T.R.I.X, 19

Vi opens her eyes and immediately has to close them against the harsh sunlight.

Her head is pounding as if one of those little toy monkeys is in there, clashing its cymbals over and over against her poor skull. Too much whiskey the night before. Way too much whiskey.

Vi groans as she peels her eyes open again and the next thing she notices, aside from the sunlight’s assault is the hideous color of the walls in the bedroom she’s in. She hadn’t noticed it last night for…obvious reasons, but what the fuck was that color? Greenish-yellow? Chartreuse, maybe? Whatever it was, it was offending Vi’s eyes and exacerbating her hangover.

She manages to turn her head enough to see the girl still sleeping soundly beside her. The girl whose name Vi wouldn’t have been able to recall if there was a gun to her head. Which was awful seeing as she was sure the girl had told Vi her name numerous times. It didn’t stick though. The fact that she was listed in Vi’s contacts as Platinum Blonde gave that away. Vi had managed to get around having to call her by her name anyway, with petnames like ‘sunshine’ and ‘darling’ doing the heavy lifting for her.

Rule number one about one night stands, Vi thinks to herself. You’re not really supposed to stay the full night. And if you do stay the full night, leave before the partner wakes up. Leave before the morning light makes it real.

Vi starts to lift the duvet (that’s the same puke-yellow color as the walls) freezing when her joints crack in betrayal. Jeez, I thought I had quieter bones. She’s almost home-free, shimmying out from under the covers as seamlessly as possible. But then, her ankle gets tangled in the sheets. And then those same traitor sheets send her falling to the ground with a plethora of tiny little ‘fuck-shit-fuck’ swears that could’ve awoken god.

Vi catches herself on her elbows when she hits the floor. She also catches a glimpse of her reflection in the standing mirror that’s leaned against the wall, taking in her own morning glory. Completely bare. Not even a sock in sight.

Vi glances up toward the bed again. Platinum Blonde hadn’t stirred in all that commotion. Thank god. Vi spots her clothes from the night before, lying in a heap on the floor, tossed off with reckless abandon the previous night, discarded in a haste. She army-crawls over to her pile of clothes now as quietly and as gracefully as she can, given the fact that she’s in her birthday suit.

Vi grabs her pants with surgical precision, hops to get them on, freezes when Platinum Blonde stirs. When she doesn’t wake, Vi exhales in relief and continues to dress. She looks around for the rest of her clothes. Her shirt is decidedly missing. Great. She scans the room and spots in draped over a fake plant. Damn. She really had thrown all of her clothes off. And Platinum Blonde’s too considering the pair of lace panties on the dresser.

Vi slips on her shirt. It’s inside out, but she’ll deal with that later. She can do this. She can leave without a trace. But then, she hits her bit stupid boots on the bench at the end of Platinum Blonde’s bed and this is what makes the other girl finally rouse from her slumber.

“Mmmh, hey,” she says, words slurred from her sleep.

“Hey, hey, uh…go back to sleep. I gotta get going, sorry. Big day,” Vi hopes that the fact that the girl was still half-asleep, it would prevent her from noticing that Vi was bullshitting.

“You don’t…wanna stay for any coffee or anything?” The girl asks.

Vi smiles. Not unkindly, just honest. “Rain check?” She says. Which is a nice way of saying ‘I actually wasn’t supposed to stay until daylight’.

Vi was used to having one-night stands, yes. But she was also used to being kicked out of the bed before the morning. Or to be the one doing the kicking out. It was always a mutual agreement, of course. The girls that Vi slept with rarely ever wanted strings attached, and she didn’t either. Her friends liked to say that she was allergic to commitment, and yeah, maybe that was true. But that never worked out for her. It was so much easier to just have casual sex with beautiful people with no strings, or feelings for that matter, attached.

“Okay, well…I’ll call you?” The girl asks as Vi makes a break for the door.

“Sure, I’ll…answer,” Vi calls over her shoulder. Lie. She probably wouldn’t.

Outside, Vi slides her black shades over her eyes to block out the sun as she climbs onto her motorbike. She needed caffeine. And fast. But she quickly realizes that she doesn’t know her way around this side of town. She hadn’t thought to memorize the directions last night. She’d been too horny to think about anything that didn’t involve immediate skin on skin contact.

After a quick search, Vi is able to find the nearest coffee shop—Hug In A Mug—four minutes away. She cringes at the name, it’s far too cutesy for her taste, but if she didn’t get caffeine in her system soon, she might just cry, so she was willing to overlook it.

Hug In A Mug is in a nice plaza sandwiched between an antique gift shop and a Japanese restaurant. As Vi steps inside, she immediately feels out of place, a far-too-rugged contrast to the warm colors and cozy decor. A soft indie pop tune plays from the speakers and a few early risers sit at tables, sipping coffee clicking away on iMacs. And then, Vi’s eyes dart toward the register and—immediately she recognizes the barista. Effortlessly hot, same award-winning smile, same easy confidence that rivaled Vi’s own, same lightning bolt tattoo on her inner wrist.

Y/n and Vi have never dated. But they definitely had a history. They’d know each other since adolescence, grew up together, and during one party a few years back when they both had way too much liquor in their system, they made out on a rooftop. But the second Vi’s hands began to wander, Y/n giggled, pushed her hands away, told Vi that it wasn’t going any further. Which Vi respected. But it would be a lie to say that a part of her hadn’t thought about every other way that night could’ve ended. And she may or may not have found herself wanting to text y/n every day afterward.

Y/n doesn’t seem all that surprised or confused to see Vi, if the smirk she levels her with is any indication. “Hey you,” she greets her.

Vi isn’t really sure what to say, so she opts for simply nodding her head up at the other girl.

Y/n’s face splits into a full grin, and, yup, there are those prominent dimples Vi definitely remembers. As for her looks well…Y/n had always been a cute girl but she’d completely blossomed in the past couple years. She was taller, her hair was longer, and she was just a little bit curvy now, not that Vi was making it a point to notice that. She also wasn’t complaining either.

“You kinda look like hell,” y/n teases. “Rough night?”

“Uh…what makes you say that?” Vi asks, going for casual as she shoves her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“You’re wearing shades inside, for one,” y/n laughs.

Vi swears internally, taking her shades off and folding them against her lapel. “Actually, I call this look ‘artful disaster’. Very exclusive,” she says.

“Really? I think most people just call that ‘hungover on a Tuesday,’ y/n counters.

Vi gives y/n a lazy smile, leaning over the counter. She’s hoping her signature move will take the onus off of her. Distract. Lean in. Smirk. Let the voice drop.“What? So, you’re saying I don’t look like the girl of your dreams?” She throws in a wink for good measure.

“Wow,” y/n scoffs amused, shaking her head. “Does that line usually work, Vi?”

“It…usually does, actually,” Vi says, straightening up. Thrown off her game.

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first girl to try and flirt with me over reasonably priced coffee. Might wanna add yourself to the list,”

“There’s a list?” Vi asks.

“There’s a Google Doc,” y/n jokes.

Vi snorts despite herself. Y/n isn’t falling for this. Vi likes that.

“Anyway, what can I get started for you?” Y/n pushes on like she hadn’t just ripped out Vi’s ego, held it in her hand like a still-beating heart.

Vi clears her throat. “Uh…black coffee, please. The stronger the better,” she says.

“Coming right up,” Y/n says.

And as she moves away to make Vi’s drink, Vi watches her. Her eyes lingered for a little too long in certain places, but for the most part, Vi just watched y/n’s face. Took note of her candor, her charm. Like any and everyone was too cool for her, like no one could match her level. Vi hated that. She fucking loved it, though.

Once Vi’s drink is made, y/n slides it toward her. Their fingers brush for the briefest of moments. “You know, I still remember that rooftop party like it was yesterday,” y/n says. “I remember you trying to quote an old poet, but by that point, you were slurring so much, that I couldn’t make out a damn thing you were saying,”

“God. Mortifying,” Vi sighs as she blows on her coffee.

Y/n smirks. “I also remember you saying I had ‘revolutionary cheekbones’”

Vi points her styrofoam cup at y/n. “Now that sounds more like me,”

Both girls laugh, though Vi’s this time, edges closer to nervous while y/n’s stays unaffected. Their eyes meet for a moment and Vi opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but then a new customer steps up to the counter. “Well anyway, enjoy the coffee,” y/n says as she starts to walk away. “Good luck with the hangover. And the future flirting attempts,”

“I uh…usually don’t need luck with the latter,” Vi calls after her.

“Clearly,” y/n replies, sending a wink over her shoulder before stepping up to the register and greeting the new customer.

Vi turns toward the door, mock-wounded but quietly fascinated. She takes one step toward the door, then another. Then, she finds herself swiveling around to watch y/n again, just in time to watch her rattle off a joke that makes the customer laugh. Vi sips her drink. She smiles.

Vi doesn’t know what it is about y/n. Maybe the fact that her flirting didn’t work on her, and her flirting always worked. Maybe it was the fact that y/n had easily beat Vi at her own game. That she’d been the one to make her flustered and stuttery, when for Vi, it was usually the other way around. Maybe it was the simple fact that Vi seems to have met her match. Whatever it was for sure, she was intrigued.

For the next week, Vi keeps coming back to Hug In A Mug every day. Every day she orders the same thing—a black coffee. And every day, she chats with y/n, fragmented conversations when y/n has downtime between customers. With every conversation, Vi finds herself more and more intrigued. And every inclination tells her that she has a chance. Everything about y/n’s body language tells Vi that she’s interested. But it also says ‘try harder’ and that’s exactly what Vi does.

It’s on a rainy afternoon when Vi finally works up the courage to ask y/n out. “Okay, look,” she says, speaking loud enough to be heard over the sound of the espresso machine. “I’m not good at the whole…vulnerable, honest human being thing, but I was wanting to know if you’d…wanna go out sometime or something?”

Y/n’s cute head pops up over the top of the machine. “Go out?” She asks as she shuts it off.

“Yeah, go out. Me and you. Together,” Who the fuck was this nervous bitch all of a sudden? Vi needed to lock in. “Like…do something that doesn’t involve me coming here daily to watch you froth milk and you pretending you don’t know I’m into you,”

Y/n shrugs, smiles. “I mean, I was starting to really enjoy the frothing dynamic, but I see your point,”

Vi exhales. “Cool. So…what about dinner? We can go for whatever you’re into,”

Y/n leans against the counter, totally stealing Vi’s move, a teasing glint in her eyes. “Hmm…I dunno. A fancy dinner feels too…clean for you, no?”

Vi looks back at her, slightly affronted. “Dinner is too clean for me?”

“A fancy one, yeah. As rugged as you are? You’re definitely the kind of gal that would rather shotgun beer, throw darts, and hustle patrons in billiards,” y/n says.

Vi shifts her weight, ignoring the fact that y/n has her completely pegged. She also ignores how hot it is that y/n can see straight through her, and the coil of want that tightens in her abdomen as a result.

“So…are you saying you’d rather shoot pool?” Vi asks.

“I’m saying I will shoot pool with you, and I will win. And i will enjoy some deliciously greasy onion rings while I do,” y/n replies.

“Okay. I’m into that,” Vi says.

“I thought you would be,” y/n straightens up. “Tomorrow night? There’s this cool dive bar I like on Plymouth. I’m sure it’s just your speed,”

“I’ll be there,” Vi says. Then starts a backward walk toward the door. “Try not to miss me too much,” she says.

“Right back at you,” y/n chuckles.

Vi salutes her, ignoring the foreign flutter in her chest that she gets when y/n flashes her that beaming smile again. Then, she turns around and she’s out the door.

—

The dive bar on Plymouth is so much more Vi’s speed than Hug In A Mug. With its dim lighting, scuffed wood floors, bluesy music playing from a jukebox, and all the whiskey Vi can drink, the place looks like it hasn’t seen a renovation since the late 80s.

Vi leans against the pool table, cue stick in one hand and a drink in the other. She’s dressed like she tried, but not too hard—in a black cut-off denim jacket, vintage band tee, and silver chain around her neck. She realized when arriving that she was actually nervous, but the alcohol has done a lot for her in that department. Now, she’s pleasantly buzzed and doesn’t have to think too hard about the fact that y/n’s perfume smells divine. Unless she really wants too.

Y/n, now decidedly not in her apron is dressed in a plain white long sleeve and jeans that show off her curves. Her hair has been straightened within an inch of its life and she’s wearing a little more makeup than Vi is used to seeing. But god, does it work for her. It’s definitely working on Vi.

Vi hands her a cue, trying not to stare too hard. Y/n takes it from her with a smile. “So, what’s your game?” She asks.

“Uh…I’m something of a ‘talk shit, make every shot’ kind of showman,” Vi says.

“Cute. I’m more of a ‘put up or shut up’ so I think you’ve met your match,” Y/n says.

“Show me what you got, gorgeous,” Vi says.

And so y/n does. They flip for break and y/n wins. Naturally. “So,” y/n says as she leans over the pool table, lining up her first shot. “Tell me something real,”

Vi raises a brow. “Define real”

“Mm…like something you’d never say on a first date?”

