes widened.
"Only three!? Feels like thirty years."
It really did feel like thirty years.
Especially because her brain kept replaying every catastrophic possibility.
Maybe you thought she was weird.
Maybe you regretted texting her.
Maybe you expected a normal response and instead accidentally discovered a girl incapable of functioning like an actual human being.
"Okay," Ellie finally said, taking control of the situation. "We're gonna solve this rationally."
"Good luck with that," Amber muttered.
Ellie ignored her.
"First: she is very obviously interested in talking to you."
Alysa made a strangled little noise.
"Second: the message was funny. Which means she's trying to make you feel comfortable."
"Or she's making fun of me."
"Flirting and teasing are not mutually exclusive," Madison said.
"Madison!"
"What? It's true."
Meanwhile, Isabeau kept watching the phone with suspicious levels of calm.
"I think you should send something simple."
"Like what?"
"Something natural."
"I don't know how to act natural."
"That is also true," Amber admitted.
Alysa shot her a murderous glare.
Amber smiled without a shred of regret.
"Listen," she said, leaning forward. "You've got two options."
She raised one finger.
"You either keep ignoring her and spend the rest of your life wondering what would've happened."
She raised a second finger.
"Or you answer and maybe end up married."
"Amber!"
"I'm thinking long-term here."
Ellie was trying not to laugh again.
Madison had already completely lost the battle. And somehow, unbelievably, Isabeau looked like the most reasonable person in the room.
"You could just tell the truth," she suggested. "Something like, 'The bracelet is real, I just got embarrassed trying to give it to you'."
Everyone went quiet for a second. Because honestly... it was a good idea.
Simple.
Honest.
Cute.
And that made it infinitely more terrifying.
"That sounds way too vulnerable," Alysa whispered.
"Because it is," Ellie said softly.
Alysa's expression shifted slightly.
And for the first time since everyone started clowning her, the real nerves showed again.
Because yeah, she was embarrassed.
Very embarrassed.
But underneath all the humiliation was something worse: hope.
That was the real problem.
If you hadn't answered, the whole thing would've stayed a ridiculous inside joke between friends.
The secret bracelet.
The impossible crush.
End of story.
But you answered. And not only did you answerβ you sounded genuinely interested.
And that made everything feel dangerously real.
Alysa swallowed hard.
"What if she thinks I'm intense?"
Amber looked directly at her.
"You made a bracelet with your number on it for a celebrity."
"Amber!"
"I'm saying we passed the 'intense' stage hours ago."
Madison started laughing so hard she nearly fell over again.
Ellie finally shoved a pillow over her face.
"Stop helping her spiral."
"I am trying!"
"You're terrible at it."
The phone was still in Alysa's hands.
The conversation open.
Your messages sitting there above.
The empty little text bubble below waiting for a response.
And the longer she stared at it, the more nervous she got.
"What if I type something weird?"
"Then you send another message after," Isabeau said.
"What if I sound desperate?"
"You already gave her a bracelet with your number on it," Amber reminded her.
"I'm gonna hit you."
"But lovingly."
Alysa took a deep breath.
Exhaled.
Inhaled again.
Then finally started typing.
All four girls immediately leaned toward her like emotional vultures.
"Don't look."
Nobody moved.
"I'm serious."
Amber literally adjusted herself for a better view of the screen.
"This is a group project now."
"It is not."
"It is for us."
Alysa finished typing one sentence.
Read it.
Immediately deleted it.
"Too desperate."
She typed another.
Deleted it again.
"Too dry."
Another.
"Too weird."
Another.
"Why did I type 'LOL'? I sound psychotic."
"Everyone uses 'lol,'" Madison said.
"Yeah, but I used four L's. That communicates instability."
So Iβm a big Olivia Rodrigo fan LOOL this is based off her new song which I think is so fun and cute and whimsical and I think every girl should fall so hard like this for someone at least once in her life
Hereβs what I think would have influenced popstar!reader to write Drop Dead abt alysa
Itβs late enough that your whole apartment has gone soft and quiet. The lamps in your bedroom are on low, your makeup is half gone, and the city outside your windows has dissolved. You are sprawled sideways across your bed in an old shirt from a past tour, hair loose, one sock still on because you had been too lazy to fully get ready for sleep.
Nights like this are rare now. Usually there is always something waiting for youβanother demo to approve, another performance clip your team wants you to repost, another interview quote turned into discourse by strangers with too much time and a Wi-Fi connection. Your life has gotten so loud that quiet feels expensive.
You have been famous long enough now that people think they know exactly who you are. To them you're the girl who writes her own songs, turns every crush into a hit, and somehow manages to make yearning sound glamorous instead of embarrassing. They call you a hopeless romantic like itβs both a compliment and a warning. Your fans make jokes that you could make eye contact with someone in a grocery store and have three unreleased bridge ideas about them by the time you get home.
The joke is funny because it isnβt entirely wrong. You do fall fast sometimes, just not in the crazy, delusional way strangers online accuse you of, but in the way that life catches your attention so sharply itβs hard not to lean toward it. You notice things like the way people laugh when they stop trying to sound cool and the way a voice changes when someone starts talking about the thing they love most.
You also know the way desire can start as something so small it almost feels harmless. So when your phone lights up on the bed beside you with a text from your manager that says, you need to see this, and then a link follows, you donβt think much of it at first. You assume it is another dance clip, another celebrity using one of your songs for publicity. But then you press play.
Itβs Alysa Liu on the ice, and the first thing you register is that she doesnβt skate like someone trying to impress people. She skates like someone who loves it too much to care about anything else. You don't even realize the fact that itβs your song opening through the arena speakers, one you wrote yourself in the middle of a stupid, dizzy, embarrassingly happy crush and then somehow turned into one of the biggest songs of your career. A song your fans have loved for years, partly because itβs catchy and partly because it became one more piece of the mythology around youβthe hopeless romantic, the girl always half in love with life, with people, with possibility.
Alysa is using that song, your song, but she is not precious with it. She doesnβt treat it like something sacred sheβs too intimidated to touch. She uses it like she understands it. Every little rise in the melody finds its way into her body. The sharpness of a turn, the ease of her landing, the little flashes of mischief in her expression when she hits a beat just right, it all feels natural, like she picked the song because it belonged to her and because she trusted herself enough to make it hers for four minutes.
By the time the program ends, youβve sat up fully in bed without realizing it, your pillow pushed aside, your legs folded under you now. The video ends on crowd noise and your own faint reflection in the black screen for half a second before it replays.
Your manager texts again. Cool right? She picks her own music a lot. Thought youβd like this.
You type back, Who is she? and then immediately delete it because that makes you sound insane, considering of course you know who Alysa Liu is in the vague public way everyone knows who Alysa Liu is. Olympic figure skater. Blonde and brown halo rings. A little unpredictable, in a way people find charming because she seems so entirely herself.
So instead, you send, Wait I love this???
Your manager reacts with a laughing emoji and says, careful. another crush incoming?
You roll your eyes at that, but you replay the video anyway.
Then you do what anyone with a phone, a bed, and poor self-restraint doesβ¦ you open the internet and start digging. At first itβs almost innocent. You watch another program, then another. Then you find interviews, and that is where it really gets bad for you, because skating is one thing, but a personality is what gets you.
Alysa has this way of talking that feels disarmingly unfiltered without ever seeming careless. She doesnβt sound rehearsed in that glossy media-trained way you know too well, the way people in the public eye learn to answer questions without saying anything at all. She sounds like she means what she says. In one clip she shrugs off a question about pressure with this half-smile, loose and unbothered, like she genuinely refuses to let fear dictate too much of her life. In another she talks about wanting to enjoy things while theyβre happening, not just chase the next achievement. You know what it means to be young and publicly ambitious, to have strangers package your life into eras and outcomes and comeback narratives before youβve even had time to live it. So thereβs something magnetic about a girl who seems to move through all that noise with this philosophy of just doing what she loves, fully, while she can. No regrets, no dragging herself halfway into things.
You click through clips of her laughing mid-answer, squinting under arena lights, making jokes with that effortless comedic timing that canβt be taught. In one interview she says something a little offhand and funny, and the interviewer breaks before she does, like Alysaβs sense of humor always lands half a beat later because she says things so straight-faced.
You grin at your phone, then immediately feel ridiculous for grinning alone in bed at a figure skater you have never met. But still, you keep going.
Her Instagram is somehow worse. Or better. You havenβt decided. It is one thing to think someone is cool when they are framed by competition footage and media clips. It is another to see the smaller pieces: blurry photo dumps, friends with their arms slung around each other, weird angles, a caption that makes no effort to sound polished, the kind of face card that would be obnoxious if she didnβt seem so unpretentious about it.
She is annoyingly pretty in a way that doesnβt seem engineered. Pretty in motion, pretty mid-laugh, pretty with no obvious awareness of how devastating she looks to everyone else.
There are training clips, medal photos, candid shots where sheβs clearly being silly on purpose, and then posts that catch you off guard because thereβs a kind of openness in them, a lightness. She looks like somebody who actually has fun being alive. You find yourself lingering on one video longer than necessary because her voice in it is lower and more amused than you expected, and when she smiles off to the side at someone behind the camera you feel a stupid flutter low in your stomach that makes you physically put your phone down for a second.
βOh, brother,β you mutter to the empty room, dragging a hand down your face before picking it right back up again. There is no one there to witness your loss of dignity, which is the only reason you continue.
You go onto TikTok next, which is a mistake so immediate it almost feels karmic. There are edits of her everywhere. Some are sincere, all soaring music and slow-motion spins. Some are dumb, built around the fact that the internet has agreed she is someone who makes everyone a little bit stupid. The comments are full of people openly folding.
Sheβs the coolest girl alive.
Iβd let her ruin my life.
No actually why is she soooo fine.
One edit uses a clip of her smirking after a skate and you laugh out loud, quiet but real, because the top comment just says she knows exactly what sheβs doing to us and three thousand people have agreed.
Eventually, because the internet is the internet and your name is unfortunately always invited into rooms you never entered, you come across the ship edits. At first you almost scroll past because you assume theyβll be dumb in a way that makes you cringe, but then one catches you off guard.
It opens with the first notes of the song she used for her program, cuts between clips of you performing it on stage and Alysa skating to it under arena lights, and then layers in random little visualsβyour smile from an interview, her laughing in a press conference, both of you looking over your shoulders in separate clips as if by some accidental cinematic miracle it almost looks like youβre turning toward each other.
There is absolutely no evidence, no interaction, no meeting, not even a shared event. Just editors with too much imagination and apparently a very specific belief that the universe should get on with it already.
The caption says something like she wrote this song about Alysa and Alysa knows it, trust me, now someone do your job and make this happen.
You snort, but you watch the whole thing. Then another. Then another. One uses a soft love song and comments underneath are losing their minds in a way that is strangely endearing instead of invasive.
They would be so cute together.
I just know sheβd fall for Alysa in like ten seconds.
Someone show this to her manager like rn.
The love album for Alysa would go platinum.
I wonder if she knows Alysa skated to her song.
You should feel weird about it, probably. You should close the app and reclaim at least a scrap of your pride. Instead youβre lying there with your chin tucked into your pillow, smiling despite yourself, reading each comment like they are passing notes directly to you. Because there is something harmlessly adorable about it. People are not making up scandals or forcing some bizarre narrative. They just think two girls who seem bright and soft and a little intense in complementary ways might fit together.
And worseβmost humiliating of allβyou can see it for one fleeting second. It's not in some wedding bells, soulmate, psychotic way. It's a silly little vision.
The two of you side by side somewhere real and ordinary, close enough to be sharing the same private joke, Alysa with that loose grin she gets when sheβs amused, you trying and failing to play it cool. The image arrives so easily it startles you.
You drop your phone onto your chest and stare at the ceiling for a minute, letting out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. Your room is quiet again except for the faraway hum of the city and the faint sound of your air conditioner kicking on.
βThis is actually stupid,β you say softly to yourself, though there is no heat in it, just disbelief.
You turn your head and look at your phone like it has personally betrayed you. A crush is too dramatic of a word, you tell yourself. You have not met Alysa Liu. You do not know Alysa Liu. All you know is that she picked your song, skated the hell out of it, seems funny and smart and way too pretty, and lives according to a philosophy you admire enough that it makes something in you ache a little. That is not a crush. That is appreciation. Professional curiosity. Artistic respect. Normal interest.