“Well, that could be anything because you’ll find I don’t go on dates,” Vi says.

“Fine, then tell me anything,” y/n says.

Vi sips her drink to buy herself some time, watching as y/n sinks a solid-colored ball. “Okay, uh…I hate silence. Truly. I’m definitely one of those people that doesn’t like to be left alone with their own thoughts. Because…my own thoughts are rarely on my side,”

Y/n sinks another ball calmly. “Okay. I guess that counts as real,”

“Your turn,” Vi says.

“Alright,” Y/n shrugs as she stands up straight. She chews on her bottom lip as she thinks and Vi tries hard not to think about how she’d like to bite it instead. “I’m…apprehensive when it comes to dating. I’ve been with a lot of bad apples. A lot of people who saw me as a curvy body with no autonomy. Or…girls who just wanted to experiment. I realized that if I could make it alone, why even try with someone else?”

“Wow,” Vi says. “Do you…still feel that way?”

Y/n’s gaze flits to Vi and Vi holds her breath. Then, a smile teases one corner of y/n’s mouth. “I’m starting to come around to the idea,” she says simply. And that sentence alone has no business making heat bloom in Vi’s chest.

The game continues, and for most of it, Vi is in the lead. But then, y/n pulls off the upset, sinking a winning shot, and Vi groans as her loss settles over her, but then laughs in good nature.

Y/n spreads her arms out in a victory gesture, smirking smugly up at Vi. “Alright, alright. You win. I’ll eat my words,” Vi says. “What do you want?”

“I think we said loser buys the next round, didn’t we?” y/n says.

“No, we never settled that,” Vi says.

“Hm. Well, that’s what I want,” y/n steps closer, batting her eyes at Vi. “You’re gonna look me in the eyes and say I’m not pretty enough for you to buy me a drink?”

“You’re gorgeous, but that’s extortion, sweets,” Vi says, but she’s smiling like she absolutely doesn’t mind. And she doesn’t.

Y/n shrugs. “Semantics,” she says. She nudges her shoulder softly against Vi’s as she walks past her. And Vi watches her go, good and smitten.

—

Vi and y/n had their last drinks just shy of fifteen minutes ago, and it was so obvious—the glossy eyes, the flushed cheeks, the snickering even when nothing is funny. But more than that, Vi is having a good time. She’s relaxed for what feels like the first time in a long time.

The jukebox clicks onto an old soul song, soft horns playing through the speakers.

“Did you put this on? I love this song,” y/n says.

“Not guilty,” Vi says. “But…I don’t mind taking the credit,”

Clara beams at Vi, gets to her feet. “Dance with me,”

“Sorry?” Vi says.

“You heard me, hot stuff,” y/n holds out her hand.

Vi definitely doesn’t have it in her to argue. And she wouldn’t even think about it when y/n is looking at her like that, so she takes her hand and lets herself be pulled to her feet. Her breath catches a little when y/n slides her smaller, softer hand into hers, the other landing on Vi’s shoulder. Vi lets her hand rest on y/n’s waist.

Vi is used to moving fast, not slow. But y/n leads with a calm confidence that doesn’t need flash to be felt. They sway together. The room melts away. Nothing can be heard but the soulful lyrics. As they move together, the dynamic changes. Both of y/n’s hands are on Vi’s shoulders now, Vi’s arms wrapped around y/n’s waist. Smooth, tender. At some point, y/n’s head rests on Vi’s chest. Her perfume invades Vi’s senses and she breathes it in deeply.

“You know…I don’t usually go slow like this,” Vi says.

“I figured,” y/n replies, eyes closed. “But you’re doing okay,”

Vi snickers. “Are you grading me, gorgeous?”

“If I am, you’re passing with flying colors,” y/n replies.

“So, in other words…you’re impressed?” Vi asks.

“With you? Absolutely,” y/n says.

By now, Vi is smiling so wide that her cheeks have begun to ache. It’s weird. It’s new. And she doesn’t want to rush it. So instead, she says nothing. Just rests her chin on the crown of y/n’s head. The soul song has ended. Something faster has begun to play. Vi and y/n keep holding each other, not in any rush to let go. Not in any rush to burst the bubble.

—

Vi lies on her bed on her back, one arm folded behind her head, the other splayed across her stomach. She stares up at the ceiling fan, something oddly hypnotic in the way the wings spin lazily.

She was bored. It wasn't like her to have nothing to do on a Saturday night. Usually by this point, she'd be at the bar, chatting up the first attractive girl she sees, and thinking about how she'd be rocking that same girl's world later that same night. Vi glances at the time. 7:30. Hitting up the bar was still a very real possibility. And the more she thought about it, she wasn't really all that interested in being alone tonight. If she were left to her own thoughts, her mind might just stray to one girl in particular. A girl with a killer smile and even more killer confidence. A girl who'd been playing Vi like a fiddle for the better part of two weeks.

And fuck, it's happening. She's thinking about y/n. Thinking about the way it had felt to dance with her at the pool bar. Thinking about the way her floral perfume had invaded her senses, how the heat of her body in close proximity had made Vi's head spin.

“So in other words, you’re impressed?”

“With you? Absolutely,”

Vi wasn't used to this. She wasn't used to having to chase, yes, and she definitely wasn't used to the girls she flirted with not being immediately fall-all-over-themselves attracted to her, also yes. But she also wasn't used to this...fluttery sensation that hit dead center in her chest whenever she thought of y/n.

She wasn't used to the butterflies that invaded her stomach when she thought of her eyes or her smile, or the way she looked so beautiful when she was just doing simple things. Vi was used to lust. She was familiar with it, comfortable with it. She wasn't used to like, though. She wasn't used to crushing.

Vi's thoughts are interrupted as her phone pings with a text. And she curses her heart for tripping over itself the second she registers y/n's name. Opening the text thread, Vi sees that y/n has sent a photo: a pile of wooden planks, screws, and an untouched instruction manual lying on a maroon rug like a crime scene. A follow-up text reads: I fucking hate IKEA.

Vi snickers to herself as she texts back: Need some help there?

She's embarrassed by just how hard her heart is pounding as she awaits y/n's reply. Yes, please god. I’ll give you wine for your trouble 😩

Vi smiles at her screen, slides on her boots and sets off.

An hour later, Vi kneels in the middle of y/n’s living room, the promised wine in a chalice on the coffee table beside her. She’s just assembled the last shelf when y/n strolls in from the kitchen, barefoot and holding the wine bottle in case of a refill request. “I would’ve thought you’d be swearing by this point,” she jokes. “I certainly was,”

“Please. Am I not the best there ever was?” Vi says, tone oozing confidence.

“Careful. That kind of pompous attitude is what cost you the pool game,” y/n says.

“Listen, I was off my game for…undisclosed reasons and—“

“Oh, are they undisclosed?” y/n chuckles, raising a brow.

“I said what I said. Anyway—there’s a fifty-percent chance that this bookshelf will become some tragic modern art piece, but you’ll love it anyway, okay?” Vi says.

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” y/n laughs. She comes closer, leaning over to refill Vi’s wine glass and Vi watches her with an easy smile. There’s something new in Vi—a kind of quiet that didn’t exist before the past few weeks spent with y/n. The usual itch, the restless energy that made her chase distraction after distraction just isn’t there anymore.

Y/n sits beside Vi on the rug, their knees brushing. She sips her wine, watching Vi organize the leftover screws into piles. “You’re focused,” y/n says. “It’s kind of hot,”

“Shh. Don’t disrupt the furniture whisperer,” Vi says.

“Furniture whisperer?” Y/n chuckles. “So, are you one of those people who gets like, weirdly intense when you build things?”

“Only if you breathe near the wrong bolt,” Vi jokes.

Y/n laughs—that full, unguarded one that Vi likes best. She then nudges Vi’s shoulder—softly, the same way she had in the pool bar—and stands to her feet. Vi follows her up, a fist on each hip as she surveys her hard work.

"What do you think? Looks good?" Vi asks.

Y/n smiles, nods. "Yeah, it's great," then, she turns her smile on Vi. "I knew those pretty muscles were good for something,"

Vi raises a brow, and without missing a beat, she says, "And I knew that you thought my muscles were pretty," she angles her body toward y/n as she speaks, and she thanks whatever god that's listening when y/n does the same. For the first time in weeks, Vi sees a hint of shyness in y/n, in the form of a gorgeous pink blush that blooms over her cheeks. It should feel like a 'gotcha' moment for Vi, but all it does is put butterflies in her stomach.

Vi waits for the playful denial, the abrupt subject change. But all y/n does is shrug, her smile expanding. "Who wouldn't?" she says.

"Are you saying you're not immune to my charm after all? Because the past few weeks say otherwise," Vi replies.

Y/n takes a step closer, bringing her intoxicating fragrance with her. She meets Vi's gaze, unflinching. "Maybe I wanted to make you work for it," she says. "I know you're not used to that."

"No, I'm not," Vi says as her hand lands on y/n's waist, pulling her closer. And in the process, deriving an adorable squeak from her pretty mouth. "You definitely took me by surprise, gorgeous," she squeezes y/n's hip, reveling when she gasps. Then, she leans in to brush her lips against her ear. "But maybe I needed to be brought down to size,"

"Maybe you did," y/n agrees. "But you're persistent. I'll give you that,"

Vi pulls back enough to meet y/n's eyes, still close enough where if a gust of wind came through, they'd be mouth to mouth. "Only with the things I want," she says. Then, she closes the gap, finally attaching her mouth to y/n's. Y/n kisses her back, pushing up on her toes for a better vantage point, her wrists draping over Vi's shoulders. Vi's hands squeeze y/n's waist, tugging her closer, making y/n gasp again into her mouth.

Vi backs y/n against the wall, pressing her body to hers. And in response, y/n groans. Pulling back from the kiss, Vi attaches her lips to y/n's neck, and y/n moans, tipping her head back to give Vi better access. Vi growls, wedging her knee between y/n's thighs, and y/n makes a beautiful noise of approval as she grinds down.

"That's it," Vi whispers against y/n's neck. Her hands remain on y/n's hips, guiding her movements. "You like that, don't you?"

"Yeah," y/n sighs. "Fuck, how are you even real?" Instead of waiting for an answer, y/n lets her hands slide beneath the fabric of Vi's shirt, cursing as she feels the cut lines of her abdomen.

Vi chuckles at y/n's amusement. "I put in work, gorgeous," she whispers in y/n's ear before nipping at the lobe and pulling another beautiful moan from y/n.

"Having fun there?" Vi can't help remarking, watching the way y/n writhes against her. Her hands still on y/n's hips for guidance, but she’s letting y/n do most of the work.

"You're a prick," y/n breathes.

"I've been told that once or twice," Vi laughs. "But god, are you hot like this,"

Y/n lets out another pitiful moan, rocking harder against Vi's thigh, and Vi can't resist. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she joins in, her hips moving in tandem with y/n's. She swears, dropping her head onto y/n's shoulder, mumbling something about how good it feels.

Vi can feel when y/n starts to lose control, the inflection in her moans changing, and she picks that moment to pull her leg from between y/n's thighs, ruining her grinding. And just as she thought, y/n whines at the loss of contact. "Hey," she says, an adorable confusion imbedded in her eyes. "Why'd you stop? I...I was almost--"

"Shh, I know," Vi brushes a kiss against the corner of y/n's mouth. "But I don't wanna finish you off against this wall, sweet thing. You got a bedroom?”

Y/n practically drags Vi down the hall toward her bedroom and Vi chuckles, not even minding the fact that she's having to stumble along to keep up the pace. Once they're inside y/n's bedroom, Vi takes a moment to look around. The decor is very y/n in the best sense of the word—warm, soft, chaotic, subtly feminist. Art journals, a writing desk, lavender walls and a deep-green duvet on the bed. Fairy lights galore. It’s cozy, lived-in. It’s y/n.

“Everything okay?” Y/n asks.

“Perfect,” Vi replies. “Just taking everything in,” With that, she kicks the door shut and takes y/n into her arms, kissing her once, twice, then backing her toward the bed until y/n's legs catch the edge. Y/n gasps as she's made to stumble back, and Vi follows her down.

In the next moment, Vi is grabbing y/n's wrists and stretching them above her head, hovering above her and using the strength in her arms to keep herself there. For a moment, she just stares down at the gorgeous girl beneath her. At her blown-wide pupils, her flushed cheeks, kiss-swollen lips.

"You're a vision," Vi says.

"You're one to talk," y/n's response is cheeky. "Come down here already,"

"Ah, I think I have a better idea, gorgeous," Vi says. Then, before y/n can ask what she means by that, Vi leans down to kiss her lips, then her jaw, then her neck. She works her way down, sucking a hickey in the skin above y/n's collarbone, holding back a soft swear when this makes y/n's back arch. She lifts y/n's shirt above her head, snaps off her bra with one skillful finger, chuckles when y/n whines.

When y/n's chest is bared to her, Vi attaches her mouth to the peak of one very perky nipple. Another arch in y/n's back, and this time, Vi doesn't hold back the groan she lets out against her. Y/n's hands drop and she tries to reach for Vi, but Vi tsks against y/n's chest and catches her hands, stretching them above her head again, and this time, threading her fingers through hers. "Keep them here, princess," Vi says, her words a soft command that y/n can't even think about pushing back against.

Vi smirks and resumes her ministration, sucking on the peak of y/n's nipple before swirling her tongue around it.

"Vi, oh god!" y/n moans, her hips canting up in a desperate attempt to gain some friction. Vi, of course, doesn't give in so easily. She leaves the left breast and moves onto the right, lavishing it with the same attention. She frees her left hand from y/n's grip so she can massage her neglected breast. Y/n keeps her hands right where they are, despite the fact that one of them is free now.

"Good girl," Vi says. "You take directions well, don't you?" Y/n simply mewls in reply.

Vi releases y/n's right breast with a soft pop before making her way further down the other girl's body, leaving lovebites down the sides of her tummy, around the skin of her belly button.

Her hands make quick work of y/n's jeans, unfastening and sliding them down her hips. Vi licks her lips when y/n is left in nothing but her underwear. She looks up, catching her eyes. Y/n sees the nonverbal question of consent and nods, a soft breath escaping her lips in place of her words. The second she's given the okay, Vi slots her index finger between y/n's hip and the waistband of her underwear, slides it down. Her right hand leaves y/n's now, pushing at her soft, plush thigh as a silent plea for her to open them. Y/n does.

"Fuck, y/n," Vi says as she positions herself on her stomach, guiding y/n's legs over her shoulders. No other words seem adequate for the sight in front of her, so she says nothing else. Instead, she lets her tongue flatten against y/n's entrance, her eyes on y/n all the while, watching her reaction, watching the way she writhes and tips her head back.

Y/n is delicious on her tongue, and Vi can't get enough. Her movements alternate between teasing licks and adamant sucks. She pays close attention to y/n's sounds, doubling her efforts when she finds the spots that make y/n moan the loudest. What was once a low-burning heat in her abdomen builds higher and higher with every noise Vi is able to utter from y/n, but she's not worried about her own desire right now. All she cares about is making this gorgeous girl fall apart, and that's exactly what she does.

When she's about to break, y/n's hand falls onto Vi's head, fingers carding through her hair, and when she snaps with a gasp, those fingers start to pull, yanking at the pinkish-red strands. Vi seems to groan in the very same moment y/n loses control, caught off guard by the hair pull, but not at all opposed to it.

She keeps up her sensual attention, working y/n through her orgasm and once the shudders seem to have subsided, she lowers y/n's legs from off her shoulders, kissing her way up y/n's thighs until she can lie beside her.

When she turns her head to look at y/n, she finds the girl's reverent gaze already focused on her, looking at Vi like she hung the moon. "You okay, princess?" Vi laughs softly, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of hair behind y/n's ear.

"More than," y/n pants, her gaze still on Vi. "You're incredible. You're so incredible," she surges forward to kiss Vi deeply, hungrily, the taste of herself on Vi's lips only fueling her. Vi chuckles when y/n moves to climb on top, going politely when y/n lifts Vi's arms and discards her clothes the same way she'd done to her. And she watches with rapt attention as y/n starts a trail of kisses down her body.

Y/n disappears between Vi's legs and the first touch of her mouth on her core makes Vi gasp. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even let a girl go down on her like this. She always aligned herself as something of a stone top, but this. This magnificent girl and the way she flicked her tongue just right and worked her thumb against Vi's clit was making her see stars. She never wanted this moment to end. And when she finally falls over the edge, every cohesive thought she's ever had flies right out of her head. For a moment, she can't even remember her own name. But she damn sure knows y/n's, because it's the only word that trickles out of Vi's mouth for the next thirty seconds. That and the F word.

—

Vi wakes up the next morning, deliciously sore and with the weight of y/n's body against hers. Y/n's head is tucked beneath Vi's chin, her arms wrapped around Vi's bare shoulders. Vi's right hand traces miscellaneous shapes on y/n's back, occasionally brushing her knuckles softly against the skin while her left hand cards through the sleeping girl's hair. No offending sunlight this morning. In fact, the rain sluices down y/n's bedroom windows, adding a sense of calm to the overall environment.

"You awake?" Y/n's sleepy voice rumbles against Vi's neck and makes her snicker from the light tickle.

"Yeah, I'm awake, gorgeous," she replies.

Y/n picks up her head and smiles at Vi. "Last night was..."

"Incredible? Mindblowing? Toecurling? The best sex you ever had?" Vi supplies.

"Yes, all of the above," y/n agrees, rolling her eyes. "But it was also really fun. You had fun, didn't you?"

Vi hesitates, her soft caresses on y/n's back stopping for a moment. This makes y/n start to backpedal. "Well...you don't have to answer that. I know you don't like to-"

"No," Vi cuts y/n off, shaking herself out of her daze in favor of smiling down at y/n. "Last night was so much fun," she says, smoothing y/n's hair down. "And for the record, I really like you.”

❝SAVE YOUR TEARS.❞ ─ 𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐄 𝚰𝚰

PLAYER!ELLIE ﾒ MEAN!READER─ALWAYS PLAY THE PLAYER.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ SYNOPSIS. . . A year after that devastating summer, Ellie is stunned to see you again—this time at a summer camp where you’re both working at. The girl who once led her on and then disappeared without a trace is back, but Ellie’s no longer the naive girl you once played. Still aching from the way you broke her heart, Ellie is filled with a desire for revenge. She wants to make you feel the same confusion and hurt she felt. She’s ready to pull you into the same emotional game she was trapped in, to finally get her payback. But as she carefully lays her plans, Ellie finds herself in uncharted territory. She’s never been one for revenge, and now that the opportunity is in front of her, she begins to question if it will really give her the closure she craves or if it will leave her with something far worse. Is revenge really worth it, or will Ellie learn the hard way that some wounds can’t be healed by hurting the person who caused them? .𖥔 ݁ ˖ PART TWO CONTAINS. . . 18+ CONTENT, ANGST! (eventually with a happy ending, i promise), use of alcohol and drugs, santabarbara!ellie, player!ellie, coworker!ellie, campcounselor!ellie, switch!ellie/reader, campcounselor!reader, head-campcounselor!abby, mommy/daddy issues, homophobia, blackmail, strap-on sex (r!receiving), fingering, oral sex (e!receiving), emotional dependency/fear of abandonment ✶⋆.˚ CHAPTERS. . . ０００ ⋆ ０１０ ⋆ ０２０ ⋆ ０３０ [to be estimated...] .⊹⋆.˚ TAGLIST. . . @rew1nds @satellitespinner @boobdrug @ivying @elliewilliamsbelovedwife @mina-281 @hysteriawillnotsuccumb @chxrryvalxntine @bookpagecandlescent @fionaapplelover2010 @andersonslove @macaroni676 @elliesbabygirl @vampcubus @visupremacysstuff @elssaphica @kaykeryyy @nenas19 @rxreaqia @fatbootymuncher @dying-brb @euphoric-rush @intothespidersweb @d1psht [COMMENT TO BE ADDED!]

Two weeks.

That’s all that remained before Ellie Williams stepped back into the spotlight.

Not for an interview. Not for an apology.

For a stage. For a reckoning. For her.

She wasn’t coming back with headlines or handshakes. She was coming back the only way Ellie Williams ever knew how—burning. No warning, no press run, no apology tour. Just a guitar in her hands and one hundred thousand people at Michigan Stadium.

The same stage you opened your tour.

But now, it was her turn.

People flew in from every corner of the world. Slept in tents outside the gates. Painted her name on their cheeks like war paint. Wore her lyrics on their jackets like armor. Some hadn’t heard her voice since the Louder Than Fate tour, when she was still burning and hadn’t yet turned to ash. Others had never heard her live at all—just in headphones, in bedrooms, through car radios. Some came because they loved her. Others because they missed her. But most came because they needed to see her.

Needed to know if she was still real, still standing, still capable of singing through the wreckage she crawled out of.

Ellie got the offer from the label just days after she dropped the album.

She could’ve said no. She could’ve let the legacy speak for itself. But she didn’t.

Because she was hungry again.

Hungry for the stage, for the sweat, the sound, the roar of something louder than memory and pain. Hungry for the sting of light in her eyes, for the weight of the guitar against her chest, for the noise that could drown out everything she used to be.

Hungry to prove to the world—and herself—that she could step back into the spotlight that once shattered her and not just survive it, but reclaim it.

And the moment it was announced, the news spread like gospel.

Ellie Williams. Live. One night only.

It sold out in seconds.

The world was watching—eyes glued to screens, hearts clenched in anticipation, waiting to witness history.

But when the day finally came, none of them knew what she felt backstage.

She was sitting in front of a vanity mirror that didn’t feel like hers. Harsh yellow lights beat down on her face. The reflection staring back at her looked familiar in the way a childhood home does after a hurricane. Same bones, different air.

Her hair was pulled back into a low bun—not styled, just practical. She wore a white ribbed tank that clung to her shoulders, old jeans and a leather belt that still held the shape of her past, and those battered boots she’d once played entire tours in.

Her tattoos looked darker somehow, more defined, every line sharpened. Her face was clearer, stripped of eyeliner and pretense, scattered with freckles the world hadn’t seen in years.

She didn’t look older. Or younger. Just… still. Like everything that once raged inside her had burned to the ground—and something stronger had chosen to stay behind.

And for a moment—one long, breathless, soul-splitting moment—Ellie didn’t think she could do it.

She then stood beneath the humming lights of the corridor, the roar of one hundred thousand people pulsing through the concrete like a second heartbeat, and felt the weight of her own body like it was something foreign. Her chest was tight. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her mouth was dry, like even her voice had curled away from her in fear. 

There were no rails to cling to. No coke to jolt her heart into rhythm, no pills to anchor her breath, no needles to blur the sharp edges. No easy lie to armor herself with, no persona to slip into like a stage costume, no mask to make the trembling feel like performance. No Jesse cracking jokes beside her. No Dina tugging her sleeve, telling her to breathe. 

No you waiting in the wings to kiss her good luck, to squeeze her hand and tell her she was born for this. No soft smile to ground her. No voice whispering in her ear that she could do it, that she’d be okay, that she was already more than enough.

Just her. Raw and unfiltered. Barefaced. Bare-souled. Skin-to-bone vulnerable. Walking willingly into the same blaze that once swallowed her whole, but this time with no promise she'd come out the other side.

She felt the full, awful presence of her own unmedicated nerves. Her unedited grief. Her unmuted past. She didn’t know if her knees would carry her forward or buckle beneath the weight. She didn’t know if her voice would hold, or if it would crack and betray her in front of everyone. 

She had never felt smaller. Never felt more real. Never felt more alive.

But then—Joel appeared.

He didn’t knock. Didn’t clear his throat. Didn’t ask if she needed anything.

He just walked in.

The same way he had stepped into that hotel suite three years ago, when she was dying beneath taped-up curtains and cold bathroom tiles, when the air reeked of confinement and something worse, when her hands shook for a million different reasons and her soul felt like a ghost trapped somewhere deep in her chest, pounding to get out. 

And now, in this dressing room, on the edge of everything she’d become, he stood the same way, like time had folded in on itself to remind her: you are not alone this time, either.

He stood behind her in the mirror, silent and solid, a figure made of earth and time. That familiar weight in his shoulders—the kind of strength that doesn’t announce itself, but holds up the roof when everything else comes crashing down. 

He wore denim. Flannel. His boots were dusted from the road. His hair was streaked with more grey than she remembered. 

But his eyes—his eyes were steady. Unmoving. They had been holding still for years, just waiting for her to look up.

“…Y’know,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges, worn like gravel and truth, “first time I saw you hold a guitar, you were what—six?”

Ellie blinked, almost smiled. “Five.”

“Five.” He nodded. “Right. And your hands were so damn small I thought you were gonna snap the neck clean off just tryin’ to tune it.”

A breath escaped her. It was half a laugh, half a sob. That sound she only made around him. It meant she remembered, too.

“But you didn’t,” he went on. “You figured it out. I taught you how to play, sure—but you taught yourself how to make it sing. You took wood and wire and turned it into something unforgettable. And that something made you the greatest.”

He then stepped forward, slow and sure, and rested his hands on her shoulders. He looked at her like she was made of light and grit and second chances.

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “Hell, if it were me, I’d be scared too. But what’s in you, kiddo… that don’t get killed by fear. It don’t quit when it hurts. You’ve already walked through hell and came out the other side, and you’re still standing. Still breathing. Still singing.”

She looked down, breath catching, throat tight.

His hand moved to her cheek—rough thumb brushing just beneath her eye, the way only a father could touch someone and make them feel safer by standing still.

“You’re not what broke you,” he said quietly. “You’re what survived it. And you don’t gotta go up there alone—not ever again.”

He held out his hand.

She took it.

And in their in-ears, a voice crackled to life: Showtime in five seconds.

She closed her eyes. Breathed once. Twice.

The stadium lights dimmed.