Except none of those explanations really account for the giddy warmth still fizzing low in your chest, or why the ship edit comments made you bury your face in your pillow for a second just to hide your smile from absolutely no one.
Your fans would never let you live this down if they knew. They already joke that your type is anyone talented and emotionally interesting within a ten-mile radius. The idea of them finding out you spent part of your night watching edits of yourself with a figure skater who used your song would probably become fandom folklore by morning.
You can almost hear it already; she definitely saw the edits and fell in love immediately. you guys know how she gets. She writes one bridge and suddenly theyβre married.
That thought should embarrass you more than it does but it just makes you grin into the dark, because there is something sweet about being known that well by people who have watched you turn feeling too much into a career.
When you finally force yourself off the apps, it takes effort. You exit TikTok, then Instagram, then go back to the original video one more time because now that you know more about her, the program feels different. Then you lock your phone and set it face down on the nightstand before it can tempt you again.
In the mirror across the room, you catch a glimpse of yourself climbing under the covers with this faint, private smile still lingering around your mouth, and you roll your eyes at your own reflection.
βGet a grip,β you murmur, though your voice comes out fond instead of stern.
You reach up and switch off the lamp, and the room drops into darkness. Alone with your thoughts, you admit at least that it is not a crime to admire someone. It is not even a crime to think a girl you have never met might be a little extraordinary, pretty and funny and cool and maybe the kind of person who makes a room feel more alive just by stepping into it.
As you settle deeper into the pillows, the night folding around you, your brain replays fragments against your will. You see her skates carving across your song, hear her laugh in that interview, remember the dumb sweetness of those comments, picture the silly little image of the two of you standing side by side as if itβs already happened somewhere.
You know itβs silly. You know you are being just self-aware enough to be embarrassed and just entertained enough not to stop. And when sleep finally starts to pull you under, your last coherent thought is helplessly simple, warm with possibility in a way you would never say out loud.
You really do think the two of you would be cute together.
βββ
Ten minutes before a concert consists of a kind of manufactured chaos that has become so normal to you it almost feels comforting.
People are everywhere, but with purpose. Someone is adjusting a headset near the side curtain. Someone else is carrying garment bags past your dressing room like their life depends on it. Your band is doing last checks, your dancers are stretched and glowing with that pre-show adrenaline, and the hallway outside hums with footsteps, voices, clipped instructions, the distant swell of a crowd that has already started chanting your name in waves.
You stand near the lit mirror in your quick-change area with a mic pack half clipped on, rolling your shoulders back, then forward, trying to keep your body loose.
Your glam is done, your hair falls exactly how it is supposed to, your stage outfit catches the light every time you move, and still none of that steadies your nerves the way people think it should. The ritual before a show is always the same: water, vocal warmups, pacing, a little joking around to keep yourself from overthinking, then the strange internal switch where you stop being a person in a hallway and become the version of yourself built for an arena.
Your manager comes hurrying now to you with that particular look on her face that means she knows something you donβt. You donβt think much of it at first, you're too busy humming through a run, one hand pressed lightly to your chest, the other holding your in-ear pack away from your dress while a stylist fixes something near your shoulder.
Your manager waits until the stylist steps away, then crosses her arms and goes, with far too much satisfaction, βGuess whoβs in the VIP section tonight.β
You glance up instantly, already smiling. βOh my god, donβt tell me Ariana Grande,β you say, too fast, eyes widening. βYo, Iβve been dying to see her.β
Your manager laughs in your face, actually laughs, and shakes her head. βNo, not Ariana. Think Olympic gold medalist.β
And just like that, everything in you stops. You go still so abruptly that the girl fixing your hair pauses with her hand midair.
βWhat,β you say, but it comes out quiet, not because you didnβt hear her, but because you did.
Your manager just lifts her brows, enjoying this entirely too much. βMhm.β
For one long second you can only stare at her, mind doing that horrible blank-and-overheated thing at the same time.
Alysa is here. Alysa Liu, who a couple nights ago had been nothing more than a late-night internet rabbit hole and a stupidly compelling face on your phone screen and an embarrassing little fantasy you had laughed off into your pillow, is apparently somewhere beyond those walls in real life, in a VIP section at your show, breathing the same air as you.
Your first thought is confusion. You didnβt invite her. You donβt know her. None of your close friends had mentioned bringing her. Your second thought, much worse, is an electric burst of awareness that she is going to watch you perform. Not as a clip online later, not as a stranger in a crowd of twenty thousand, but here, tonight, in one of the sections close enough that sheβll actually be able to see you.
βWhy would you tell me that now?β you groan, pressing both hands over your face for a second before dragging them down your cheeks. βYou are evil. That is genuinely evil.β
Your manager, who has known you long enough to be immune to your dramatics, just grins and says, βJust donβt mess up out there.β
You make the most wounded sound imaginable and point at her like you have been personally betrayed. βYou cannot say that to me ten minutes before I go on stage.β
She only pats your arm like sheβs soothing a child and says, βYouβll be fine. Just thought youβd want to know.β
Then she disappears back into the movement of backstage before you can say anything else, leaving you standing there in a full body buzz that feels almost identical to what happened in your bed that night, except stronger now, heavier and warmer and threaded through with the unreal knowledge that this is no longer hypothetical.
Somewhere out there is the girl whose interviews you watched until one in the morning, whose Instagram you scrolled with your face half-hidden in a pillow, whose edits made you grin like a loser alone in the dark. And now you have to go be effortless in front of her.
The seconds leading up to your cue are always sharp, but tonight they feel almost surreal. You line up in the wings, your heartbeat pounding so high in your chest it almost makes the room feel thinner, and for once it is not only the crowd doing this to you.
Usually the nerves are broad, impersonal, part of the ritualβthousands of eyes, the pressure of the show, the knowledge that every note matters. Tonight all of that is still there, but it has narrowed itself around one person. Somewhere in VIP, Alysa is waiting.
You try not to think about whether she looks the way she did in those videos, whether sheβs dressed up, whether she came because a friend of a friend invited her or whether she even knows you know sheβs there.
Your intro starts. The arena erupts. The stage manager counts you in, and the moment you step out under the lights your body does what it was trained to do. The performance takes over. Your nerves donβt disappear, but they alchemize into something brighter. You hit your opening exactly, and from there the entire show clicks into place with a cleanness that almost feels supernatural. You are locked in from the first number onward with your voice controlled, body loose, every mark found without effort, every joke to the crowd landing the way itβs supposed to.
The audience is deafening, LA especially loud because half the room knows every word and the other half wants to prove they do too. Your friends and industry peers are somewhere in the front sections, but you only let yourself think about that during transitions, because if you linger on it too long youβll spiral. A few times, against your better judgment, you glance toward VIP while the lights are blown out enough to make details difficult.
During one song you nearly smile in the middle of a line for no reason at all, just because the idea of Alysa hearing you sing words you wrote alone in your room years ago feels suddenly intimate in a way you didnβt prepare for. It does not throw you off, though. If anything, it sharpens you. By the time you reach the last stretch of the set, you know you are having one of your better shows. It doesn't feel perfect in a robotic way, but because you are so alive inside it. Every emotion is sitting right at the surface, making everything biggerβyour voice, your smile, the way you reach for the crowd on instinct. There's one person to thank for that.
When you thank the audience at the end, breathless and glowing under the final wash of light, wishing them a good night with your chest still heaving from the last song, the applause that comes back feels almost physical. Then you run off stage grinning, high on adrenaline and sweat and relief.
The moment you get backstage, your close friends close around you in a blur of arms and perfume and loud congratulations. Someone grabs your face and says, βYou were insane tonight.β You hug them one by one, laughing, still buzzing so hard from the stage that your hands feel a little shaky.
For a few minutes you let yourself just be in it. The post-show high is one of the only things in your life that still feels childlike because it's this rush of having done the thing, of having survived it and maybe even been great, of being immediately folded into the people who know you best.
Youβre halfway through making a joke with one of your producer friends when your manager appears again at your shoulder and says, βAll your other guests are in your dressing room waiting.β
You nod without really thinking about it. In your head, that means the people you personally invited, the friends that aren't that close but close enough with a few extra familiar faces your team let into VIP because that always happens in LA. Alysa, if you think about her at all in that moment, exists in some separate category in your brain, filed under your team messing with you or a coincidence or maybe not someone who would actually come backstage after.
You wipe under your eyes, adjust your outfit a little, and head toward your dressing room with your pulse finally beginning to settle into something like normal. And then you walk in and see the line of people waiting to hug you, and itβs all fine, all exactly what you expected, until itβs not.
You go down the line, smiling and warm and still a little breathless, hugging your friends one after the other, thanking them for coming, letting their praise wash over you in pieces. The room is bright, crowded in that cozy post-show way.
By the time you get near the end of the line, you see your friend Laufey there and your whole face softens because of course she came.
βThanks for coming,β you say as you step toward her, already leaning in for a hug.
She smiles, sweet and calm as ever, and hugs you back. βOf course. You were amazing.β Then, with the kind of casualness that changes your whole life in a single second, she turns slightly and says, βYou know Alysa, right?β And there she is, standing just behind her.
Everything else falls away so fast it feels actually stupid. The room doesnβt literally stop, of course. People are still talking, moving, laughing. But to you it narrows so completely around the two of you that the rest might as well be underwater.
Alysa is real in the way all internet crushes fail to prepare you for. Not larger than life, exactly, but sharper. Sheβs dressed simply enough that it comes off better than if she had obviously tried too hard, and there is something about the way she standsβeasy in her own body, one hand tucked half into her pocket, expression hovering between amused and just a little carefulβthat makes you understand why every comment section on the internet loses its mind over her. She has the same face you stared at in your room, the same mouth that always looks like itβs one second away from saying something funny, the same eyes that somehow manage to be both observant and unreadable at first glance.
You feel your own body react before your brain catches up. Heat floods your cheeks, your stomach flips so sharply it nearly makes you dizzy. And because this is exactly the kind of moment where your social instincts betray you, you smile, step forward, and go in for a hug at the exact same time Alysa extends her hand.
It happens in one humiliatingly clear beat. Your arms begin to lift. Her hand comes out. Both of you freeze, realizing it at once. You pull back with an audible little βOhββ and switch toward the handshake at the exact moment Alysa, clearly registering your movement, abandons the handshake and leans in for the hug instead. For a split second you almost collide in the middle of both decisions.
Then you both stop again, look at each other, and laugh. Alysaβs shoulders dip with it, her cool expression cracking just enough to reveal nerves underneath, and that alone is so weirdly endearing that your embarrassment loosens immediately.
βWow,β she says, smiling, voice low and dry. βStrong start.β
You laugh harder, ducking your head. βI know. Sorry. Iβm actually normal, I swear.β
βNo, yeah,β she says, still grinning.
The room around you seems to brighten at the edges again, but only barely, because then you do finally manage the hugβquick, warm, realβand the second you feel her arms close around you your whole brain short-circuits in that embarrassingly soft way it has when you like someone.
She smells clean, a little like outside air and something faintly expensive, and because the hug is brief you barely have time to register any of it before you pull away. But itβs more than enough.
βThanks for coming,β you say, and you can hear the slight breathlessness in your own voice no matter how hard you try to sound casual. βSeriously. I, umβI saw the program. To my song. I thought it was really great.β
Alysaβs expression changes at that, the cool teasing giving way to something more direct. βI love that song,β she says. βSo thank you for making it.β You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling too wide and fail completely.
From there, the conversation slips away from everyone else almost naturally. You donβt even realize youβve both angled slightly off from the group until a minute later, when the room has become nothing more than background noise and Alysa is standing close enough that you keep losing your train of thought over it.
Up close, her nonchalance reads differently than it did online. Itβs still thereβshe has that same easy cadence, that same deliberate lack of trying too hardβbut now you can see the effort beneath it. Not in a fake way but it's just like she knows sheβs nervous and is choosing to lean into deadpan humor, so she doesnβt show too much. Once you notice it, itβs impossible not to like her even more for it.
Thereβs a tiny delay before some of her replies, a small shift of her weight when you hold her gaze too long, a brief glance down that gives her away before she recovers and says something cool. And it makes something in you unclench because, instantly, your brain goes, oh. Sheβs just like me. Or at least close enough.
So you talk at first about the obvious thingsβher program, your show, how she ended up here.
βLaufey invited me,β she admits, tilting her head toward where your friend is now talking to someone else across the room.