A single spotlight cut through the dark like a blade through velvet.

And two silhouettes stepped into it. Side by side. Unshaken. Unafraid.

Ready.

The crowd saw Joel first—and the sound that erupted wasn’t a cheer. It was a detonation.

A seismic, full-body scream that tore out of a hundred thousand throats at once, rising from the depths of Michigan Stadium like the earth itself was howling. People weren’t just applauding. They were sobbing. Collapsing. Grabbing strangers. Shaking.

Joel Miller’s return to the stage after a decade was already legendary on it's own.

But then Ellie stepped into the light.

And the world broke open.

The noise became inhuman. It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard, even with her in-ear monitor trying to block it out. A sound so raw it blurred into static—like every heart in the stadium had burst at once. People dropped to their knees. Clutched their chests. Stared like they’d seen God materialize in front of them.

Because in a way, they had.

Not the myth. Not the scandal. Not the ghost they’d whispered about for three years in every corner of the earth.

Just Ellie fucking Williams.

Stripped of costume and spectacle. Her jaw set. Her eyes full. Her spine straight. Boots grounded on the edge that once shattered her. Her first acoustic guitar strapped across her chest like a shield made of memory.

And when the noise dimmed by the smallest fraction—her voice came through.

A voice that had once disappeared into silence now rose like a phoenix from ash.

“I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger…”

The way it moved through the stadium felt ancient. It came from something bigger than music.

Then Joel’s voice slipped into the harmony like it had always belonged there, effortless, worn in, achingly right.

The way their voices braided together felt less like a performance and more like a memory being rewritten in real time. 

And the crowd felt it. You could see it in the way people started crying and didn’t stop. Not polite tears, not glossy-eyed admiration, but full, collapsed sobs. As if hearing something they didn’t know they’d been starving for. Fathers held daughters like lifelines. Lovers clutched hands, some of them sobbing into each other’s shoulders. Fans leaned on strangers, weeping like confessionals. 

Because it wasn’t just Ellie up there. And it wasn’t just Joel. It was both of them, together—alive. Not as the fractured pieces of the people they used to be, but as something whole and rebuilt.

They stood side by side, boots grounded. Their playing wasn’t polished, and it didn’t need to be. It was raw and imperfect and so incredible it can barely be described. 

The scrape of strings, the breath between verses, the unfiltered ache in their voices—it all bled into something more honest than perfection could ever offer.

And somehow, that stripped-down moment, with no band behind them and no noise to hide inside, was more powerful than any anthem ever could’ve been.

When the final note rang out, it didn’t end with applause. It ended with stillness. The kind that makes you feel like the world has stopped spinning. For a heartbeat, it was silent enough to hear the breath of the person beside you. 

And then the sobbing started again—quieter now, reverent, as if no one wanted to break what had just happened.

Ellie turned to look at Joel.

Joel was already looking at Ellie.

And in that look, she saw something she had never seen before. Not the complicated, unspoken weight of a father who didn’t know how to hold a daughter made of fire.  She saw pride. Pure, earned, bone-deep pride. It didn’t need to be said aloud to be known.

And Joel saw her, too. Not the haunted. Not the addict. Not the one who ran. Not just the artist who rose from her own ashes, turning them into songs that brought the world to its knees—all over again.

But the daughter he thought he’d lost forever, standing beside him with her chin lifted and her voice unshaking. The saw the woman who clawed her way back from the dead.

The song ended, but something far more important ended with it.

The wound Joel had left in Ellie—the old, unspoken fracture of absence and disappointment—closed. Quietly. Completely. 

And the one Ellie left in Joel—the guilt, the helplessness, the deep, clawing ache of a man who feared he’d failed—finally softened into something like peace.

There were no apologies spoken.

Only a father and daughter, once torn apart by silence, who found each other again in the only language they never forgot how to speak—music.

The days had passed like mist through your fingers—formless, slow, devoid of shape or meaning, as if time itself had been grieving with you. Since the moment you pressed play on Ellie’s album, something inside you had cracked so quietly it didn’t even echo. Just a shattering, inward. A collapse you didn’t notice until you were already buried beneath it.

You moved through your days like a version of yourself caught between radio static and a memory—doing what you were supposed to do, but never quite arriving.

On stage, you sang the notes like a ghost of yourself. You moved the way you always had—fluid, rehearsed, divine—but something underneath had ruptured all over again. You smiled when the cameras were on, told stories on late-night couches with perfectly timed laughs. But every step offstage felt like unraveling. Every green room felt like a tomb.

And after, you went home, to this apartment high above the city. No press. No afterparties. The kitchen untouched. The bedroom too big. The pillows still smelling faintly like lavender and someone you didn’t name anymore.

You didn’t answer Abby. Not when she sent a long paragraph apology, somewhere between remorse and confusion. Not when she called three times in a row. And not when she finally gave up subtlety and said, “We can try again. If you want.”

You didn’t even open it.

Not because you wanted to be cruel. Not because you didn’t appreciate the softness you’d been offered, or the effort it took to stay at your side while you were halfway somewhere else. But because the truth had already bloomed inside your chest like a bruise you couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t Abby. It was never Abby. And no amount of stability or warm hands could quiet the voice you heard again.

Because that voice—her voice—had broken through the silence of your carefully reconstructed life like a blade. And in that moment, with every lyric, with every breath she sang into the dark, you knew.

Your heart had never moved on. Your soul had never made the journey. You had been surviving, yes. But you hadn’t really lived since her.

And in the aftermath of that album—raw, confessional, impossible to misinterpret—you finally let yourself accept what you’d been running from in the quietest, most painful kind of surrender.

That maybe you were destined to haunted by the ghost of Ellie Williams forever.

A shadow stitched into your ribcage. A presence that time could blur but never erase. A love that refused to die, even when you begged it to.

You’d walked into the studio the next morning after hearing it with your makeup already done and a smile pinned so tightly to your lips you were sure it would scar. Not even your stylist said a word. Not the lighting guy. Not your publicist, who usually couldn’t shut up about viral angles and fan engagement. You were handled like something breakable, a crystal vase perched too close to the edge of a windowsill. Everyone knew. No one dared to name it.

You got through the first hour of recording. Barely. Your voice cracked once, then again, and again—until it was no longer convincing. You stepped out mid-take, blamed it on exhaustion, waved off concern with a perfectly practiced flick of the wrist. My voice is shot, you said, and they nodded.

You didn’t check headlines. Couldn’t. The internet was drenched in her name—suffocating in it. Every push notification felt like a gut punch. Every flick of your thumb opened a trap. Ellie Williams Breaks Her Silence. Ellie’s New Album: A Love Letter or a Confession? “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”: A Song No One Was Ready For.

Your inbox overflowed. Interview requests. Podcast pitches. Brand deals—each one clawing for your reaction. All of them starved to know what you thought, desperate for a paparazzi shot of you crying. If they could catch you unraveling in real time, they’d rake in the numbers.

You hadn’t posted since.

You couldn’t care less about engagement, PR, or damage control. You hadn’t even posted the breakup statement with Abby—it still sat in your drafts, unsent and untouched.

Because knowing the media, of course they’d link it to Ellie’s return.

The worst part? They’d be completely right.

So now, you were in the penthouse.

In a second, you swore the whole place inhaled with you. The walls themselves paused, the air tensed, the silence had shape and sound and a pulse. Moonlight spilled across the hardwood in a long, silver exhale. You didn’t know what was coming. Only that something was.

You were lying in bed minutes later, barely breathing, when your phone lit up.

Rachel.

Your body didn’t jolt or freeze. It just… stilled. Like it recognized this moment before your brain did. You blinked, slow. Blank ceiling. Heavy air. You didn’t move. Didn’t answer right away. Just watched the screen light up with the name of the only person who might understand, the one who had always been there on the edge of everything, never pushing, always waiting.

You could have let it ring. You almost did. Let it vanish into missed call silence, another unopened door you couldn’t walk through.

But something deep inside you twitched—sharp and certain. A low, humming knowing that said respond.

So you reached quietly on the fifth ring, dragging the phone to your ear like it weighed your entire life.

“What.”

Your voice was flat, but your pulse had already spiked.

“RUN TO YOUR TV. First channel you can find—national, local, WHATEVER—just turn it on. RIGHT NOW. GO—”

Rachel’s breath was erratic on the other end, like she was sprinting through adrenaline.

“What? Rachel, what’s going on?” you sat up, “Why? What happened?”

“I—I can’t—OH MY GOD—JUST DO IT!” she half-laughed, half-screamed. “YOU’RE GONNA DIE. GO. NOW.”

Your heart lurched in your chest like it had been yanked by a string. Then raced.

Something electric ignited then—wild, primal, terrifying—the kind of feeling that didn’t come with warning. The kind of feeling that only meant one thing: Her.

You bolted barefoot across the hardwood, phone clutched in one hand, the other fumbling wildly for the remote. It was like your body already knew what your mind couldn’t yet process.

You clicked the remote on with trembling fingers.

The screen blinked to life.

One second of black.

And then—

Michigan Stadium.

Night sky overhead.

Lights flooding the stage.

And there.

There she was.

The one you thought you’d never see again.

Ellie.

You dropped the phone. It hit the floor hard. You heard Rachel screaming through the speaker, but her voice was a distant echo, swallowed by the roar in your ears.

Because she was there.

You stumbled back like the image itself had struck you in the chest. The air left your lungs all at once, sharp and violent, like you’d been punched by a ghost. Your knees caught the edge of the couch and buckled, and you sank down without grace or thought, eyes locked to the screen, unblinking, unmoving, undone.

Ellie stood in the center of Michigan Stadium like the world had tilted just to make room for her. White ribbed tank. Old jeans. Those battered black boots you once tripped over in the hallway of a hotel room you both refused to leave. Her hair was pulled back, out of her face. Her tattoos sat dark beneath the lights, inked relics of a war she survived. Her guitar rested across her chest like it belonged to her ribcage.

But it wasn’t the outfit. It wasn’t the set. It wasn’t the crowd.

It was her.

She looked radiant.

Not in a polished, made-for-press kind of way. Not only because she was already perfect. But because she looked holy. There was a quiet power in her posture, a stillness that rang louder than any scream. The kind of beauty that had nothing to prove. Her skin glowed under the lights, untouched by highlighter or stage makeup. Her arms were fuller now. Her face softer. Her body no longer carved by tension, but by healing. There was more weight to her, more color, more breath.

She looked more beautiful than your memory had dared to keep.

Changed in all the ways time demands, but still, so unmistakably her.

Because under it all, that Ellie the world and you fell in love with remained—that wild, impossible gravity only she had ever carried. The quiet danger curled beneath her stillness. The glint in her eye that dared every soul to look away. That fire in her blood, reckless and unrelenting, that burned you down and still made you crawl back, aching to be scorched again. It was the way she held a room without even speaking. The way her presence felt like prophecy.

No matter how much she changed—no matter how much softer, fuller, steadier she became—that raw, untamed pulse inside her still called to you like it always had.

But this woman, this Ellie, was alive in a way that made your throat close. Not because the pain was gone, but because she had walked through it. Burned, broke, and rebuilt every shattered piece.

You could feel it, pouring off of her in waves. This sacred knowing that she had faced death in all its quiet forms and chosen, somehow, to live.

And then—

Joel.

You pressed a hand to your mouth as the tears came fast—silent, unrelenting. They streamed down your face like they’d been waiting for this moment longer than you had. You weren’t only crying because it was beautiful. You were crying because it was real.

Because for the first time, you saw Ellie not just standing—but held.

The stadium around them was thunder, rising like a hurricane of disbelief and devotion. People wept. People screamed. People collapsed into each other in the stands.

Ellie’s voice was raw silk; Joel’s was gravel and time. Their voices braided together, weathered and warm. The song lifted into the night like smoke from an old fire. The commentators were speechless. And you—

You were wrecked.

The tears came freely now, tracing slow, aching paths down your cheeks, slipping over the curve of your jaw, soaking into the collar of your shirt. You folded over your knees, one hand clutching the center of your chest like you could physically hold your heart together, the other trembling in your lap.

And through the storm of breathless, silent sobs, you whispered—thank you.

Again and again. You thanked whatever had listened. The stars. God. Fate. The wind. That unnamed force that had heard you in your quietest agony and, at last, answered back.

It didn’t matter that she never called, not anymore. Didn’t matter that her name never lit up your phone, that she hadn’t texted or knocked your door or whispered your name back into the silence.

Because Joel was beside her. And he wasn’t hiding either. Not from her, not from you, not from the past that had nearly torn them apart. 

Because you knew, even without needing to be told, he had been with her this whole time. You could see it in the way she looked steadier. She had finally let someone love her without pushing them away.

And you knew why.

Because you had made that call.

You never got a thank you. You never needed one.

This—this moment, this breath, this proof of life—was enough.

Every night you cried for her. Every scream into your pillow. Every time you shouted into the dark, begging the universe not to take her from you.

All of it had been worth it. The pain. The silence. The years. The songs you wrote just to survive.