βInvited is generous,β Laufey calls from somewhere behind her without turning around, which makes Alysa roll her eyes a little.
βOkay,β she says, glancing back at you. βI asked to come.β
βThat's very sweet. I would've just given you a ticket if you slid in my DMs,β you say, and she smiles.
You ask if performing to someone elseβs song ever feels weird, and she says, βNot if itβs good or if I really relate to it. Then it kind of does half the work for you because someone else so perfectly encapsulated your thoughts for youβ
You laugh and say, βThat is a dangerous thing to tell a songwriter,β
She shrugs like she doesnβt care, though her mouth curls at one corner. βI can take it back if you want.β
βNo,β you say quickly, too quickly, and she catches it.
Thereβs a brief beat where she just looks at you, amused, and you can feel your blush deepen. You glance down at your shoes and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, only to end up twirling it around your finger a second later without meaning to.
The more you talk, the less the room exists. Alysa has this unnerving ability to make a sentence sound light and loaded at the same time. She asks questions in a way that feels genuinely interested, not performative, and when you answer she listens with her whole face.
You catch yourself looking at her mouth when she talks and immediately force your eyes elsewhere. Then you realize youβve looked at the floor for too long and look back up too fast. She notices that too.
βYou always this awkward after shows,β she asks, tone so even it takes you half a second to realize sheβs teasing, βor should I feel special?β
Your mouth falls open a little. βOh my god.β
She laughs, softer this time. βThat was mean. Sorry.β
βA little bit,β you say, trying and failing not to smile. βIβm not awkward. Iβm justββ You stop, because nothing you were about to say sounds convincing. Tired, maybe. Overstimulated. Flushed from the stage lights. All technically true and none of them the real answer, which is that you have spent the past several days half-crushing on the idea of her and now she is standing three feet away in your dressing room being funny at you in real time. So instead, you give her a look that makes her grin again, and she mercifully lets you off the hook.
But the ease of it allβthe teasing, the eye contact, the way she keeps leaning slightly closer without seeming to noticeβis making you giddy in a way you canβt hide. You keep biting your lower lip just to have something to do with your mouth. You keep smoothing your hands over the sides of your outfit though thereβs nothing wrong with it. Twice you catch yourself smiling down at your feet for no reason at all, just because she said something dry and clever and looked secretly pleased when it made you laugh.
She tells you a story about choosing program music and how people think thereβs always some grand artistic explanation when sometimes the truth is just that she liked the song and wanted to skate to it.
βI love that reasoning,β you say. βI like when people care about something to stop acting cool about it.β
Her face shifts then, just slightly, something more open moving under the composure. βThatβs nice,β she says. βUnfortunately, Iβm actually pretending to be cool right now because I care too much. I think youβd find me uncool if I wasnβt trying.β The confession is so quiet, so matter-of-fact, that it catches you off guard into a real laugh.
You tilt your head and look at her fully. βNo way.β
βMhm.β
βI donβt believe youβre pretending. Maybe youβre just cool.β
βThatβs because Iβm doing a good job.β The line is delivered perfectly, but thereβs a tiny tell after itβa glance away, a brief exhaleβand it is so unexpectedly sweet that you feel your whole chest go warm.
βYou kind of are,β you admit.
βKind of?β she repeats.
βOkay, no, you are,β you say quickly, smiling. βBut now I know the secret.β
She looks back at you then, and the eye contact holds just a little too long. βYeah,β she says. βI guess you do.β
You would probably have stayed there all night if the room had allowed it. That becomes obvious to both of you by the time someone from your team appears at your elbow to say they need you for a quick photo with a sponsor rep whoβs about to leave. At almost the same moment, thereβs movement from the rest of your guests as people start gathering bags and saying their final goodbyes, the loose signal that the night is winding down.
The interruption feels unfair in a childish way. You look from the staffer to Alysa and back, visibly pained enough that Alysaβs mouth twitches.
βYou should go,β she says, but she says it with the same slight hesitation youβre feeling, and it softens the blow only a little.
βI know,β you say, and then immediately glance down again because you sound like someone being told to leave recess. Your fingers are back in your hair, twirling a strand slowly around one finger while your other hand hangs uselessly at your side.
Alysa shifts her weight once, then makes a decision. You can see it happen in real time; you see the moment where she seems to gather herself and lean into the cool demeanor on purpose because she clearly wants to get this right. βCan I ask you something?β she says.
βYeah,β you answer too quickly, then flush and soften it. βYeah, of course.β
She slides one hand into her pocket, then back out again, like she didnβt know what to do with it. βCould I get your number?β A beat. Then, with forced casualness so transparent itβs almost unbearably charming: βMaybe take you out sometime?β
The line itself is fine enough, but you can hear the nerves just under it, the careful flattening of her tone, the way sheβs trying not to come on too strong and accidentally landing somewhere even sweeter because of it.
And because you are, unfortunately, exactly the kind of person built to be devastated by earnestness in a good outfit, your heart just folds. You smile so hard you have to look down.
βYeah,β you say, softer this time. βYeah, definitely.β
When you take your phone, your hands are not shaking exactly, but they are close enough that youβre very aware of them. Alysa hands hers over and the brush of your fingers is brief, almost nothing, but it still makes your stomach flip. You put your number in while twirling that same piece of hair again, a habit you know makes you look about sixteen, but at this point you are beyond managing optics. When you hand the phone back, Alysa glances at the screen, then up at you.
βSo this has been real,β she says, like sheβs half joking and half checking.
You bite your lip, cheeks hot. βI mean, unless this is fake.β
That gets a real laugh out of her, bright and surprised. βRight,β she says.
The second hug is less awkward because now both of you know what the other is doing. It still isnβt smooth, exactly. Thereβs still that slight mutual hesitance of two people who have moved very quickly from strangers to something else and are trying not to rush while also clearly wanting to. But itβs warmer, more certain. Your arms settle around each other in a way that feels oddly natural for something so new. Up close again, you can feel the faint rise and fall of her breath, can feel how she lingers for just a second longer than politeness requires.
When you pull apart, both of you are blushing, and that might be the most disarming thing of all. Alysa, who has spent the past twenty minutes pretending to be cooler than she is, has pink high on her cheeks now, and she seems to know youβve noticed because she gives you this small, crooked look like donβt say anything. You smile back with the exact same expression, because you get it.
βIβll text you,β she says.
βPlease do,β you answer.
The staffer at your elbow makes an apologetic face, still waiting, and somewhere behind Alysa someone is calling her name too, but for a second neither of you move. Then she nods once, almost to herself, and steps backward toward the door. You watch her go in the most embarrassing way possible, with eyes following, smile you cannot hide, fingers still touching the strand of hair youβve practically destroyed by now. And when she disappears into the hall with one last glance over her shoulder, the room rushes back in all at once.
Underneath all of it is this bright, fizzy certainty that wonβt quiet down.
She came to your show. She asked for your number. She asked you out.
And worst of all for your dignity, every ridiculous, lover-girl, fall-too-fast instinct in you is already standing at the altar.
------
A few days later, the show is over, the city is different, and the strange suspended feeling that had taken hold of you since meeting Alysa still has not let up. Tour has finally loosened its grip enough for you to come up for air, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, your evening belongs to no one else. Just a date.
Alysa had texted you with the kind of false ease you already recognize in her nowβsomething lowkey tonight?βand then followed it with a place that made you pause, not because it was glamorous, but because it wasnβt.
It was a bar tucked into a side street, the kind of place that didnβt trend, didnβt get tagged by every aspiring influencer in the city, didnβt scream for attention. The photos online looked dim and slightly worn in the way places only get when theyβre actually loved by the people who go there.
You had smiled at your phone for a full minute after the text came in, then typed back something cooler than what you felt. Sounds perfect :)
In truth, Alysa could have texted you a pin to a junkyard, some random skatepark, a gas station parking lot, and you probably would have found a cute outfit and gone anyway. That is humiliating to admit even privately, but it is true.
By the time you get there tonight, pulling your jacket tighter around yourself and stepping from the Uber with your heart already tapping too hard under your ribs, you know the place barely matters. She picked it, and you were always going to come.
Inside, the bar is exactly what you hoped and maybe a little better. Warm in the way crowded places get when people have been sitting close for hours, talking over low music and the clink of glass. Thereβs a soft amber cast over everything, old wood burnished by years of elbows and spilled drinks, little pools of dim light over the tables. People are with each other, leaned in, laughing, halfway through stories. The air smells like citrus peel, beer, and something fried from the kitchen. It feels private even though it isnβt. That alone is new enough to make you breathe a little easier.
This kind of date doesnβt usually happen to you. Usually if someone takes you out, thereβs an edge to it before youβve even arrivedβwill there be paparazzi, will someone leak it, will the restaurant seat you in the front window because your face is good for business, will the person across from you look more excited by being seen with you than by actually getting to know you. Even the nicest dates youβve been on in the past have sometimes come with a strange layer of staging, as if being around you turns everything into a set.
But Alysa is already there when you walk in, tucked into a booth in the corner like she belongs in places like this, one arm resting along the back cushion, a beer in front of her, head lifting the second she spots you. And something about how unceremonious it all isβher just being there with a little smile that turns into a real one when she sees youβmakes you feel instantly, stupidly fond.
You slide into the booth across from her, cheeks already warm, and she gives you this once-over that is not subtle enough to miss.
βHey,β she says. Her voice is easy, but thereβs that tiny carefulness under it again, that trace of nerves she tries to smooth out.
βHey,β you say back, and already your body feels too aware of itself, of your hands, your knees under the table, the fact that you suddenly donβt know how to sit like a normal person.
The first few minutes are a little awkward in the harmless way first dates are supposed to be, which actually calms you more than perfect ease would have. It means this matters to both of you and that neither of you is gliding through the moment untouched.
A server comes by, Alysa asks if you want anything, and when you order a dirty Shirley she pauses just long enough for you to catch it.
βWhat?β you ask, smiling suspiciously.
She shakes her head, mouth twitching. βNothing.β
βSay it.β
βI just wasnβt expecting that.β
βWhat were you expecting?β
βI donβt know,β she says, lifting one shoulder. βSomething lessβ¦ pink.β
You laugh, leaning back against the booth. βOkay, well, sorry I contain whimsy.β
That gets a real laugh out of her, quieter than yours but warm, and from there the conversation begins to loosen. Your first drink takes the edge off, not enough to make you sloppy, just enough to make your shoulders drop. Alysa sips her beer, fingers wrapped around the bottle neck, and starts talking with the same rhythm she had backstageβdry where it counts, observant, never trying too hard to be interesting and therefore somehow always interesting anyway.
She asks you about tour in a way that makes it clear she actually wants to know so you tell her about the weird disorientation of living out of a suitcase, how every city starts to blur unless something specific catches and brands itself into your memory. She tells you about training and travel, about how competition cities can do the same thing if you donβt force yourself to notice the small stuff. You talk about where you grew up, both of you skimming the surface in that first-date way that isnβt dishonest so much as gently protective. Alysa tells you a story from when she was younger that makes you laugh into your straw, because she tells it like itβs no big deal even though the whole point of the story is that sheβs been chaotic since birth.
You tell her something from your own childhood about singing too loudly and too seriously in places that did not call for it, and she says, βSo nothingβs changed,β with such a straight face that you have to look down at your drink to hide your grin.
That becomes the rhythm of the night. You talk, and every so often Alysa slips something in under the conversationβa compliment so casual you almost miss it, a teasing line delivered like an afterthought, a look that lingers one beat too long.
It helps that the bar itself seems built to make things feel softer around the edges. Conversations around you rise and fall like weather. Sometimes someone near the jukebox laughs too loudly and the whole room turns briefly toward the sound before settling again. A song changes overhead and another one slips in. It all folds around the two of you without interrupting the little world building itself at your table.
By the time your second drink arrives, youβve stopped worrying about how youβre coming across and started simply enjoying her. Which is dangerous. A tiny buzz settles low in your body, just enough to make you less guarded, and now when Alysa flirts, you stop pretending not to notice.
When she tells you she always thought your interviews were funnier than people gave you credit for, you smile and say, βSo youβve been watching my interviews?β and she gives you a look over the rim of her bottle and says, βMaybe.β
The banter comes easier now, and with it comes something warmer, stranger. You start catching yourself watching her when sheβs mid-sentence, not even because of what sheβs saying, but because of how she says it. Every small thing feels unreasonably vivid. At one point she says something complimentary about a song of yours, but she says it with that same unshowy sincerity sheβd had backstage, and it makes heat run all the way through you. You look down at your drink immediately, smiling at the ice like it personally did something charming. Alysa notices. You know she notices but she doesnβt call it out, just looks quietly pleased with herself for a second and then keeps talking.