Because she was there, glowing. Standing with her chin held high, the stage catching her in that impossible kind of light. A light she wore like truth. No longer flinching at the crowd. No longer hiding from the name that came before her. No longer hiding from her own name.

And you sat there, tears streaming, broken open, watching from thousands of miles away. And your heart—after three long years of beating wrong—finally remembered the rhythm it was made for. 

The moment Wayfaring Stranger ended and that final chord rang out—slow and aching and holy—the stadium held its breath. The sound hung in the air like a ghost refusing to leave. Ellie stood still for a second, her head bowed, breath heaving gently in her chest.

Then she turned to Joel.

In unspoken sync, they each reached for their guitars, slinging them over their shoulders with practiced ease. The weight settled against their backs, familiar and grounding, old promises they never dared to break.

And then, without a word, they stepped forward and wrapped their arms around each other.

It was real hug—reverent, both arms around his shoulders like she was closing a loop neither of them ever truly believed would close. He held her back just as tightly, eyes shut, face buried in her shoulder like he was anchoring himself to her heartbeat. 

The crowd erupted. Not just in applause, but in something deeper. Gratitude. Relief. As if they had waited years not just for her return, but for this. For the proof that some stories do find their way back.

Ellie pulled away first, her smile faint but real. She stepped towards the mic and the light found her eyes—glassier than before, brighter than they had ever been.

“Everyone,” she said, breath catching on the word, voice rough from the weight of the moment, “A round of applause for Joel Miller. My dad.”

The response was thunder. The crowd roared like it was gospel, a wave of noise so massive it nearly lifted the stadium off its foundations. Joel shifted under it, awkward and quiet, rubbing the back of his neck like the sound might crawl down his spine. It had been over a decade since he’d stood this close to a stage, even longer since the roar of a crowd had been meant for anything he touched.

It hit him like muscle memory and whiplash at once—how the sound swelled in your chest before it ever reached your ears, how it made your ribs rattle, how it made your past feel like it never really left.

He gave a half-nod, like a man trying to stay small and humble beneath worship.

Ellie turned and looked at him—and the tenderness in her gaze made something in your own chest twist, ache, break. She held up a hand, waiting for the noise to dim, her fingers steady.

“In the past,” she said, “I was afraid I’d never be enough to step out from under his shadow. I thought I had to run from it. Outgrow it. Beat it.”

She glanced at Joel again, that crooked half-smile of hers spreading like sunrise.

“But now I get it. He’s not a shadow. He’s not a name I have to live up to. He’s my father. And I’m grateful every single day for who he is—for the fact that he’s still here. And for the fact that he still believed in me… even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

Joel stepped forward slowly, clearing his throat as he leaned toward the mic. The stadium went quiet. As if everyone knew this moment wasn’t to be missed.

“Ellie. My daughter,” he began, and even those words felt like a benediction, a prayer finally spoken out loud. “The one who made it out. And is still standin'.”

He paused. The lights caught the tears in his eyes. His voice cracked, just a little.

“The strongest and most brilliant person I’ve ever met… and ever will meet. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of her.”

He exhaled, eyes wet, the pride in him so loud it didn’t even need music.

"Everyone—a round of applause for Ellie Williams.”

The crowd didn’t cheer. They roared—with the force of something seismic, soul-deep.

Joel took a step back from the mic, gave a short wave, and began to turn. His role complete, the chapter closed.

But she blinked, tilted her head, and leaned into her mic.

“Ellie Miller.”

The crowd gasped, then rose again—like they hadn’t just been hit with the most personal, quiet bombshell of the night.

Joel froze mid-step. Slowly turned. Squinted at her with an exaggerated dad face so full of mock-scandal and affection it drew laughter through tears across the entire stadium.

“Oh, that’s how it is?” he said, feigning offense. “Changing your stage name without tellin' me?”

Ellie shrugged, expression sly and soft all at once.

“Figured I earned it.”

And then—Joel laughed. Really laughed. A deep, unfiltered sound.

He didn’t say another word. He just stepped back to her and hugged her again.

This time, longer. This time, tighter. This time, with every apology they had never said, every word they’d both gone without, every year lost that now didn’t matter anymore.

Ellie leaned into it, buried her face in his shoulder. Her mouth moved against his shirt, barely audible over the applause.

“I love you, Dad.”

And Joel, without pause, without blinking, held her closer still.

“I love you too, kiddo.”

And after the crowd finally settled, when Joel let her go and stepped backstage, someone from the wings came forward and placed it in her hands.

Her guitar.

The black Les Paul. The same one she’d played since the beginning—since cramped clubs and broken strings and dive bars that smelled like vodka and regret. It had followed her through every tour, every groupie, every breakdown, every rebirth. It had always been there, waiting.

But tonight, as she curled her fingers around the neck, it felt different.

It didn’t sit in her hands like a weapon anymore. It didn’t tremble like it was afraid of her. It rested there like it belonged.

Ellie adjusted the strap slowly, her movements precise. She stepped forward, boots echoing against the stage, and stopped just behind the mic. Her eyes swept across the crowd—one hundred thousand held breaths—and then back to the band behind her.

She nodded once. They nodded back.

Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You.

And when she started playing, everyone understood. This wasn’t a comeback. It wasn’t a redemption arc.

This was a resurrection.

Ellie had always carried something inside her—molten and unnamable, twisting in her chest like starlight caught in barbed wire. It wasn’t polish. It wasn’t performance. It was presence. That rare fire no one could teach and no label could manufacture.

And now, she didn’t just glow, she burned. She lit up that stage like she’d been born with a crowd already roaring for her. But the truth was, she didn’t need one.

Because Ellie had that thing. That impossible, untouchable thing artists spend their whole lives chasing.

She had always been her own spotlight.

And tonight, she only needed four things: a mic, a guitar, her voice and you.

From your penthouse window, even LA pulsed with the sound of her. The echo of her voice bled through televisions, car radios, rooftop speakers. A storm rolling in from the horizon, crawling towards your shore with one specific purpose.

But it wasn’t until the broadcast returned, the camera cutting back to her face—those unmistakable green eyes locked and unflinching, burning straight through the screen—that you felt it in your bones.

She had one hundred thousand people screaming her lyrics into the sky like scripture. Fans sobbing, collapsing, gripping each other like they were witnessing something divine only she could summon. The moment felt too big for sound, too holy for explanation.

But Ellie didn’t want their eyes on her. Not really.

She only wanted one specific pair.

Yours.

She stared into the camera like it was a portal, like if she looked hard enough, deep enough, it might carry her back to you. Might pull you through space and silence and time.

And somehow, it did.

Because you were there.

Watching.

You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. You were on the floor now—knees pulled tight to your chest, forehead resting against the crook of your arm, trying to stay anchored as your whole body threatened to come undone. Your mouth open, tears flowing. Your heart thudded against your ribs in perfect time with every chord she struck, every note she gave away striking like a bullet.

Because they were yours.

She wasn’t just singing the songs—she was ripping them out of herself. Tearing them from some raw, unspoken place deep within, where grief and longing and love had grown too vast to stay hidden any longer.

These were songs that had your name buried between the syllables, hidden in the breath between verses, stitched into final notes that lingered just a second too long.

Her voice wasn’t polished. It wasn’t pristine. It was a wound, sharp and aching and raw. A voice that bled. A voice that sliced the air open and somehow managed to stitch it closed again in the same breath.

She didn’t perform. She confessed.

Every lyric was a letter she never sent. Every chord was a memory she couldn’t bear to forget. Every time her fingers moved across the guitar, it felt like prayer.

And the crowd, the cameras, the stadium, the roar of one hundred thousand, none of it mattered.

Because she only cared about you.

She didn’t care where you were—whether you were alone in some quiet corner of the world, laughing with friends, tangled up in Rachel’s orbit, or with...Abby. All she wanted was to reach you.

But God, please not with Abby.

She didn’t care how the sound found you—through the static of a car radio, from the corner speaker of a bar you didn’t mean to walk into, or echoing faintly from someone else’s phone across the room. She just needed her voice to brush against your world, land somewhere near you ears and slip in your chest.

And she didn’t care how you saw her—on a screen, in the blur of clip gone viral, in a reflection that caught you off guard, made you look twice, made you remember. She just needed you to look long enough to recognize her, not as a star on stage, but her.

The girl who had loved you. Who still did.

Because what she was doing now wasn’t just for the world. Wasn't just for herself. It was for you.

She stared into the camera like it was a window she could reach through. Like maybe the songs would travel across the signal, across the air, and find the only heart they were meant for. The melody a key sliding into the lock of your chest.

And it did.

Sitting on the floor of your living room, lips parted, eyes blurred with tears, arms wrapped around yourself like you might fall apart if you didn’t hold tight—it did.

The way she looked into the lens when she sang the bridge of Iris—like she was standing at the edge of a cliff, and the only thing keeping her from falling was the thought of you. The way her voice cracked—just barely, but undeniably—on the second verse of Not, like the memory lodged in her throat finally fought its way out. The extra, aching strum before the outro of Twilight, a pause that wasn’t in the studio version, but lived only in this performance.

And then there was Black—that velvet, bruised wail of a song, the way she leaned into it like confession, like penance. The way Lilac Wine and Grace made her close her eyes, guitar cradled to her chest like a heartbeat, the melody unspooling as if it had been fermenting inside her for years. And in Francesca, when the lights dimmed and turned into a cold blue-purple haze, she looked up—not at the crowd, not at the band, but straight into the camera. Straight through it. Into the silence where you lived.

And the cameras caught her in it—that impossibly magnetic, sharp-browed and sharp-tongued beauty. The defiance in her jaw. The crease that lived between her eyes like a scar she never tried to erase. The green of her gaze, luminous even under the relentless blaze of stadium lights, cutting through like it had been sharpened for you.

She played, sang, and performed like she was starting a war and making peace in the same breath—every note a battle cry, every word a surrender.

Backstage, someone whispered, "She’s a fucking legend."

Another voice, awed: "This is history in the making."

Someone else, "She’s not human."

And maybe they were right.

Maybe she never was human, at least not in the way the rest of humans were.

Because Ellie on that stage wasn’t the girl who vanished three years ago, shaking and hollow, disappearing into a silence so deep it swallowed her. She wasn't the daughter of. She wasn't the ex-frontwoman of the Fireflies. She wasn’t the heartbreak you wrote an entire album about. She wasn’t even just the girl you loved.

Standing at the center of the biggest stadium in the country, with her Les Paul slung low against her hip, sweat glistening down the line of her throat, breath catching from the weight of her own voice, she was all of them at once.

She looked out into the dark, into the crowd, into the camera, and didn’t flinch.

She reached.

And somehow—so impossibly—you reached back.

And when the lights dimmed again, it felt like the air had been sucked from the world.

No music. Just a breathless, crushing stillness—like the universe was holding something behind its teeth. The stadium buzzed in the dark, bodies charged with static, hearts beating out of sync, phones lifted like trembling offerings.

But the band was gone. The monitors had gone dark.

And Ellie was nowhere in sight.

A few minutes passed. Maybe more. It was hard to tell. Time had folded into itself.

Then—movement.

Far stage left, barely illuminated, a silhouette appeared.

At first, it was just shape and shadow. The camera didn’t zoom. The lights didn’t rise. No cues. Just the slow reveal of a presence.

The stadium held its collective breath.

It was her.

You could tell by the weight of her walk—the deliberate thunder of boots hitting the stage like war drums. A now clean black tank clung to her shoulders, her jeans darker, still stiff from the quick change backstage. The Les Paul still strapped across her body like shield. Her stance was familiar, yet different. She wasn’t reemerging.

She was summoning something.

And then—

A second figure stepped into the low light beside her.

A woman. Lean. Curly hair catching the stage glow like a halo of fire. A bass hung low across her hips, hands already poised, one foot forward, like she’d never stopped playing. Like the time apart had only sharpened her.

The audience froze.

Then—A third figure appeared in the back.

A man. Seated. Shadowed. Hands spinning a pair of drumsticks like magic, like memory. His shoulders wide, head bowed as if in prayer, coiled with precision.

The crowd didn’t scream. Couldn’t.

Because no one dared to speak into what was happening.

The Fireflies.

The screen finally zoomed in, not all at once, but slowly. Like even the broadcast crew understood they were capturing something mythical. A resurrection not just of a band, but of legends.

Ellie stepped up to the microphone, backlit by fire and myth, sweat still shining across her collarbone, guitar strapped tight like her ribs might break without it.

The crowd still hadn’t broken their silence. They waited. Breathless.

Then her voice came—low, serrated, full of that old venom, aged like the finest wine.

She leaned into the mic, the corners of her mouth lifting between a smirk and a warning.

“Guess what, fuckers—turns out fire doesn’t die. It just waits.”

The crowd erupted.

A scream so violent it shook the camera feed, sent tremors through the floorboards, nearly knocked people to their knees. It wasn’t just cheering. It was release. It was reverence.

Because the impossible had just happened.

Screams tore through the stadium so loud, seismic sensors in three counties thought it was an earthquake. Security guards were crying. A paramedic fainted. One hundred people passed out instantly. At least five breakups and one proposal happened mid-scream. The cameras struggled to focus through the chaos. Hands reached towards the stage like the second coming had arrived.

If Ellie thought she’d already heard the loudest sound of the night—this made it feel like a whisper.

And just like that, she ripped the first note from her guitar like it had been waiting three years to scream.

Her voice cut through the sound system like a beast unleashed. 

“WE'RE BACK FROM THE DEAD!”

And behind her, Jesse slammed into the drums with a grin so wild it made three thousand headlines the next day.

Dina’s bass rumbled in, low and unrelenting, the kind of sound you felt in your ribs before you heard it.

In those hidden weeks in New York, Ellie, without warning, showed up at Jesse’s door.

No text. No heads-up. Just a knock, long past midnight.

He opened it, groggy and confused, rubbing sleep from his eyes—and froze.

Dina was on the couch behind him. She stood. They stared at Ellie like they'd seen a ghost.

Five full seconds passed. No one spoke.

Then—just like that—they broke.

They collapsed into each other in the hallway, tears wetting shoulders, hands clutching sleeves like they might disappear again if they didn’t hold tight enough. There were no apologies. No screaming matches. No grand speeches. Just the kind of crying that sounds like relief. The kind that only happens when someone you thought might lose forever walks through your door.

They didn’t try to fix everything all at once. They didn’t need to.

Instead, they talked.

For hours. Cross-legged on the floor. Curled up on the couch with knees tucked into their chests like kids. They passed a joint back and forth, laughed until they couldn’t breathe, ate chips from the bag. They talked about nothing. About everything. The silence between them softened into something like trust again.

At some point, Ellie played The Shape of What I Lost on Jesse’s living room speakers.

None of them moved while it played. No one spoke when it ended.

Five full minutes of silence.

And then Dina looked up, eyes glassy but clear, and said,

“So… when are we getting the band back together?”

It was never a maybe.

It was always a yes.

They planned it like a heist. In secret. No press. No leaks. No teams. Just the three of them in borrowed rehearsal spaces, writing new arrangements with old muscle memory and fresh scars. They rebuilt everything from the bones—new sound, new fire, same soul. Rehearsing like their lives depended on it.

Because maybe they did.

They started with a Fireflies version of Black Vultures. They stripped it raw, loaded it with grit, sharpened every verse until it sounded like vengeance. It was thunder. It was blood. It was the kind of opening track that let the world know—this wasn’t nostalgia. This was now.

Then came Back from the Dead.

Their first new song in years.

Written together. One night. In the middle of that too-small studio with too-warm beer and half-empty notebooks, Ellie had looked up from her guitar, her voice hoarse, and said, “This isn’t about being back. It’s about surviving it.”

And now—here they were.

After Ellie strummed one of the most powerful, soul-baring solos of her entire career—fingers blistering, guitar wailing—the final verse rang out into the night. It didn’t just echo through the stadium. It resounded across the entire city, flooding rooftops, trembling windows, bleeding into alleyways and high-rises and hearts that had been waiting for their return.

Black Vultures came.

They weren't just performing it. They were reinventing it.

The Fireflies version was heavier. Filthier. Sharper. It was blood-slick and golden, packed with harmonies and breakdowns and that wild, reckless chemistry that only the three of them could create.

Jesse’s drum kit pounded like an earthquake. Dina’s bassline and backing vocals hit like a fist through glass. And Ellie—center stage, mouth on the mic, eyes burning like flames in hell—howled.

Her voice was louder now, stronger than it had ever been, even in her prime. She sang like she wanted the whole universe to know:

The Fireflies weren’t just back.

They had never sounded better.

The bridge crashed in like a wave of fire, and Ellie dropped to her knees at the edge of the stage, her guitar howling beneath her fingers like it had waited years for this exact moment.

And with auburn strands plastered to her face, sweat slicking her arms, voice burning from the inside out—

She screamed the bridge.

She didn’t just sing it—she hurled it from her chest like it had been clawing at her ribs for years. The sound tore through the stadium, ripped through amplifiers, cracked across the sky like thunder made of bone.

Louder than anything she’d ever screamed before.

Louder than pain. Louder than addiction. Louder than guilt.

“I’M STILL ALIVE.” (2:46)

Her voice broke—sharp, guttural, glorious—and for a split second, it sounded like her soul was breaking with it.

Because she was still alive.

Against all odds. Against every headline. Against everything that tried to kill her.

And the world shook around her like it understood.

And you?

You were mess of sound—crying, laughing, screaming—all at once. Your hands clutched your chest like you were afraid your heart might actually tear itself free. You shook your head like you couldn't believe what you were witnessing, because how the hell could your body contain that much awe, that much history, all crashing back to life in front of you?

The Fireflies.

Your brain couldn’t make sense of it, but your soul did. Your soul was already on its knees.

And when the last guttural notes of Black Vultures shattered into silence, there was no formal send-off. No staged goodbye. No polished encore.

Just darkness.

Just three shadows—collapsing into each other, disappearing as one.

A constellation folding inward. Stars returning to the sky.

People didn’t clap. They screamed. They sobbed. They shouted things they couldn’t put into words. Strangers held each other. Generations wept side by side.

And the Fireflies stood at the center of it all, wrapped in a hug so tight, so chaotic, it looked like a home they had built out of each other. Ellie’s arms around Jesse and Dina. Their heads pressed together. Faces red with sweat and tears.

Nothing had ever broke them—not distance, not silence, not time.

They had found each other.

The image was already going viral. Captured from a thousand shaking phones. Every corner of the internet was drowning in real-time sobbing posts, reaction videos, screen recordings, blurry zoom-ins of that one perfect second.

Dina stepped forward, snatched the mic with shaking fingers, and through laughter and tears, said what everyone had been praying to hear for three years:

“THE FIREFLIES ARE FUCKING BACK!”

The stadium erupted like a match to gasoline.

Jesse stumbled forward next, still breathless, drenched in adrenaline, drumsticks half tucked into his back pocket.

“Y’all thought we were done?” He grabbed the mic from Dina and grinned. “Nah. The hiatus is OVER. Burned. Buried. Signed, sealed, fuckin’ obliterated. Lock your doors, hide your stages.”

Dina laughed, wiping her face, tugging Ellie between them. “And your girlfriends.”

Jesse barked a laugh. “Especially your girlfriends.”

Ellie, standing in the center, boots planted, face flushed, soaked in sweat and disbelief, waited until the crowd went quiet again, hanging on every breath.

She looked at Jesse. Then Dina. Then at the crowd. Her voice low, serrated, sure: “We’re the Fireflies. We're back.”

Ellie’s grin was feral. Her eyes gleamed.

“And we’re never fucking leaving again.”

And in that moment, three people who nearly didn’t survive it—did. Together. Loudly. Permanently.

And the Fireflies walked off together—shoulders touching, arms around each other’s backs, bathed in gold, glowing with something larger than life. A moment carved into music history like it had been written in blood.

Immortal.

But Ellie didn’t follow them.

She stayed.

The band had returned, melting into the shadows.

Ellie walked to the very edge of the stage. Not with power. Not with purpose. Just quietly. Like the weight in her bones had finally stilled. The stadium lights softened to a single warm glow that haloed around her like dusk.

She held only her acoustic now—no distortion pedals, no echo, no fire. Just six strings and silence.

The crowd fell into an eerie, reverent stillness.

And then—

She looked up.

Right into the camera.

Her face was calm, but her jaw was tight. You could see the pulse in her throat. The muscle flickering in her cheek. Her eyes—God, those eyes—shone like green of forests on fire.

She exhaled slowly.

And the chords of Lover, You Should’ve Come Over started ringing out behind her.

“I... I wasn’t gonna say anything,” she said, her voice low—frayed at the edges like old denim, worn from being bitten back too many times.“I thought the songs would do it for me. That they’d be enough. That maybe if I screamed it into a chorus, someone would understand what I meant.”

She paused, eyes flicking out over the sea of lights, breath catching like the words were scraping their way up her throat.

“But—fuck it. If I never get to say this again, I need to say it now.”

Her fingers tightened around the neck of the guitar like she was anchoring herself, grounding against the tremble in her chest. Her shoulders lifted, then sank.

“This was the first song I wrote after everything. And I wasn’t even gonna play it tonight. I was scared it would ruin me.”

She swallowed. Blinked hard. Her voice dropped to something raw, unvarnished.

“But not playing it… felt like lying.”

A hush swept over the stadium like fog. Even the air seemed to stop moving.

“I wrote it for someone who saved my life. Not by pulling me out of a fire. Not with some grand gesture. Just… by being herself. By existing. By letting me love her.”

She blinked hard. Her gaze didn’t leave the camera.

“I don’t know if she’s watching. I don’t know if she hates me. I don’t know if she ever wants to see my face again. But if she is… if you are out there, I need you to hear this.”

She leaned forward, the mic catching every breath, every break. 

“I will love you until the day I die. Always.” 

Her voice trembled on the last word.

“In every lifetime. In every version of me. In every fucking universe where I come back right or I don’t fall apart or I don’t ruin it. I have never stopped—not for one goddamn second.”

The crowd didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“I don’t need you to forgive me. I don’t need you to call. I don’t even need you to come back. I just needed you to know it.”

Her lips parted, trembling.

“I hope you’re happy. I really, really do. Even if it’s not with me. I hope they treat you the way you always deserved. I hope they see you the way I did.”

She drew in one last breath, as if steadying the part of herself she’d just cracked wide open.

“And I’m proud of you. For surviving. For growing. For still being here. Even if I was never meant to stay… you were always meant to be loved right.”

She then adjusted the mic, fingers trembling slightly as they brushed the stand. She strummed once—gentle, unsure. Then again. 

And she began to sing.

No introduction. No theatrics.

Just her voice, bare and hoarse and open, stripped down. It stretched out across the cavernous hush of the stadium and threaded itself through satellites and static and signals, leaking into living rooms and bedrooms and car radios and headphones like smoke under a door. Her voice crawled into the cracks of the world. It didn’t ask for permission. It just filled the silence, turned it into something alive.

You didn’t cry at first. You couldn’t. Your body didn’t know how to respond to all of it.

You sat motionless, bones locked, eyes burning. Her face took up the screen and everything ceased to exist. The city below you vanished. The walls melted. The clock stopped.

All that remained was that voice—fractured but somehow steady—and the impossible way it made you feel like she was in the room.

Her eyes didn’t flicker from the camera, and for a moment you weren’t watching a broadcast. You were reliving it—every version of her you ever loved staring back at you, woven into this one moment.

And something inside you cracked. Just a hairline fracture, somewhere deep in your chest. But it spread—slow and certain, like it had been waiting for this exact moment to give way.

Then the tears came. Hot, blurred, relentless. You didn’t even feel them at first. Only realized when her face on the screen shimmered at the edges and dissolved into color and light.

You found yourself crawling closer to the TV, like a child chasing a ghost. Your hands touched the glass when her face appeared again, fingertips pressed to the image like they could somehow reach her. As if maybe—just maybe—she’d feel it. As if you could hold her the way you once did.

And the song wasn’t a performance. It was an undoing. Her voice stumbled, broke open mid-line, trembled in places where it roared minutes before. But she kept going. You could hear the exact breath where she almost couldn’t. You could feel how much it cost her. How much she meant it. Every note sounded torn from scar tissue and sewn together with your name.

You could hear the devotion behind it. The guilt. The grief. The quiet, impossible hope.

She wasn’t asking for forgiveness. She wasn’t trying to rewrite the past.

She was offering you what remained.

And you let it wash over you. Let it dig its hands into the wreckage of your heart and do what only she could ever do—make something beautiful out of it.

Because this—this was what it looked like to crawl back from the grave of who you used to be and still reach for the same hand.

One tear slid down her cheek during the final chorus. She didn’t wipe it away. Didn’t flinch. Just let it fall.

She didn’t know where you were, or who you were with. But she sang to you anyway, and her voice was still yours. Still filled with the shape of you, the shape of what she lost. Still aching with all the things she never got to say.

She sang like she could tear the world apart just to rebuild it in the shape of your silhouette. 

And you just watched the woman who once destroyed you sing herself back into your hands.

When the lights dimmed for the last time, there were no pyrotechnics. No encore. No choreographed goodbye.

Only Ellie. Alone at the center of the world. Her chest still rising like she hadn’t come down yet. Her guitar silent. Her body shaking. Her voice lingering in the air like it didn’t want to leave. Her hands hung loose at her sides, like she had given everything. 

Because she had.

The crowd—one hundred thousand strong—stood frozen. Reverence had swallowed them whole. They had just watched someone confess in a language more powerful than apology.

Ellie stepped forward.

Her face was flushed. Her lips parted. Her eyes glassy. Her voice was rough now, worn down from thirty songs delivered like confessions, like penance, like a prayer with no promise of an answer. She leaned into the mic.

And when she spoke, she didn’t pretend. She didn’t perform. She just told the truth.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

The words landed with a hush, like snowfall.