Sometime in the middle of all that, Just Like Heaven by The Cure comes on over the speakers and Alysa glances upward, listening for half a second before her face changes with recognition.
βOh,β she says, smiling. βI love this song.β
It takes you a second to place what she means because you are too busy looking at her face when she says it, but then you hear it too. The chords thread through the bar, familiar and romantic and a little melancholy.
She says a few of the words under her breath to prove her pointβspinning on a dizzy edge, I kissed her face and kissed her head, dreamed of all the different ways I had to make her glowβjust enough to show she knows it well, and then she looks back at you with that faintly amused expression like she expects you to make fun of her for it. Instead you just smile.
Something about the way she says those lines, so lightly, while sitting across from you in this dim little bar, makes the song hit differently than it ever has before. Youβve heard it a thousand times. Youβve probably loved it for half your life. But right now, with Alysa leaning toward you over a sticky wooden table, beer bottle turning slowly between her fingers, the room all warm blur and shadow around her, you understand it in a way that feels almost embarrassing.
You understand how a person can look unreal simply because you want them badly enough. How being with someone can feel so exactly right that your body starts to distrust it, starts waiting for the trick, the reveal, the point where you wake up. You understand so completely what Robert Smith means when he sings, I opened up my eyes and found myself alone alone alone above a raging sea that stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me. You're almost ready for her to disappear.
You look at Alysa and think, with this bone-deep clarity that nearly startles you: this is insane. This is too good. She is too pretty under this terrible bar lighting, too funny without trying, too easy to talk to.
The whole night has gone with such improbable smoothness that you almost canβt believe it belongs to your actual life. It feels curated by a version of you with much better luck. A dream you would have mocked yourself for having a week ago.
Alysa is saying something else now, a quiet joke about how everyone who knows her knows she gets attached to songs like a freak, and you laugh, but part of you is still caught on the image of her across from you, the song threading between you, the weird rush of feeling more alive than youβve let yourself feel in a long time. The kind of alive that makes your chest feel almost tender.
When you finally have to get up to use the bathroom, itβs mainly because you need the bathroom and because you need thirty seconds to stand somewhere else and get a grip on yourself.
βIβll be right back,β you say, sliding out of the booth.
Alysa looks up immediately. βIβll come with you.β She says it casually, like itβs nothing, but something in you lifts at the offer anyway.
The back of the bar is narrower and dingier than the front, all scuffed walls, old flyers layered on top of each other, a flickering light near the hall to the bathrooms that should probably be fixed but somehow only adds to the charm. Thereβs a short line, which under any other circumstance would be annoying, but tonight feels almost comically perfect.
You and Alysa end up standing close because there isnβt room not to, shoulders nearly brushing, the crowd pressing and shifting around you in slow little movements. The smell back here is less romanticβsoap, old tile, spilled liquorβbut somehow even this feels gilded by your mood.
Alysa is close enough now that when she leans toward your ear to keep talking over the noise of the bar, her voice lands warm along the side of your face. It shouldnβt be such a big deal but it really is. You are trying very hard to stay in the conversation and not focus too much on the fact that if you turned your head even a little, your noses would probably bump.
She pushes her hair back and glances toward the line like sheβs judging how long itβll take, and under the dingy yellow light she looks unfairly good but not in some polished way, just real. The shape of her profile. The slope of her nose. The way she laughs softly at something you say and dips her head for a second like she doesnβt want to laugh too hard at her own joke.
The whole thing is so absurdly, painfully lovely that your mind flashes back to that night in bed, to your phone screen glowing in the dark, to that silly split-second vision of the two of you side by side that had made you smile into your pillow like an idiot. And now here you are. Standing with her in a cramped line at the back of a crowded bar, dressed up enough to look like you meant to impress each other, her shoulder practically against yours, her face lit gold and shadow, and some stunned part of you thinks, oh. This is it, I called it.
βYou good?β Alysa asks after a beat, and you realize youβve gone quiet.
βYeah,β you say, then smile because that sounded too immediate. βSorry. Iβm listening.β
Alysa studies your face for one second longer than necessary, then smiles too, softer now. βYou donβt look sorry.β
By the time you make it back to the booth, something in you has tipped fully over into certainty. You are gone for her in a way that is difficult to pretend around now. The rest of the date moves with that knowledge humming under every small thing.
You notice everything. Her hands first and how expressive they are even when sheβs trying to seem laid-back, how her fingers trail through the condensation on her glass absentmindedly while she talks, drawing shapes that vanish as quickly as they form. Then the smiley piercing, there and gone whenever she laughs, making your stomach do that humiliating little flip every time. Once, under the table, your feet touch by accident and both of you still for half a second like the contact sent a current through the wood.
βSorry,β you both say at the same time, then laugh, and neither of you moves away as quickly as maybe you should.
You know the bar closes at eleven. You knew it when you got here because you checked the hours like a freak earlier, and now that fact has started ticking quietly in the back of your mind. Every time you glance at the clock behind the bar, your chest tightens just a little. The night is moving, time is not on your side. And because you are you and you have always been prone to wanting more of a good thing than is reasonable, you catch yourself having ridiculous thoughts. You hope Alysa doesnβt finish her beer too fast. You hope the bartender disappears for a while when you ask for another round. You hope somehow the night will forget to move forward if you just keep the conversation alive.
Alysa is telling you about some current pop news youβd both been laughing about over text earlier in the week, and she says something so stupid and perfectly timed that you laugh loud enough to turn a head at the next table.
βYouβre really funny,β you tell her before you can stop yourself.
Alysa raises her brows. βReally?β
You nod, lower lip trapped by your teeth.
She glances down at her bottle, then back up at you. βYouβre easy to make laugh.β
βThatβs because you keep saying things.β
βShould I stop?β
βPlease don't.β
Alysa smiles then, a real one that opens her face completely, and for a second you are so charmed by it you have to look down at your hands just to steady yourself.
Eventually there is nothing left to do but let the night end. The staff slowly start their closing time routineβwiping down sections too early, the music shifting lower as conversations begin to thin. Alysa does, in fact, finish her beer, and you hate how disappointed a tiny part of you feels watching the bottle go empty.
βGuess theyβre kicking us out,β you say, trying for lightness.
Alysa looks around, then back at you. βLooks like it.β
Neither of you moves right away. The pause stretches, not awkward exactly, just heavy with the fact that both of you are aware of what ending the date means.
Finally Alysa slides out of the booth and you follow, gathering your jacket, smoothing your hands down your clothes.
The air outside hits cool after the warmth of the bar. The sidewalk is damp in places, somewhere down the block a couple is arguing softly, someone else is laughing too hard at something on their phone. The city hasnβt ended just because your date is technically over, but it feels quieter than before, narrowed down to you and Alysa standing just outside the door, neither quite ready to leave.
The bar behind you hums with the last of its life, and you can still feel the shape of the whole evening lingering on your skin like heat. You look at Alysa there under the streetlight, hair slightly mussed from the night, expression softer than when the date began, and the same thought returns with almost painful force: you do not want this to be over. Not yet. Not when everything has gone this well.
She glances at you, then down the street, then back, like she's thinking about her next move. You realize dimly that your own pulse has picked up again.
You tuck your jacket a little tighter around yourself and say, because you need to fill the space before you embarrass yourself by just staring at her, βIβm actually really glad I didnβt drive here. I probably shouldnβt be driving right now.β
Alysa looks at you as if checking the evidence, and her mouth twitches. βNo shot youβre drunk off two Shirley Temples.β
Your jaw drops. βThey were dirty.β
That gets her. She laughs, head tipping back slightly, the sound low and easy and stupidly satisfying to have caused. βOh, sorry,β she says, still smiling. βTwo dirty Shirleys. My bad.β
βThank you,β you say, trying for dignity and failing because youβre smiling too hard. βThat is an important distinction.β
βYeah, I can tell.β The teasing settles over both of you so naturally that when you start walking, neither of you actually says where. You just fall into step together instinctively, like the night has not yet given either of you permission to stop.
Alysaβs car is parked a couple of blocks away because the street had been packed when she got there, and that becomes enough of a destination to keep moving toward without having to talk about the fact that youβre both clearly dragging this out.
Alysa says, βI can drop you off, by the way,β like itβs the most obvious thing in the world, like of course the night should not end at the curb outside a bar if there is still even a flimsy excuse to spend more time together.
βYeah?β you ask, and then soften the eagerness in your voice with a little smile. βOkay. Iβd like that. Thanks.β
Her hands are shoved in her pockets against the chill, shoulders relaxed, steps unhurried. Yours stay out, swinging lightly by your sides in a way that would be normal if you werenβt so aware of them. But you are aware of them. Painfully. Some embarrassingly transparent part of you is half hoping sheβll notice, half hoping sheβll decide for you. You hate how obvious your own body feels. So, to compensate, you talk.
You ask questions the way you have been all night, but now thereβs something looser to it, something more deliberate in how you keep the conversation alive. You ask her if sheβs ever been to Japan, because you remember something she mentioned earlier about competitions overseas and because it gives you another chance to hear her talk. Alysa answers earnestly, which youβve learned is her default even when the questions are random. She tells you a little about the trip, about what she remembered most, about a snack she got weirdly obsessed with.
Then she throws it back at you and asks if youβve ever taken the Eurostar to France, and you laugh because that is the sort of specific question youβd ask when you donβt want a conversation to die.
βNo,β you say. βBut now I kind of want to just so I can report back to you.β
βPlease do,β she says. βI need a full review.β
βYouβll be the first to know.β
βThank you,β she says dryly. βHonored.β
The whole walk becomes that. One silly question opening into another, one answer becoming a doorway to learning more about each other. Favorite city. Worst press interview.
The thing is, now that the date itself is technically over, your restraint has gotten a little sloppier. Not reckless, just more honest in the tiny ways that count. You let your laughter come easier, fuller. When Alysa says something particularly funny, you lightly shove her arm with the back of your hand, the gesture playful, casual, but you let your touch linger half a second longer than strictly necessary. Just enough to make it feel like a hint rather than an accident. Just enough that if she wanted to, she could do something with it.
Alysa glances at where your hand had been, then back at your face, and for one suspended beat you think maybe she understands exactly what youβre doing because her hand is out of her pocket now. That thought alone sends a bright rush straight through your chest. So you keep dropping little breadcrumbs because you are, at heart, a girl with poor impulse control when you like someone.
You tell her, maybe a little too softly, that you could listen to her talk about literally anything. You admit that the lowkey bar was a really good pick and that she had apparently judged you better than youβd judged yourself. It is all so stupidly nice. The city around you blurs at the edges and somehow the only thing that feels sharply in focus is her shoulder beside yours and the fact that your hands keep drifting a little too close.
Once your fingers brush by accident, and both of you keep talking. Then it happens again. And again. Each time, that tiny contact sparks up your arm like a dare. You start thinking about it too much, which is exactly when Alysaβfinally, like sheβs decided to stop pretending not to noticeβlets her fingers slide between yours.
Your heart does something so dramatic it almost annoys you. For a second your whole body reacts before your face does: chest tightening, stomach dropping and lifting at the same time, some electric little shock running all the way down to your knees. You are glad itβs dark because you can feel your expression trying to betray you. There is a shit-eating grin clawing its way up your face and you have to fight to keep it from fully taking over.
You manage something like composure by looking down at your joined hands instead, then ahead, then finally at Alysa. She is looking straight ahead too, like this is no big deal, like she always takes girlsβ hands on sidewalks after excellent first dates. But there is a softness at the corner of her mouth that gives her away. Your hand fits so naturally in hers it feels strangely like fate.
The conversation slows a little after thatβnot because it gets awkward, but because hand-holding changes the air. It makes everything quieter, more charged, less in need of constant filling. Still, neither of you fully lets the talking stop.
As you near her car, you reach into your bag and pull out a little pack of mint gum, more out of habit than plan, pop one into your own mouth, then hold the pack out to her.
βWant one?β
Alysa takes her hand back only long enough to grab a piece. βThanks.β
βBlueβs the best one,β you say automatically as she peels the wrapper back.
Alysa looks at the pack. βObviously.β
You blink. βYou agree?β
βYeah. Greenβs fake.β
You stop mid-step to look at her. βThank you, because nobody gets that.β
βIt tastes tooβ¦ sweet,β she says, like sheβs really considered it. βBlue is better.β
βThis is huge for us. I can tell we'll get along great,β you tell her gravely.
βI know,β she says. βI was hoping we had some shared values.β
And just like that youβre laughing again, starting an entirely unnecessary conversation about gum rankings as if it matters, as if this is not transparently just another way to avoid the end of the night.
Alysaβs car has little details inside that make your chest ache in that tender, nosy way that comes with being allowed into someone elseβs personal space for the first time. A small photo tucked near the windshieldβher siblings, you assume, because the affection in the picture feels too easy to be anything else. A ridiculous little dancing cactus wobbling on the dashboard every time she takes a turn. A hoodie thrown in the backseat. A charging cable that looks like itβs been through war. The whole thing makes her feel even more real, which somehow keeps not helping.
You keep talking because silence feels dangerous now, like if it settles for too long you might start saying things you mean too much. So you point at the cactus and ask, βDoes he have a name?β
Alysa glances over and deadpans, βThatβs my son.β
You laugh immediately. βNo, seriously.β
βI am serious.β
βAlysa.β
βOkay, fine. He doesnβt have one.β She glances over at you for a brief second.
βThatβs so sad.β
βYou can name him if you want.β
You look at the cactus with comical focus. βI need time.β
βTake all the time you need.β Alysaβs looking over at you at red lights now and then, not long enough to be irresponsible, just enough that every time you catch it your face warms again.
You answer one of her questions while looking out the window, then turn back and ask another while tracing the outline of the photo with your eyes, careful not to pry too hard. She tells you a little about her siblings when you ask, easy and fond without going too deep. You tell her about some weird little object in your apartment sheβll laugh at, then immediately have to process the fact that you have just casually implied a future in which she sees your apartment.
The thought blooms so fast in your head it nearly makes you go quiet. Because thatβs the problem, really. The speed of it. The way each small kindness from her seems to lodge somewhere permanent in you.
This is your first date, a few days after meeting, and already your brain has become reckless with possibilities. Youβre not just thinking about how pretty and sweet she is. You are thinking about what it would mean if this lasted. If this became a thing. If there were more nights like this, more booths in corners, more car rides, more stupid debates about mint gum.
You are thinking, horrifyingly and sincerely, that you want to go steady. That you want to be able to introduce to people with this is Alysa and have everyone understand what that means. That you want to go out officially, not because the public part matters most, but because the private part already does and you want it to keep existing.
You want more. More conversation, more hand-holding, more of her looking over at you like sheβs trying not to smile. And layered under all of that is the steadily growing thought of kissing her. Of what it would feel like. Of how good it would be and how, if you are being embarrassingly honest, the wanting does not stop there. The ideas of make outs turning into clothes tossed to the floor come in flashes and then pass, making you blush in the passenger seat like a teenager. You know it's insane but that doesn't make you want it any less.
When you pull into your buildingβs parking garage, the ride feels offensively short. The engine clicks softly as Alysa parks, and for a second neither of you moves to unbuckle. The lighting in the garage is harsher than outside, white and flat, but even here she manages to look unfairly good, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other dropping to unclip her belt.
βI can walk you up,β she says, as if she has all night. As if she has not already given you more of it than you had any right to hope for.
βOkay,β you say again, because that is the only word left in your vocabulary when she offers you things you want.
The elevator ride up is quieter, but not uncomfortable. Your reflection in the mirrored wall shows your cheeks still faintly pink, your mouth curled in a smile you keep trying and failing to suppress. Alysa stands beside you with her hands back in her pockets, looking calm enough that if you didnβt know her a little better already, you might think none of this was affecting her.
But you do know better now. You notice the way she shifts her weight when you look at her too long. The way she glances at your mouth and then away. The way her jaw tightens once, subtly, like sheβs managing something.
By the time youβre walking the short hall to your apartment door, your mind has become almost unusable. You are aware of the soft sound of your shoes against the carpet and this impossible, bright awareness of Alysa right next to you. She just looks so pretty and the line of her profile somehow makes your chest feel tight and weird in the best possible way.
Every step closer to your door now feels like a countdown. Your body feels full of feeling in a way that is almost ridiculous. You want to kiss her. The thought is so simple and so strong now that it stops feeling abstract. You want to kiss her, and once you let yourself say that much, everything else rushes in behind it again. You think of how good it would be to make out until you forgot how late it was. How easy it is, horrifyingly easy, to imagine wanting more than that if she wanted it too. You want her. You want this to last past one date and some cute texts. You want the thing after this. The part where you keep choosing each other and keep ending up this close.
At your door, the whole walk catches up to you. You stop, turn, and suddenly feel every single thought youβve had pressing visible color into your face.
βWell,β you say, and immediately hate how breathless it sounds. You lift your keys a little, dumbly. βThis is me.β
Alysa nods once, hands still in her pockets, expression softer now than it had been outside the bar. βRight.β Thereβs a brief pause, neither terrible nor easy. Then she says, βI had a really good time tonight.β And because she says it plainly, without trying to make it sound cooler than she means it, your whole chest goes warm again.
You nod quickly. βMe too.β
Alysa smiles at that, small and private. βGood.β Then, because life is cruel, she starts to angle away just enough that your body understands before your brain does that this is the part where she says goodnight and leaves. βOkay,β she says, and thereβs gentleness in it, maybe even reluctance, but it still feels like a little drop under your ribs. βGoodnight.β
You nod because what else are you supposed to do, trying not to let the disappointment show too obviously. βNight.β
She turns, takes maybe two steps, and your heart sinks in that sudden, stupid way it does when something good ends a second before you were ready. You are already bracing yourself for the inevitable post-date spiral, you fumble with your keys, when Alysa stops. Thereβs a beat where her back is half turned to you, her shoulders rise with a breath, and then she looks over again. Something in her expression has shifted something more decided than before.
βI donβt know if this ruins my whole cool thing,β she says, and thereβs the faintest self-conscious edge to it now, the kind she only shows when sheβs being real on purpose, βbut I really want to kiss you right now.β
Your eyes go wide. βOh,β you say, because again, apparently your vocabulary has abandoned you entirely. But the sound is eager. Startled, yes, but eager in a way that makes Alysaβs face soften immediately.
Still, she misreads your shock just enough to start backpedaling. βItβs okay if you donβt want to,β she says quickly. βI know we just met and stuff. I just wanted to let you knowββ
And because you are socially awkward in precisely the way that flares most under emotional pressure, because the thought of her finishing that sentence and walking away feels physically unbearable, you do the least graceful and most honest thing possible: you cut her off by kissing her.
You just step forward and close the space and put your mouth on hers because you cannot stand one more second of talking around it. And maybe because you moved first, or maybe because she had already decided she wanted this too, Alysa catches up instantly. Her hands come to your waist almost on reflex, warm and sure through the fabric of your clothes, pulling you just a little closer, while your own arms lift and settle around her neck.
The kiss itself is sweet before it is anything else. Soft, a little tentative for half a heartbeat, and then not tentative at all once both of you realize the other is really here, really kissing back. Alysaβs mouth is warm and tastes faintly like mint. Yours probably does too. Your whole body seems to go bright with sensation at once with the press of her hands at your waist, the careful angle of her head, the way your heart is beating so hard it borders on ridiculous.
It is exactly as good as you knew it would be and somehow still better, because no imagination had included the reality of her holding you like this, of her thumbs shifting lightly against your sides, of the tiny breath she lets out against your mouth halfway through like sheβs relieved you did this.
When you pull apart, it is only by a few inches, both of you still in each otherβs space, and both of you are blushing hard enough that if the hallway were brighter it would probably be humiliating. You canβt stop smiling. Alysa, annoyingly, also looks a little smug under her own blush.
βWow,β she says softly, looking at your face. βCut me off. Rude.β
You laugh, breathless. βYou were talking too much.β
βThat so?β Her hands are still on your waist.
You can feel how much she liked it despite the teasing. Itβs in the way she hasnβt let go. Itβs in the way her eyes keep dipping to your mouth before returning to your eyes. Itβs in the pink high on her cheeks that makes her look younger, softer, and somehow even more unfairly pretty. So youβre not embarrassed, not really. Too dazed to be, too happy.
βI had to make a judgment call,β you say, trying for composure and sounding giddy anyway.
Alysa huffs a quiet laugh. βGood judgment then.β
The second goodbye is somehow even harder because now you know exactly what leaving feels like. But this time thereβs no uncertainty sitting under it. Just the stunned, happy aftermath of having done the thing youβd been thinking about for the last couple of days like it might kill you.
Alysa finally lets her hands slide from your waist, slowly enough that you notice, and steps back just enough to make it real.
βGoodnight,β she says again, but now it sounds fond, a little wrecked at the edges, like sheβs carrying the same buzz you are.
βGoodnight,β you answer, and your voice is still softer than usual, all your thoughts melted down into something warm and stupid and sincere.
She smiles one last time, then turns and actually walks away, and this time you let her because she kissed you and because you can still feel it like a live thing on your mouth. You wait until she disappears down the hall before unlocking your door, and the second you step inside your apartment the entire night comes crashing over you at once.
The quiet is almost violent after so much feeling. You lock the door behind you, drop your bag somewhere near the entry without even looking, and make it approximately three steps toward the couch before your knees stop being fully reliable. So you fall onto it in a graceless little collapse, tip sideways into the cushions, and cover your face with some pillow because there are simply too many emotions happening at once to process upright.
A sound comes out of you that is halfway between a squeal and a laugh and the beginning of a scream. Your whole body feels hot and floaty and charged, like you might actually combust from the force of your own happiness. You kick your feet once against the couch like a complete idiot, then bury your face deeper into the pillow and laugh again because there is no one here to witness the full extent of your humiliation.
She kissed you. No, worseβyou kissed her. On the first date. After holding her hand on the sidewalk and talking about nonsense and thinking, in increasingly alarming detail, about kissing her and maybe kissing her a lot more than was responsible. And now that itβs happened, all you can do is lie there grinning helplessly, your lips still tingling, your chest so full it aches a little, and think with the kind of lovesick certainty anyone who knows you would roast you alive for:
You are already falling way too fast, and you do not care at all.
------
the way im so down to tap into olivia rodrigo x reader but i dont think the market exists for that yet,,, UGHH,,, but im using drop dead to manifest a cute date for myself and yall should too
I recommend reading the fanfic on which this headcanon is based c: (Click)
It took a long time, although the ideas for this headcanon came to me easily and quickly. But I am happy with the result.
8.8k words
α₯«α‘α₯«α‘α₯«α‘α₯«α‘
β‘ After the official verdict is delivered β terminated, fined, banned from touching bow or arrow for a probationary period of no less than fifty years, stripped of trainee status β Alysa walks out of the Empyrean hearing chamber with her head held high, her wings trembling only slightly, and promptly bursts into tears the moment she reaches the mortal plane. She will never admit this. If you bring it up, she will claim it was "atmospheric moisture."
β‘ The fine is astronomical. She is now in debt to the Empyrean Bureaucratic Council for an amount that, converted to human currency, would buy a small island. She reacts to this by developing an intense, almost pathological obsession with your budgeting app. She sits on the counter while you cook, your phone in her hands, frowning at the grocery category. "Do you know how much you spend on oat milk?" she asks, genuinely scandalized. "We could buy oat milk, or we could put a dent in my interplanar debt." You tell her you're going to keep buying oat milk. She adds this to her mental list of "Human Inefficiencies I Must Learn To Tolerate."
β‘ Her wing maintenance becomes a shared ritual almost by accident. The first time she tries to groom them herself in your tiny bathroom, she knocks over the shower caddy, the towel rack, and a framed print you'd had since freshman year. You find her sitting on the edge of the bathtub, wings awkwardly half-spread, feathers poking into the shower curtain, looking so defeated that you grab a comb and ask what to do. Now it's a thing. Once a week, she sits on the floor in front of the couch, wings extended across your lap, and you work through the feathers section by section while she makes small, involuntary sounds of contentment she refuses to acknowledge. If you stop before she's ready, one wing will flap pointedly in your direction. She pretends it was a muscle spasm.(Its not a muscle spasm)
β‘ She talks to inanimate objects constantly, a habit left over from being invisible for most of her existence and having no one else to talk to :c. Your toaster now has a name (Gertrude) and Alysa thanks it after every use. She apologizes to the coffee table when she bumps into it. One time you heard her muttering to a jar of pickles that wouldn't open, and the muttering was not frustration β it was a genuine, reasoned argument about the philosophical implications of being sealed. The pickle jar did not respond, but Alysa seemed satisfied with the conversation nonetheless.