“Three years ago, I walked off a stage and I didn’t know if I’d ever walk back onto one. I didn’t know if I’d ever sing again. Or write again. Or even want to.”

She paused. The crowd didn’t make a sound.

“I disappeared because I hit the lowest point in my life. I became someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I didn’t want to be. And instead of asking for help, I—”

She inhaled, steadying herself.

“I numbed it. I ran. I used.”

The silence deepened. All those years of rumors, headlines, speculation. And she was saying it now, for the first time. Out loud. Unafraid.

“I was an addict.”

Gasps, yes. Tears, yes. But not judgment. 

“And I’m not saying that because I want sympathy, or because my PR team finally let me say it. I’m saying it because I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to be ashamed of something I survived.”

Her voice cracked beautifully.

“I’m not proud of my past. But I’m proud of what I made out of it. I’m proud that I made it here. That I’m clean and still here.”

The stadium roared, not in chaos, but in agreement. Applause like thunder, cheers like an exhale the world had been holding for three years.

“And I don’t give a fuck what the media says about it. I don’t care what the headlines are tomorrow, if they call me ‘broken’ or ‘damaged’ or ‘a scandal.’ I’m alive. And that’s enough.”

She gripped the mic stand—not to steady herself, but to ground the moment. 

“And if you’re listening to me right now—” she began, her voice quiet but unshaking, “—if you’re where I was… if you feel like you’re drowning, if your hands are shaking, if you’ve convinced yourself it’s too late—it’s not.”

She scanned the crowd. She wasn’t looking for applause. She was looking for the people who needed to hear it.

“I swear to you, it’s never too late. I thought I was beyond saving. And then someone made a call. And I lived.” Her voice caught. She closed her eyes, breathed through it. “If I made it out, so can you. And I will keep saying that until my voice gives out.”

The stadium had gone quiet again. Every word she said felt like it mattered more than anything they’d heard in years.

“Every single cent from this concert is going to addiction centers across the country. Because people saved me. And now, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life trying to return that favor.”

She paused. Swallowed hard. Her lips curled, just faintly, into something like awe.

“Thank you, Michigan. I will never forget this.”

And then—without spectacle, without sound to carry her away—Ellie stepped back from the mic.

The silence that followed held its breath. It was the kind of silence that happens after birth, after death, after the truth has been spoken out loud for the first time. No one cheered. No one screamed. It was reverent.. A hush draped over one hundred thousand hearts, like the world itself needed a moment to process what had just passed through it.

Joel Miller came back.

The Fireflies came back.

Ellie came back.

She had cracked her chest open and stitched a cathedral out of light and sound. She had unburied herself with her voice and her guitar—splintered, guttural, alive, carrying the weight of every unsaid thing.

It became the kind of night people would name their children after. The kind of night that would live forever in documentaries and tattoos and the back corners of minds that knew they had witnessed something unrepeatable.

The night the girl the world thought it had lost opened her mouth and dragged the sky back into color, like she’d never stopped painting it with her music.

And the second she stepped out of the spotlight, Rolling Stone pressed send on a headline. No debate. No discussion. The entire world already knew in their bones.

The Queen of Rock Has Risen.

Backstage, the light was dimmer, but somehow still glowing. The kind of golden warmth that comes after miracles.

The noise of the crowd—the screaming, the applause, the frenzy—felt a thousand miles away. Her legs were trembling beneath her, but she walked anyway. She didn’t feel triumphant.

She felt hollowed and filled all at once.

Jesse was already there.

He instantly pulled her into a hug like gravity had brought him forward and his body didn’t know how to do anything else. His arms were tight around her, his chin pressed into her shoulder, and it took half a breath before she melted into it—arms around his ribs, forehead buried in his neck, shaking.

“I missed you, bro,” he murmured.

“I missed you too,” she croaked, already crying.

Dina crashed into them next, wrapping around both of them with that reckless kind of love only she knew how to give. She was sobbing and laughing at the same time, kissing Ellie’s temple, whispering, “We came back. You came back.”

Joel stood off to the side for a moment, letting them have it. Watching them like he’d never seen anything so beautiful. Then he walked forward, slow and steady, and wrapped his arms around all three of them like he was pulling the broken pieces of the universe into one.

It was the kind of hug people spend lifetimes waiting for.

They cried, all four of them. Jesse muttering, “You’re a legend, you hear me?” Dina swearing through tears, “You just rewrote history, oh my fucking god Ellie—” Joel whispering, “You did good, kiddo. You did so good.”

It wasn’t just an embrace. It was a reckoning. A forgiveness. A coming home.

Eventually, Dina pulled back first. She wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her black jacket and looked at Ellie with a spark in her eye. “Okay. Everyone’s waiting. The press is foaming at the mouth.”

Jesse nodded, still grinning. “A thousand celebrities are waiting just to breathe the same air as you. You should probably change your shirt.”

Ellie let out a laugh that felt like it had taken three years to reach the surface.

“I’ll be out in a second,” she said softly.

Dina paused, searched her face, then nodded. “We’ll be at the end of the hallway. Take your time.”

And they left.

The crew, the band, the stagehands, the roar of one hundred thousand people still vibrating through the concrete—it all drifted away, like the echo of a dream.

Leaving just her.

Joel.

And the silence behind the storm.

Ellie sat down slowly, her movements heavy with the weight of what she’d just done. The Les Paul still hung across her like a cross she hadn’t yet set down. Her fingers trembled in her lap, twitching with phantom chords. The adrenaline was still thick in her bloodstream, but the ache in her chest was different. Older. Deeper. Familiar.

Joel leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. He watched her for a long moment—not as a legend, not as a miracle, but as his kid.

And then, gently—so gently it almost broke her—he spoke.

“You still something feel like something's missin'."

It wasn’t a question.

It was the truth. A soft, unshakable bell rung into the space between them.

Ellie didn’t answer.

What could she say? That she had screamed her love into thirty songs and one stadium and still felt it tearing through her ribcage like wildfire? That every note had been a plea she couldn’t say aloud? That the only moment she almost lost her footing was the one where she swore she could feel you watching, even from halfway across the world?

Didn’t have to.

Joel moved towards her and sat down—carefully, like a man approaching a wild animal he knew well enough to fear. 

Ellie stared at her hands. The calluses on her fingertips. The faint tremor that hadn’t stopped. Her jaw flexed. She blinked hard.

“I thought maybe the music and saying those things out loud would be enough.”

Joel tilted his head, eyes never leaving her. “Was it?”

“No,” she said. Voice cracking. “Not even close.”

He looked at her for a long, quiet moment.

“Then why didn’t you reach for her?”

Ellie’s jaw tightened. Her voice, when it came, was so small it barely sounded like her.

“She’s with someone else, Dad. I already said it. She moved on.”

Joel’s eyes didn’t move.

“She deserves to live her life.” she whispered, throat thick. “ I already took too much of it. I already hurt her enough. I don’t get to ask for anything more.”

Joel exhaled through his nose.

His voice came slower than usual—like he was peeling something loose from a part of himself that had long been sealed shut.

“You know…” he began, quiet. Measured. “I never told you this. Not until I knew you were truly ready to hear it.”

Ellie didn’t move, but her eyes, dulled and distant from everything she’d left on that stage, flicked up just enough to meet his.

“That night,” he said. “When I found you—”

His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and kept going.

“When I said someone called me… that someone begged me to come. Said they didn’t know where you were, only that you were close to the edge…”

His gaze finally lifted, locked onto hers. Nothing in it but the weight of truth. No buffer. No armor.

“It was her.”

Ellie didn’t react. Not at first. But she could feel the shift in her body, her breath leaving like a bullet had torn through it.

“She called me,” Joel continued. “Sobbing. Could barely get the words out. She told me everything that happened between you. Said she’d tried everything. Said she couldn’t reach you, couldn’t save you… and if she didn’t tell someone who could, she’d never forgive herself.”

Ellie’s breath left her body like it had been shot out of her. Her shoulders caved inward, like a second wave had hit—and this time she hadn’t braced.

“She didn’t just save you once,” Joel said, voice shaking. “She saved you twice. She called me, and you’re alive because of it.”

Ellie’s lips parted. But nothing came out. Her face contorted—silent, cracking open. One tear fell. Then another. Her hands, limp in her lap, trembled as she tried to hold herself still.

“That girl…” Joel said, softer now. So soft, like the words were breakable. “That girl still loves you, Ellie.”

He swallowed hard.

“I don’t care where she is, or how much time has passed, or who the hell she’s with. It’s written all over her. And it’s written all over you.”

He reached for her hand. Held it. Gentle, but firm.

“That kind of love,” he said, “isn’t normal. It’s bone-deep. You two—whether you’re together or not, whether the world likes it or not—you’re soulmates, Ellie. And I know that word gets thrown around, but I mean it. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.”

Ellie shook her head, barely, but he tightened his grip—not to argue, but to anchor.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I’m not telling you to beg, or fall at her feet or throw yourself into some story that already broke you. I’m just telling you this—”

“You owe it to both of you to reach out. To find out if there's still something waiting on the other side of all that silence.”

Ellie sat in it. The weight. The unbearable truth of it all.

Then—barely audible, like a child trying not to cry—she said:

“…What if she doesn’t want to hear from me?”

Joel smiled.

Not wide. Not triumphant. That other kind of smile. The sad, knowing kind.

“Then at least you’ll know,” he said gently. “At least you’ll know you tried. And that’s more than most people ever get to say.”

He brushed his thumb once across the back of her hand.

“You already came back from the dead tonight, kiddo. You stood in front of the whole world and told the truth. That was the hard part. One more step?”

His eyes softened.

“It won’t kill you.”

Ellie let out a sound—a half-laugh, half-sob, ragged and real. Her hand went to her face, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm.

She looked down. Then back at him.

And nodded.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Okay.”

And in that small, broken, brave words—fate shifted.

Joel stood, squeezing her shoulder. 

Ellie didn’t wait another second.

The minute he left the room, her body moved before her brain could catch up, before fear could creep in, before she could second guess the string that had already gripped her by the throat and yanked. She didn’t speak. Didn’t think. Didn’t let herself feel anything but urgency—pure, breathless, blood-hot urgency.

She stripped the sweat-drenched black tank from her chest with shaking hands, heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. Reached for the nearest thing that felt like armor and found it—a grey hoodie at the back of a chair, long abandoned, still smelling faintly of woodsmoke and rosemary and something safe.

Her fingers trembled as she zipped it up all the way to her collarbone. She didn’t tie her boots. Her legs were already moving before the zipper clicked shut.

She skipped the afterparty. Skipped the press. Skipped the team waiting backstage with champagne and glittering tears and a thousand wide-eyed congratulations and documentary cameras itching to catch her.

She had somewhere else to be.

No one could stop her, and no one tried. There was something in her face—hollowed out and bright, wild-eyed and burning—that told them all: this wasn’t about them.

She passed Joel in the hallway. He was waiting there, leaned against the wall like he’d known she’d come flying past. He didn’t ask where she was going. Didn’t need to. Their eyes met for a second, and the entire weight of everything passed between them.

He nodded once. Slow. Certain.

“Go get your girl.”

Out of the venue. Into the car. The night air hit her like a second wind—cold against her skin, slicing straight into her lungs. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely book the flight on her phone, her thumb smashing the screen like she could break through it.

Private. Direct. L.A.

At the airport, people recognized her. Of course they did. It was her night. The world was still reeling from her resurrection. Her name was everywhere, her voice still echoing off satellite feeds and breathless news anchors trying to define the undefinable.

But she wasn’t theirs. Not anymore.

She walked through security like a ghost. Like a girl in a dream she refused to wake up from. The guards didn’t stop her. Didn’t dare.

She boarded the jet like it might fall out of the sky but she didn’t care. Sat by the window with her hoodie pulled tight over her hair, hands clenched in her lap like if she let go of herself, she’d come undone.

She didn’t know what she was going to say. Didn’t know what you’d say. Didn’t know what she’d find.

She didn’t need a map. Or a message. Or a pin drop on a location app. She didn’t need confirmation. Didn’t need a green dot under your name or a picture posted or a text from someone who might’ve known.

She felt it.

The way she had always felt you—quietly, fiercely, impossibly—like gravity. Like a thread humming between her ribs, always pulling taut when you got too far away. The same strange, unshakable force that had made you crash into each other in the first place.

Ellie could feel you in her teeth.

She couldn’t explain it. There was no logic to it. She didn’t believe in fate. But something ancient inside her did. Some part of her that had been waiting since the beginning. Since that night that was supposed to mean nothing and ended up meaning everything.

She didn’t know what time it was. Didn’t know what you were doing. If you were asleep. Awake. Alone.

She just knew—

It was pulling her for a reason.

And across the country, you were mid-breath. Mid-cry. Somewhere between shaking and unraveling, curled in on yourself in the corner of your living room, your face wet from the tidal wreckage Ellie had sent crashing through your chest. Her voice had faded, but the echo hadn’t. You were still hearing her in your bloodstream.

Then—something hit you.

Not thought. Not reason. Not logic.

A pull.