β‘ She loves tactile sensations. She pokes you on the cheek all the time, squeezes your cheeks, holds your hand, bites, and simply strokes your skin. In the Empyrean, creatures don't usually express feelings through touch and aren't as sociable as she is in general. That's precisely why she stood out from them and ended up in this situation. Perhaps fate decided to bring you together? Who knows. But you became what she always lacked. You see her. Those who saw her before you "didn't see" her anyway.
β‘ Her relationship with your phone charger becomes a point of ongoing domestic tension. She doesn't have a phone, because she is a supernatural being who communicates through higher planes of existence, but she has decided that your phone charger is "the optimal perch accessory" and keeps stealing it to wrap around her wrist like a bracelet. You have bought three replacements. She has claimed all three. Your phone is constantly at four percent.
β‘ She experiences her first thunderstorm as a corporeal, somewhat-human presence and reacts with undignified terror. She has spent millennia watching storms from the other side of reality, where lightning is just light and thunder is just sound. Now, suddenly, thunder is a physical sensation that vibrates through her wings, and lightning is bright enough to hurt her eyes, and the whole experience is so overwhelming that she wedges herself between the wall and the bed and refuses to come out. You end up sitting on the floor with her for two hours, her wings wrapped around you both in a feather fortress, while she flinches at every rumble and pretends she is not clinging to your arm. Later, she claims she was "protecting you from atmospheric discharge." (You don't answer her to that, because you know she's afraid)
β‘ She writes letters to Instructor Callow that she will never send. You find one by accident, tucked into your copy of a book you haven't read in years, and the handwriting is precise and old-fashioned and the content is half apology, half defense, half something that sounds a lot like a daughter writing to a disappointed father. You put it back exactly where you found it and never mention it. A week later, it's gone, and Alysa is slightly more subdued than usual, and you both pretend nothing happened.
β‘ Her understanding of human technology is wildly inconsistent, which makes perfect sense when you consider that she's been observing humanity for centuries but has never had to use a microwave. She can explain the complete political hierarchy of the Empyrean, the mechanics of love-magic, and the historical significance of three different extinct mortal civilizations, but she once stared at your electric kettle for forty-five seconds before asking, in a very small voice, "Where do you put the fire?" You think about this at least twice a week. She thinks the toaster is a portal to hell, and that's why toast appears.
β‘ She develops an inexplicable, all-consuming feud with the pigeon that lives on your fire escape. The pigeon is entirely ordinary and, by all accounts, has done nothing wrong, but Alysa insists it "watches her with intent." She spends hours stationed by the window, wings twitching, glaring at this bird. "I am a celestial being," you hear her mutter. "I will not be intimidated by a glorified rat with wings." The pigeon coos. Alysa clenches jaw. She forbade you to feed the pigeons and is leading you away from them.
β‘ She doesn't understand the concept of "lying down in bed normally." Every night, without exception, she waits until you are settled, then arranges herself directly on top of you β head on your chest or shoulder, legs tangled with yours, wings blanketing the entire bed and everything in it β with the methodical precision of a cat kneading a blanket. She is heavier than she looks, especially the wings, which have actual muscle and bone beneath the feathers. The first few nights you tried to gently shift her off. Now you've accepted that you will spend the rest of your life waking up slightly crushed and strangely warm. Sometimes you wake up to find she's wrapped a wing around your head, blocking out all light and sound, and you have to fight your way out like you're escaping a very soft tomb.
β‘ She steals clothes(obviously). Not intentionally β it starts with her borrowing a hoodie because "mortal dwellings are unreasonably cold" and the Bureau confiscated her climate-adaptive tunic β but it escalates quickly, because your clothes smell like you and she is a creature driven by sensory input in her newly physical form. You will open your drawer to find your favorite sweater missing and discover her curled up inside it, wings poking through slits she definitely made with scissors while you were asleep. Confrontation yields no remorse. "You have other sweaters," she says. "I have only this one." It's your sweater. She has appropriated it with the unassailable logic of someone who has decided that sharing means "mine, and also some of it is yours, but mostly mine."
β‘ Her cooking skills are nonexistent in the most alarming way possible. She was not required to eat in the Empyrean. Food was optional, aesthetic, a sensory indulgence for higher beings. Now she has a mortal appetite and absolutely no framework for what is edible. You once caught her trying to eat a raw potato like an apple. She argued that it was "crunchy and hydrating" and seemed genuinely confused about why this was incorrect. You now handle all cooking. She has been promoted to Assistant Vegetable Washer, a role she performs with intense, slightly unnerving focus. (It's dangerous to give her a knife)
β‘ She gets attached to the ugliest throw blanket you own β a lumpy, pilled, faded thing you've had since high school and keep only because it's warm. This becomes her nest. She wraps it around herself constantly, over the hoodie she stole from you, and stalks around the apartment looking like a very beautiful, very strange ghost with wings poking out of the blanket folds. She calls it "the artifact." You call it "that ratty thing." She made you apologize to it once. She named this blanket "Harry".
β‘ Fireworks. This is the worst thing that has happened to her in her entire immortal life. The first time fireworks scared her so much that she cried. You comforted her all night and stroked her head as she cuddled with you. Later, you took her with you to a festival where fireworks were supposed to start. You taught her for a long time not to be afraid of fireworks and... it worked. It worked because you were there and held her hand, and she sat next to you and watched the fireworks. You looked at her, at her profile, at her facial features, and how she looked like a sculpture. (People at the festival sometimes looked at you. You stared into the void with a soft smile as fireworks exploded in front of you. But no one dared to approach)
β‘ She misses flying. This is a quiet, unspoken thing that lives in the corners of your apartment and the way she looks at the window sometimes. Her wings still work β she can hover, she can glide across the room β but the Bureau's disciplinary measures included a flight restriction. No sustained aerial activity. No altitude above roof level. Her wings are effectively grounded, and some days you find her standing at the window with them half-spread, feathers brushing the glass, looking at the sky with an expression that predates language. On those days, you don't say anything. You just stand beside her and wait until she folds her wings back down and returns to the world. One time, she reaches for your hand without looking. You hold it for an hour. At night, when you can't fall asleep, you notice her wings twitching. She dreams of flying and falling.
β‘ On one of the days, she stole your new notebook, which was intended for llecture. Like all celestial beings, she has a wonderful ability to write poems and verses. She wrote her thoughts, her feelings, how she spent her day in this notebook. And you. You found the notebook while she was eating in the kitchen and glanced inside. She wrote about how where she was born, no one thought about people more than work. When she was still studying, she always asked her peers about people, and they always answered as it was written in books. But no one ever warned her that people have feelings that cupids do not possess. To love. To be sad. To care. At the Academy, everyone strove for their own goals, and no one helped each other if it wasn't necessary. Sometimes the sentences are cut off, possibly because it is difficult for her to find words, associations, or she simply cannot describe her feelings. Especially in lines about you. She tries to describe your appearance, but cannot compare. She remembers her homeland, but even heavenly beauty cannot compare to you. Because with you, in this small and modest apartment, she learned what home is. On the edges, she carefully draws a square so that her text doesn't interfere, and draws you inside the square. Not perfectly, almost childishly, but very diligently. Sometimes, she allows herself to draw her and you together. Her, with wings and a bow, arrows, and you, looking tired, as usual after all the lectures, and angry pigeons. But what she describes most often is how your hands feel on her skin. She is used to the cold, to her skin being touched only by the wind. She didn't know what it was like to be touched for affection, for care, for the expression of feelings and emotions, and not for a question or a report. She describes you as warmth. But not temperature. A warmth she has never felt. But what causes the strangest feeling in chest is that she writes all the time about how she spent her day. Sometimes something new, sometimes something mundane, but always "she went to university, I stood at the door and waited for her." She has no problem with time, because she can stand there all day and not lose time, because she is immortal. But the fact that she stands at the door and waits for you, instead of occupying herself with something, makes you think. You put the notebook back and pretend you never read it. Now you try to come back from university earlier.
β‘ She is, despite everything, absurdly, impossibly, irreversibly in love with you. It's in the way she steals your food and wears your clothes and crushes you in her sleep and argues with pigeons and steals your phone charger and writes you into her notebook in crossed-out poetry you were never meant to read. It's in the way she chose you β accidentally, at first, and then, every day after, on purpose. She never says it outright. She doesn't have to. The weight of her wings draped over you in the dark says it for her, every single night.
β‘ She develops a habit of perching. Not sitting β perching. You will come home to find her balanced on the back of the couch like a gargoyle, wings half-spread for equilibrium, reading one of your textbooks upside down. When you ask why, she says, "Chairs are a mortal construct. I am adapting." You point out that the couch has actual cushions designed for sitting. She looks at the cushions with deep suspicion and does not move. The couch-back perch becomes her official daytime station. You've started leaving a pillow up there for her. She pretends not to notice, but the pillow is always slightly warm when you get home.
β‘ Her first experience with spicy food is a disaster of mythic proportions. You made stir-fry with chili flakes, a completely normal amount, and she took one bite before her entire face went red and her wings snapped open so fast they knocked a picture frame off the wall. "My mouth," she gasped, "is under attack." She drank an entire carton of oat milk directly from the container while you watched, torn between concern and helpless laughter. Now she eyes every meal you cook with the wary vigilance of a bomb disposal expert. "Is it angry?" she asks, pointing at your dinner. You have to reassure her, every time, that no, the pasta is not angry, the pasta is pesto, they just sound similar.
β‘ She discovers the concept of "lazy Sundays" and embraces it with the fervor of a religious convert. In the Empyrean, every day was structured, purposeful, accountable. Here, you have days where nothing happens, and this blows her mind. The first Sunday you spend together doing absolutely nothing β staying in pajamas, watching bad TV, eating cereal for lunch β she lies on the floor with her wings spread out like a white rug and stares at the ceiling in a state of what she later describes as "transcendent purposelessness." Now she demands Sundays. "It's Sunday," she will announce, blocking your path to the desk. "The rules are different. Return to the pajamas." It was Monday.
β‘ She gets jealous of your houseplants. You have a monstera in the corner that you water every Tuesday, and every Tuesday Alysa watches you do it with narrowed eyes, her feathers slightly ruffled. "You speak to it," she says, as if this is incriminating evidence. You do, in fact, say "hello, beautiful" to the monstera sometimes. You didn't realize she was keeping track. One day you come home and the monstera has been moved three inches to the left. Just slightly. Just enough to be wrong. Alysa claims ignorance. Her expression is perfectly innocent. One of her wing feathers is caught on the pot. Sometimes she expresses her feelings to Harry that the monstera is not worthy of you.
β‘ Her understanding of personal space, which was already theoretical, deteriorates entirely after the first month. The concept simplyβ¦ dissolves. She walks into the bathroom while you're brushing your teeth because she "had a thought" and "wanted to share it while it was fresh." She opens the shower curtain to ask if you've seen her notebook. She stands directly behind you while you cook, her chin on your shoulder, her wings folded around you both, narrating your cooking like a nature documentary. "The human approaches the onion," she murmurs. "A bold choice. Dangerous. Note the protective eyewear β ah, she forgot it. Tragedy imminent." You cry over the onion. She says "I told you so" with her wings.
β‘ She steals your shampoo. She doesn't have hair that needs washing at a human frequency, but she has decided that smelling like you is a non-negotiable requirement of existence. You buy a new bottle and it's half-empty within four days.
β‘ The first time you cry in front of her β bad day, stress, everything piling up β she panics so completely that she forgets how to speak English for a solid thirty seconds. The sound that comes out of her is a string of Empyrean syllables that sound like wind chimes and distress. Then she wraps herself around you β arms, legs, wings, the full crushing Alysa Special β and stays there, silent and trembling slightly, for two hours. She doesn't try to fix it. She doesn't give you advice. She just holds you with every limb she has, a fortress of feathers and warmth, until your breathing evens out. When you finally pull back, her face is wet too. You don't mention it. She doesn't either. But from that day forward, the crushing Alysa Special appears within thirty seconds of any sign you might be sad, even if you're just frowning at a difficult paragraph in your textbook.
β‘ She starts referring to the apartment as "the nest." Not in a cute, metaphorical way β in a literal, biological, "this is our territory and I will defend it" way. The mail carrier who shoves packages too aggressively through the slot gets a full-wing intimidation display that he cannot see but somehow, viscerally, feels. He starts leaving your packages on the doorstep instead of forcing them through. Alysa is inordinately proud of this. "The nest is secure," she reports. "You're welcome."
β‘ She discovers glitter. You don't know where she found it. You don't know why she thought it was a good idea. All you know is that you come home one day and your apartment looks like a craft store exploded and Alysa is sitting in the center of the chaos, absolutely covered in shimmering particles, her white wings now approximately forty percent glitter by volume. "I wanted to be shiny," she says, as if this explains everything. It takes three weeks to get the glitter out of the feathers. You find sparkles in your bed, your food, your textbooks, your hair. Months later, in moments of direct sunlight, Alysa still shimmers faintly. She loves it. You have accepted your sparkly fate.
β‘ She writes a ten-page essay titled "The Ethics of Involuntary Love-Magic: A Case Study in Personal Error and Systemic Reform." It's dense, academic, and absolutely scathing about Empyrean training protocols. She doesn't send it to anyone. She just gives it to you to read, hovering anxiously while you flip through the pages, her wings twitching at every facial expression you make. When you tell her it's brilliant, she cries. Then she makes you promise never to tell Callow she cried. Then she steals your snack from the fridge and eats it in front of you, tears still drying on her cheeks, because emotional vulnerability must be balanced with petty theft. It's her process.
β‘ She learns what a forehead kiss is and becomes obsessed. The first time you kiss her forehead β absentminded, on your way to the kitchen β she freezes like a statue, wings locked mid-twitch, eyes wide. You have to ask if she's okay. She whispers, "Do that again." Now it's a requirement. Every morning. Every night. Every time you leave the apartment and every time you come back. Sometimes she just wanders up to you and tilts her head down, pointing at her forehead with an expression of regal expectation. The former Cupid, the celestial being, the immortal entity who once shaped the romantic destinies of mortals β stands in your kitchen in your stolen hoodie, demanding forehead kisses like a cat demanding chin scratches.
β‘ She has another nemesis. It is the smoke detector. It went off exactly once, when you burned toast, and the sound β a piercing, mortal-engineered shriek β sent her diving behind the couch with her wings wrapped around her head like a cocoon. She has never forgiven it. Now she glares at it whenever she passes. "I havefaced down the Bureaucratic Council of the Empyrean," she mutters to the small white disc on the ceiling. "You are a plastic circle with a battery."( The smoke detector does not rrespond)
β‘ Late at night, when the apartment is dark and her wings are draped over you like a weighted blanket and the city outside is quiet, she talks about the Empyrean. The gardens. The way the light bent through the crystal trees. The way the wind smelled like morning, always, even at midnight. She tells you about the libraries where books wrote themselves as you read them, the rivers that sang in harmonies only Cupids could hear, the fields of silver grass where she used to lie on her back and watch the sky change colors. Her voice is soft and distant and aching. You listen without interrupting, your hand moving slowly through her feathers, and she talks until her voice trails off into sleep. She never talks about the Empyrean during the day. Only in the dark. Only to you. You hold these stories like something fragile, something precious, something given. But she doesn't talk about other Cupids. They were not as sociable and open as she was, so they didn't take her seriously.
β‘ You are a being she cherishes too much. All the celestial beings she was familiar with before treated her with condescension, neglect, and irritation. She sometimes had to trail after her determined groupmates and ask something. You, on the other hand, could easily communicate with your groupmates and friends. Sometimes, more often than she should, she gets jealous. She sees you interacting with friends, hugging them, smiling at them. Without realizing it, she constantly reaches for your hand to squeeze the fabric of your hoodie or to hold your hand. One day, she squeezes your hand and doesn't let go. Tears stream down her eyes. " Please promise me that you will be only with me. No one else. Promise that I will be your only one, even if I can't give you anything but myself. Please." Her voice trembled on the last word. She practically begged you. And you swore to her that you would only be with her.
①The first snow catches Alysa completely off guard. She stands at the window, palms pressed to the glass, wings slightly lifted, watching the white flakes fall from the grey sky with an expression that can only be described as reverent horror mixed with childlike wonder. "Frozen water is falling from the sky," she whispers. "Millions of tiny crystals. And humans just⦠walk on them? Like it's normal?" She refuses to go outside for the first hour. By the second hour, she is standing barefoot in a snowdrift because she "wanted to feel the texture," and her wings are dusted with snowflakes that don't melt, because the temperature of her feathers runs lower than human body temperature. You drag her back inside, wrap her in a heated blanket, and ply her with hot tea. She shivers, but she smiles like she's witnessed a miracle. From this day forward, winter is her favorite season.
β‘ She does not understand the concept of "dressing for the weather." You can explain layers, thermal underwear, moisture-wicking fabrics, but she looks at you like you're speaking a dead language and then walks out into the freezing cold in your stolen hoodie and shorts. Her wings offer some insulation β the feathers contract, trapping heat β but her legs and arms still go numb. She returns from her walks with blue lips and absolutely radiant. You buy her her own winter coat with wing slits that you make yourself, because such a thing does not exist in nature. She wears it every day. She sleeps in it, if you don't stop her.
β‘ The pigeon on the fire escape vanishes with the coming of the cold, and Alysa declares victory in their war with the triumph of someone who has personally conquered a continent. "I knew it," she says, pacing the apartment like a general. "Perseverance and resolve. The bird understood who it was dealing with." You do not remind her that pigeons migrate or shelter in warmth. You give her this victory. A week later, she starts to worry about whether the pigeon froze. You find her sitting by the window with breadcrumbs in her palm, staring at the empty fire escape with an expression suspiciously close to concern. "He was a worthy adversary," she says quietly. "I don't want him to suffer." You kiss her forehead and tell her pigeons have been surviving winters for thousands of years. She scoffs and pretends not to care. But she leaves the breadcrumbs on the windowsill. Just in case.
β‘ The heating in your studio apartment is unreliable, and on especially cold nights the temperature drops low enough to see your breath. Alysa responds by turning your bed into a feather cocoon that blocks out everything β light, sound, cold air. You sleep at the center of this construction, wrapped in her body and wings like a living sleeping bag. It's the warmest thing you have ever experienced. In the mornings you don't want to crawl out, and she doesn't make you β just lies there, murmuring something Empyrean into the crown of your head until the sun rises high enough to warm the room.
β‘ She discovers hot chocolate. This becomes a problem. Not financially β you're willing to buy cocoa in bulk, that's fine β but logistically. She drinks it by the liter. She adds marshmallows, cinnamon, whipped cream, and one time, in a fit of experimental madness, a pinch of cayenne pepper, after which she declares she has "recreated the taste of sunset over the Crystal Gardens." You don't know if that's true, but cayenne hot chocolate becomes her signature drink. She makes it for you every evening. You're not sure you like the taste of sunset, but you drink every cup to the dregs because she glows every time you do.
β‘ Before the New Year, you decorated the walls, the tree, and other things. She was so happy, happier than any child. She took the transformation of the house with complete seriousness and made sure that everything was perfect. She even decorated you (she wrapped tinsel around you)
β‘ She builds a snowman. It's lopsided. It has pebbles for eyes because you couldn't find coal, and a twig for a nose because the carrot froze and snapped. Alysa names it "The Threshold Guardian" and demands you treat it with respect. She bows to the snowman every time she leaves the apartment. The neighbors give you strange looks β they can only see you, standing beside a girl they cannot see, bowing to a crooked snowman. You have stopped explaining. You simply live with it.
β‘ On the coldest night of the year, she tells you that she used to sing. In the Empyrean. Before the training, before the field work, before the bow and arrows. She was in the choir that greeted the dawn over the Crystal Gardens, and her voice was part of the harmony that made the flowers bloom open. She hasn't sung since she was dismissed. You ask her to sing now. She's silent for a long time, staring at a candle on the windowsill, and you're already sure she'll refuse. Then she starts β quiet, uncertain, in a language you don't know. Her voice trembles on the first notes, but it gains strength with every word. When she finishes, the room is silent, and the snow outside is falling thicker, as if the world had been listening too. "I miss it," she whispers. "But here, I miss it less." You pull her into your arms and hold her until the candle burns out.
β‘ She gives you a Midwinter gift β a feather from her own wing. Not a shed one. She pulled it out herself, and you know it hurt, because it's from the very edge, one of the flight feathers, and there's still a tiny bead of silvery, non-human blood at the tip. She places it in your palm as carefully as if it were the most fragile thing in the world. "This is a part of me," she says. "Now it's yours. If you ever lose me, if I disappear, if the Bureau decidesβ¦ This will stay. It won't vanish. It's real." You can't speak. You just close your fist around the feather and pull her close, and you stand there in the silence while the snow falls outside.
β‘ You taught her to make snow angels. To your surprise, she leaves a trail in the snow. She enjoys this activity, but afterwards she shivers to the bone, even though you told her to dress warmly. At home, she presses her cold body against you, warming the two of you with her wings, with an old "Harry" blanket. At this time, she tells you that she would like to dedicate herself to winter someday. She would like to become a person, to love winter and snow. Perhaps, in another world, she would like to become a figure skater.
β‘ Somewhere around the second year of living together, you notice the change. Not a sharp one β Alysa doesn't shift overnight, she doesn't change outwardly at all β but noticeable nonetheless. She's becomeβ¦ closer. Not just physically (though that too), but in a different way, a deeper way. She used to be able to let you go β to class, to work, to meet up with friends β with a small sigh and a murmured reminder to "come back soon." Now she stands in the doorway, shoulder leaning against the frame, wings slightly drooped, and in her eyes is a longing she's desperately trying to hide. "You won't be long, right?" she asks, and her voice is too even, too calm to be real. You kiss her forehead and promise you'll be back in two hours. She nods, but you know β she will be counting the minutes. She will wait at the door and write about it in her notebook.
β‘ The jealousy arrives without warning and completely blindsides her. There was no jealousy in the Empyrean β Cupids don't experience emotions, they trigger them. Alysa has absolutely no idea what to do with this hot, unpleasant feeling that flares in her chest when you laugh at the barista's joke, or when a classmate's hand lingers too long on your shoulder, or when you mention someone's name with warmth in your voice. She gets angry at the feeling itself. "It's not okay," she says one evening, lying on top of you with her face pressed into your neck. "I know you're mine. I know you come back to me every night. But when someone looks at you, I want toβ¦" She trails off. "What?" you ask. "Spread my wings," she whispers. "Full span. So they understand." You stroke her hair and tell her it's normal. She scoffs. "Normal for humans. I'm not human." But it helps.
β‘ At night, often, she opens her eyes and looks at your face for a long time, studying your features. Sometimes she runs her fingertips over your skin, snuggles closer, inhales your scent, and looks at your sleeping face. She is immortal. You are not. She is afraid of not hearing your breath one day.
β‘ Your friends notice that something about you has changed. Chloe says you've become moreβ¦ absent. Not in a bad way β just that sometimes you stare into empty space and smile, or answer a beat too late, as if you're listening to someone else. "Are you okay?" she asks. "Yeah," you say. "Just zoned out." You can't tell her that Alysa is standing right behind your shoulder, murmuring commentary about everyone who walks past into your ear. "That man looked at you twice," Alysa mutters, her breath tickling your neck. "His aura is the color of stale soup." You choke on a laugh. Chloe gives you a bewildered look. You take a sip of coffee and explain nothing.
β‘ She becomes possessive in the smallest ways. Your mug β now her favorite, and she will only drink from it, even when the others are clean. Your side of the bed β now her side if you get up first, because "it's warm and smells like you." Your daily schedule β she's memorized it and starts to fret if you're fifteen minutes late. "You said you'd be home at six," she says, meeting you at the door, wings folded, arms crossed. "It's six-seventeen." You apologize, explain the traffic, hold out a box of cookies as a peace offering. She takes the cookies, but she still hugs you a second longer than usual, and her wings wrap around you so tightly you feel every feather.
β‘ You can no longer cook with garlic. Not because you have an allergy, but because Alysa refuses to kiss you after garlic. "It's an assault on the olfactory senses," she declares, scooting to the far edge of the bed with the air of an offended queen. You laugh and tell her humans have been eating garlic for millennia, and it's fine. "Humans also eat raw fish and call it a delicacy," she retorts. "I don't trust human tastes." You eat the garlic pasta anyway. She doesn't kiss you for two hours. But at night she presses against you just as tightly as always, nose buried in your shoulder, and you know β she was just waiting for the smell to fade.
β‘ She gets jealous even of your thoughts. Once, you were lost in thought, staring at the ceiling, and you didn't answer her question the first time. Alysa immediately loomed over you, wings blocking the lamplight, her face inches from yours. "Where were you?" she demanded. "I was right here," you said, bewildered. "Just thinking." "About what?" You hesitated, because the truth was something mundane β a deadline, a grocery list, the need to change the batteries in the smoke detector. "About you," you said, and it wasn't entirely a lie, because you're always thinking about her somewhere in the background. Her wings relaxed. "Good," she said, and settled back onto the bed. "You may continue."
β‘ She hates your phone. Not the phone itself β but how long you sometimes look at it. "You spend more time with that rectangle than you spend with me," she says one day, and her voice carries such genuine hurt that you immediately set the phone aside. It turns out she's been keeping count. She has a mental log where she tracks how many minutes you spend on the screen and compares them to the minutes you spend on her. You don't ask about the results. You just institute a rule: after eight in the evening, the phone goes in the desk drawer, and you belong entirely to her. She blooms. Literally β her feathers get glossier, her wings lift slightly, like she's ready to take flight from happiness.
β‘ "You're mine," she says one day, and it doesn't sound like a question. "I've learned this now. To love is to know that you're mine."
β‘ People stare at you strangely all the time. It's not surprising because they only see you, not Cupid complaining about pigeons in the street. You smile into the void, placing part of the food in the empty spot next to you.
β‘ In public, you sometimes forget yourself. You're walking down the street and suddenly you smile β because Alysa said something funny, because her wing brushed your shoulder, because she pointed at a pigeon with the expression of an offended aristocrat. You laugh into empty space, and passersby turn their heads. Some smile back β a nice girl, probably listening to a podcast or remembering something pleasant. Some frown. An elderly woman once asked if you were feeling all right. "Yes," you answered, still smiling. "Just a good day." Alysa, standing beside you, beamed.
β‘ Your coworkers notice that you sometimes stare into an empty corner of the room and nod. "Are you talking to someone?" a colleague asks, glancing into the same corner. There's nothing there. "Myself," you say. "Thinking out loud. It helps." The colleague accepts this explanation, because people tend to accept plausible explanations. But you're not thinking out loud. You're answering Alysa, who is sitting on the windowsill critiquing your work, her wings trailing down to the floor.
β‘ The neighbors are a whole separate story. You've lived in this apartment for several years now, and some of them have noticed odd things. Music playing when you're not home (Alysa figured out how to work your playlist). The sound of wings, like wind, even though the windows are shut. A silhouette in the window β tall, with something like enormous wings behind it β visible when you forget to close the curtains. One neighbor asked if you keep a large bird. You said no. She didn't believe you. Now she eyes you with suspicion whenever you meet in the elevator. Alysa, standing behind you, stares back at her with regal disdain.
β‘ You can't take normal photos anymore. Every picture where you're alone, you come out slightly out of focus β as if the camera is trying to capture something else, something just behind your shoulder, and can't quite manage it. Friends joke that you have an "aura" or a "ghost in the shot." You laugh along with them. You don't tell them it's not a ghost. It's a girl who insisted on being in every photo, even if no one can see her. "I want to be part of your life," she said. "Even the part that other people can see."
β‘ The strangest thing is when someone accidentally walks through Alysa. She's intangible to everyone but you, but when a person passes through her wing, they shiver β like a draft, like a sudden chill, like something they have no name for. Once, on the subway, a man walked straight through her spread wing and froze, looking around with an expression of deep bewilderment. "What was that?" he muttered. Alysa sniffed. "Rude," she said. "He could have apologized." You hid your smile in your scarf.
β‘ Dating. Oh, dating. You don't go on dates anymore, but once, in the very beginning, you tried β out of inertia, because everyone around you said you should. It was a catastrophe. Alysa would sit at the next table and comment on every word your date said. "His aura is the color of swamp water." "He doesn't wash his hands thoroughly enough, I saw in the men's room." "Ask him about his views on household chore distribution. Now." You choked on laughter, your date had no idea what was happening, and the evening ended in awkward goodbyes. After the third attempt, you surrendered. "You're impossible," you told Alysa. "I'm protecting our interests," she replied, her wings spreading in victory. " You are still mine, don't forget "
Time.
β‘ You don't notice it right away. A year passes, two, five β and you realize Alysa isn't changing. Not a single new wrinkle, not a single grey hair in her dark strands. Her face remains exactly the same as the day you first saw her beneath the atrium ceiling β young, frightened, beautiful. You bring it up at breakfast, trying to keep your voice light, almost joking. "Do you even age?" Alysa freezes with a piece of toast in her hand. Her wings press flat against her back. "No," she answers quietly, and in that single word there is an abyss. It's the first time you talk about it. Not the last.
β‘ Thirty. Your temples aren't touched by grey yet, but fine little rays of lines are gathering around your eyes β lines Alysa calls "laugh tracks" and kisses every morning with particular tenderness. You're still young, still full of energy, but somewhere deep inside, the awareness is already ticking: she hasn't changed a single day. Her skin still just as smooth, her movements still just as light, her wings still just as snow-white. You watch her sometimes when she's not looking and try to imagine what she'll look like in ten years. The answer is always the same: exactly the same. It's terrifying and comforting in equal measure.
β‘ Forty. You find your first grey hair and pluck it out while Alysa isn't watching. She notices anyway β she always notices everything that concerns you β and finds you in the bathroom with tweezers in one hand and that treacherous silver strand in the other. She doesn't say anything. She just takes the tweezers from you, cups your face in her palms, and kisses your forehead very, very slowly. "You're beautiful," she says. "Always. At every stage." You cry. She holds you until you stop. The next day, you notice she's gathered your grey hairs β the ones you missed β and woven a thin silver thread into a strand near her own temple. "Now they're mine too," she says, shrugging as if it means nothing.( It means everything)
β‘ Fifty. Your peers are marrying, divorcing, having children who are already finishing university. Your mother asks why you're still alone. Chloe, who never learned the full truth but has learned to accept your strangeness, gently asks if you'd like to "meet someone." You smile and say that you're not alone. You've never been alone. They don't understand, but they stop asking. Alysa is standing behind you as they say these things, invisible to them, her wing brushing your shoulder, and you feel the warmth even through your clothes. "I'm here," she says, though you already know. "I'm always here."
β‘ Sixty. Your hands start to tremble when you groom her feathers. It's barely noticeable β a faint tremor that comes and goes β but Alysa feels it with every cell of her unchanging body. She takes the comb from your fingers and replaces it with a warm mug of tea. "Let me do it myself today," she says, but she's not good at it alone β the wings are too large, the angles too awkward. You help her anyway. You manage together, slowly, clumsily, like two people learning all over again how to do something that was once simple. You laugh about it. The laughter turns into coughing, the coughing turns into silence. At night, she presses against you tighter than usual, her wings wrapping around you like a shroud, like a shield, like a promise β I won't let go, I won't let go, I won't let go.
β‘ Seventy. Your body is a map of the life you've lived. Wrinkles, creases, scars, age spots that Alysa calls "constellations" and names in Empyrean. On your left forearm, you have a cluster of freckles she named "The Three Sisters" β after a star system visible only from the highest tower of the Empyrean β and when she kisses that spot, you don't feel old. You feel sacred. She hasn't changed. Her face is the face of the girl she was the day you met. Sometimes that hurts. More often, it doesn't. More often, you just look at her and think: how lucky I am that I get to see this, that I get to know this, that this miracle chose me.
β‘ Eighty. You can no longer walk as easily as you used to. Alysa carries you in her arms β literally. Her arms lift you as carefully as if you were made of smoke, her wings create a cushion of air, and you hover a foot above the floor, wrapped in her body, as she carries you from bed to armchair and back. You protest β "I'm not an invalid, I'm just slow." She ignores you with regal Empyrean haughtiness. "You carried me," she says, and she doesn't mean with her body, she means with her heart, her life, everything you gave her. "Now it's my turn." You surrender. Her wings smell like snow and something not of this world, and you feel safer than you ever have.
β‘ Ninety-two. You look like a raisin, and you know it. Your skin is parchment, your fingers are knotted twigs, your voice is a whisper the wind could carry away at any moment. But you're still here, and she's still here, and that's the only thing that matters. Your nieces and nephews β Chloe's children, because you never had children of your own β come to visit you once a week. They've grown used to you talking to empty space. "Grandma's talking to her angel," the youngest one said once, and everyone laughed, because it sounded like a sweet old-person quirk. Only you and Alysa knew it was the truth. Alysa glowed for the rest of the day.
β‘ Ninety-eight. You can barely see and barely hear, but you can still feel. You feel the weight of her wings on your body every night. You feel her forehead kisses β more of them than ever, as if she's trying to fit an eternity into every touch. You feel her fingers laced with yours, young and strong, holding your old, trembling hands as if they are the fragile thing in need of protection. "I'm scared," you whisper one night. You don't specify what you're scared of β death, loneliness, oblivion, the unknown β because you're scared of all of it at once. Alysa is silent for a long time. Then she says, "Me too. But I won't leave. I'll be here until the very end. And after." You don't know what "after" means. Maybe she doesn't either. But her voice sounds so certain that you believe her.
β‘ One hundred. You never thought you'd live to a hundred. No one did. The nurses at the hospice call you a miracle, and you laugh β quietly, raspingly, because laughter is harder now β because they don't know the half of what made your life miraculous. You're surrounded by people who love you β nieces, great-nieces and nephews, their children, tiny great-great-niblings you held in your arms when they were newborns. They look at you with love, but also with a kind of wonder β how you've lived so long, how you've stayed so serene, how you never complained of loneliness even though you never had a partner. "I have someone," you say, when someone finally gathers the courage to ask. They think you mean God. You mean the girl with white wings standing in the corner of the room, smiling at you through tears.
β‘ You leave in your sleep, quiet and peaceful, like snow falling to rest. Alysa is holding your hand. She was singing to you β that same song, the Empyrean dawn hymn β and your breathing slowed, slowed, until it became silence. She doesn't scream. Doesn't cry β not yet. She just sits there, holding your hand as it slowly cools in her fingers, her wings wrapped around the both of you, just like that very first winter when she was terrified of the thunderstorm and you held her on the bathroom floor. Now everything is reversed. Now she is the one holding you.
β‘ She vanishes from the human world that same night. The magical bond no longer holds her here. The Bureau no longer holds her here. Nothing holds her here anymore except memory and love, which didn't end with death. She goes where Cupids go when their time among mortals is done. But before she leaves, she places something on your pillow. A white feather β long, a flight feather, with a silver shimmer β and a note, written in your native language, in that same old-fashioned handwriting she once used for letters to Callow.
"Thank you for seeing me. I will come again. Wait for me in the gardens."
β‘ Your relatives find the feather and the note when they go through your belongings. They don't understand. They turn the feather over in their hands, wondering what kind of bird it could have come from to be so large and so white β no bird they know has feathers with a silver sheen. They read the note aloud, and someone suggests it must be an old love letter from someone you knew in your youth. They're wrong only in the details. It is a love letter. It is old and new all at once β written on the last night of your life and somehow still smelling of snow and morning. They place it in a box with other important papers. A generation from now, no one will remember where it came from. But the feather will not decay. The feather will lie in that box, white, silver-edged, untouched by time β a small miracle that refused to disappear.
β‘ Somewhere in the gardens of the Empyrean β those very gardens where crystal trees bend the light, where rivers sing in harmonies, where the wind always smells like morning β a girl with white wings stands at the threshold and waits. She looks exactly the same as the day you first saw her. Young face, enormous brown eyes, silver bow finally returned to her hands. She waits. She has always been waiting. And when you appear β young, radiant, at the very age you were when you met β she doesn't say anything. She just opens her wings. And you step into them, like an embrace, like a home, like forever. And there is no snow falling, but the air smells like snow. And somewhere in the distance, someone is singing the dawn hymn. And everything is right. Everything is finally right.
"Thank you for meeting me. Thank you for seeing me."