You sat up so fast your neck cracked. The air in the room shifted. It felt like pressure building in your ears before a storm. You couldn’t explain it, couldn’t name it, couldn’t pin it to anything real. But it gripped you by the spine and yanked.

And without thinking—without blinking—you opened your laptop.

Your fingers moved faster than your mind.

Private. Direct. Michigan.

No planning. No second-guessing. You didn’t care if it was reckless. You didn’t care what time it was. You just booked it.

You were already moving. Already on your feet. Already grabbing the suitcase from the back of your closet, tossing in the essentials—half-folded, half-thrown, hands trembling with sudden and strong urgency. You didn’t care what you wore. You didn’t care what would happen. All you knew was that you had to see her.

Not through a screen. Not from the crowd of a hundred thousand people. Not in a song.

You needed her.

You couldn’t take it anymore. The waiting. The wandering. The silence. The unbearable thought that she still believed you were with someone else. That she thought you’d moved on. That she thought you didn’t love her anymore.

You couldn’t let her keep believing that.

Not when every cell in your body had been screaming her name for years.

You paced your apartment barefoot, floor cool beneath your soles, heartbeat louder than your footsteps. The windows glowed with the soft pulse of the L.A. skyline—silent, unmoving, unaware. But something in the air had shifted. It felt charged. Unnatural.

Your chest buzzed with electricity. With instinct. With truth.

You didn’t know what would happen when you saw her. 

You only knew that you would step off that plane because the earth owed you something holy. The universe owed you an answer. The girl who used to kiss your shoulder while the sun rose still lived somewhere in the body of the woman who’d just sung her soul back to you.

You would find her.

And you would tell her everything.

That you never stopped loving her. That you tried to. That you wanted to. That you failed, gloriously and repeatedly. That loving her was the most alive you had ever felt. That breathing without her had felt like holding your head underwater. That even when you were in other arms, your heart was still bleeding in her hands.

And above you—somewhere between coasts, between midnight and morning—Ellie Williams was flying through the sky in the opposite direction.

Back to the city she swore she’d never return to. Back to the girl she hadn’t dared to call. With hope clutched in her fists and need bleeding like a pulse in her chest.

The city was still wrapped in silence, the kind that only lives between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.—when night hasn’t fully gone and morning hasn’t fully arrived. The streets were washed in blue light. The horizon glowed like a secret waiting to be revealed.

She stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the building like it had been waiting for her.

Same glass. Same frame. Same quiet ache sitting behind every window like the memory of you.

She hadn’t slept. Her eyes burned. Her limbs ached. But none of it mattered.

There was something—something—that had pulled her across the country like a thread made of gravity and hope. A blind, relentless force that told her she had to be here, and she had to be here now.

She walked toward the door like she was stepping into the ocean.

And somehow—after all these years, after everything she’d done to forget—her hands remembered everything.

The code to your private elevator. Four digits. Punched in without hesitation. Muscle memory forged in a different lifetime. The screen blinked green, and the hum of the mechanism stirred like an old song. The doors slid closed behind her, and suddenly she was rising—slow, steady, silent.

Each floor ticked by like a pulse.

20.

21.

22.

She didn’t breathe the entire way up.

Her heart had been loud for hours, but now, in the stillness of the ascent, it quieted. Like it, too, was waiting. Like it knew the next breath might change everything.

Outside, your SUV was already idling on the curb.

Inside your penthouse, your suitcase sat zipped by the door. Passport tucked into the side pocket. Phone in your hand. Charger in your bag. You were dressed. Ready. 

Ellie found herself standing in front of your door like she had been summoned by the ache in your chest.

She hadn’t knocked yet.

Her fingers were frozen mid-air, inches from the surface. Her eyes traced the curve of the wood. The faint scuff mark near the bottom corner—she put it there once, with the toe of her boot accidentally.

She stared at it like it might open up and swallow her whole.

Her other hand was clenched at her side, white-knuckled. She’d spent the entire flight and ride up rehearsing what she’d say, but now couldn't remember a single thing.

You reached for the handle, breath shallow, some mix of fear and instinct surging through your veins like storm water. You didn’t know what you were expecting—maybe a delayed flight, maybe a burst of courage, maybe nothing.

And then—

You opened it.

Just as her hand was about to knock.

There you were.

And there she was.

Ellie's hair was still knotted in a messy bun, cheeks flushed from wind and disbelief, breath hitching in her chest like she hadn’t stopped running since the stage lights dimmed. The hoodie you once stole—faded gray, fraying at the cuffs—hung from her shoulders like a flag she didn’t know she’d still carry. Her sleeves were shoved up to her palms, hands trembling faintly. 

She looked different and exactly the same—like time had passed through her, not around her. Her jaw had sharpened, her shoulders squared, but her eyes—those wild, unholy green eyes—still held the same storm that ruined you the first time. Beautiful in a way that knocked the breath out of your chest. 

And you—

Suitcase behind you, coat halfway off your shoulder, lips parted in a breathless, disbelieving oh—stood like the earth had just cracked open and revealed something holy inside it. There was more grace in your shoulders now. More armor in your spine. You looked stronger. Beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. 

Your hands still shook from the moment you decided you couldn’t live one more second without seeing her again. You were halfway out the door to chase her across the country—and there she was.

Like fate had been watching both of you run in opposite directions and decided it was finally enough. 

And suddenly, the entire world narrowed to the space between your bodies.

Her hand was still hovering in the air, just inches from the door. 

Your fingers were still on the handle, knuckles white.

In one impossible second, everything aligned.

One divine collision.

The only sound was the pounding of your hearts—wild, breathless, almost violent. As if they might tear out of your chests, racing to reunite before your bodies had the stepped closer.

You opened your mouths, as if words might tumble out, but none came.

Just breath. Just silence. Just awe.

Just you standing in front of her. Just her standing in front of you.

Because what started in that club—that single, electric night, a hookup meant to burn fast and disappear—became the axis your whole world tilted on. It should’ve ended there, a forgettable blur of sweat and strobe lights. But it didn’t. It spiraled. It bloomed into something reckless and unplanned. A fake relationship born of convenience, publicity, and chaos.

And what started as a lie—a shared performance for the cameras, for your teams, for the world—became a love so blistering, so consuming, it remade both of you. A love neither of you could name without trembling. A love that burned in silence. That bruised in secret. That shattered you from the inside out and still, remained the purest thing you had ever felt.

And now here you were.

Three years of silence. Three years of wreckage. Three years of bleeding into microphones, of screaming each other’s names into the void and pretending not to hear the echo. Of becoming ghosts in each other’s lives, but never quite exorcising the love. Of dreams that ended in a jolt, in a sob, in a name bitten back before waking. Of lyrics more honest than phone calls, more vulnerable than voicemails. Of entire confessions wrapped in agony and mailed to the stars because it was the only place that felt far enough, safe enough, to hold them.

You both had your own catastrophes—different storms, same devastation. You broke in private, rebuilt in silence. You clawed your way out of grief with nothing but your fingernails and rage. You both carried the weight of what you lost like it was sacred.

And somehow, you both healed. Slowly. Ugly. Miraculously. Not perfectly. Never perfectly. But enough to stand again.

You both died and were born again—more than once. You had grown out of your fears.

You walked through fire barefoot, bleeding and blistered, and survived.

And now you were standing at the doorway of a home you thought you’d never return to.

Each other.

You looked at her and saw every version of her at once.

The girl who loved you like it was the last thing she would ever do. The one who broke your heart. The one who tried to die. The one who didn’t.

She looked at you and saw every version of you at once.

The girl who held her in that green room like her hands could stop time. The one who screamed at her in songs that set the world on fire. The one who still waited—through heartbreak, through silence, through everything.

You had found yourselves—even if you had to lose each other to do it.

And the only thing that hadn’t changed, the one thing that never even flinched—

Was the love.

And now, it stepped into the hallway between you and wrapped its arms around your chests, breathed back into your lungs, and said: “You found each other again.”

You stepped forward.

And she did too.

At the exact same moment.

Like you’d rehearsed it in a dream.

And your bodies collided with a gentleness so raw, so wide open, it knocked the breath out of you.

Her arms went around your waist, yours around her neck, and it wasn’t a hug—it was a memory. A heartbeat. A return.

You buried your face into the crook of her shoulder, nose brushing the fabric—faint lavender and something uniquely Ellie: warmth, sweat, a hint of old smoke, guitar strings, rain. She smelled the same. She smelled like you remembered. She smelled like love. Her face pressed against your neck, breath shaky, lashes damp against your skin. You felt her exhale and it sounded like something sacred breaking.

And then—

A sound she thought was lost forever, echoing now like a miracle she didn’t dare hope for.

Ellie giggled.

Just a little. Disbelieving. Like she was overwhelmed, like her body didn’t know if it should cry or laugh or both. It made your eyes sting harder.

You made a choked little noise in return, part sob, part joy, part something you didn’t know how to name. Your fingers dug into the back of her hoodie like if you didn’t hold tight enough, she might vanish again.

She squeezed you back just as fiercely. Her hands fisting into the back of your coat. Her whole body was shaking. You felt it in your ribs. Her grief. Her awe. Her relief.

There were no words. There didn’t need to be.

Only the echo of your breathing. The trembling of your hands.

You only melted into each other like this was the only place you’d ever belonged.

In that hallway, as the sun bled over the skyline and the city below began to wake, you held each other for so long, time dissolved.

You weren’t in the doorway. You weren’t in the penthouse. You weren’t in LA or Michigan or Earth at all.

You were somewhere else entirely, suspended in a place made of heartbeats and fingertips, breaths and silence, forgiveness and love. You held each other like gravity had reversed, like if you let go, the sky itself might fall apart.

After what felt like hours and seconds at the same time, Ellie pulled back just enough to look at you, her hands rose to cup your face, thumbs softly tracing your cheekbones as if she was trying to relearn a face she had seen a thousand times in her dreams. Her eyes were red-rimmed, shining like the first break of dawn, fierce and gentle all at once.

The sun had risen, painting gold and rose across her face, illuminating every freckle, every scar, every tear-stained line.

“I came here for you,”

She whispered, her voice shaking.

“I—I couldn’t celebrate, I couldn’t wait another minute, another second. I couldn’t breathe until I found you.”

Your breath caught, tangled itself in your chest as you smiled softly, almost disbelieving.

“Ellie, I was about to leave for the airport. I had a flight booked to Michigan,”

You whispered, your forehead tipping forward to rest against hers. 

“I couldn’t wait either. I was going to find you, no matter what it took.”

She laughed softly, a beautiful, broken sound. Her eyes widened a fraction in disbelief, her thumbs tracing your face, afraid to stop touching you.

“Of course you were,” she breathed, shaking her head. “Of course you fucking were.”

She swallowed hard, blinking fast, and you saw a shadow cross her face.

She took a breath, then softly—painfully—began, 

“I—I know you’re with someone else—”

But before she could finish, you brought your hands to her face, gently cupping her cheeks and tilting her gaze back up to you.

Your voice was clear, sure, gentle, as you interrupted:

“Not anymore.”

Her breath caught sharply, lips parting in surprise.

You stepped even closer, chest to chest, heart to heart, and let your thumbs stroke softly along the edge of her jaw. 

“Ellie, it’s a long story, but… the short version is—I never loved anyone or anything that wasn’t you. Not once. Not even for a second.”

She stilled, breath hitching audibly. Her eyes widened slightly, disbelief and relief flooding her gaze like light chasing out darkness. “You—”

“I never stopped loving you. I couldn’t.” you said fiercely, your voice shaking now, your throat raw with emotion, your hearts laid bare between you. 

“You were always there. Every song. Every breath. Every heartbeat. It’s always been you, and only you.”

Ellie’s expression shattered beautifully. 

Her chest rose and fell quickly, her hands trembling slightly as they cradled your face, her gaze melting deeper into yours. Tears spilled freely down her face as she pressed her forehead to yours, holding you desperately close. 

“You're the reason I’m breathing right now.” she whispered, voice breaking. 

“The reason I woke up, the reason I tried again. You’re my everything—everything good about me is because of you. I never stopped loving you, I never even tried to stop.”

You smiled softly, your tears mixing with hers, your breaths warm and shared in the narrow space between your mouths. 

“Ellie, I know,” you said gently, so sure, so steady it almost broke you both.

“I promised you always, and I kept it. I held onto that promise every second we were apart. Even when it hurt like hell. Even when I thought you were gone forever. I still loved you—always.”

She nodded softly, pressing her forehead deeper against yours, her voice dropping to a whisper, a confession, a prayer. “When I promised you always, I meant it. I always did. And I still do.”

You drew back, just enough to look clearly into her eyes. Just enough to see the girl you met in a dim-lit club, who wore a cocky smile and bruises like badges, who took your heart away and never gave it back.

Just enough to see the woman who survived it all—who fought addiction, fame, silence, grief, and still came back to you.

The woman you never stopped loving.

“Then kiss me.” 

You whispered, your voice so quiet, so vulnerable, that it was almost lost in the air between you.

And then, with all the gentle bravery of someone stepping into daylight after a lifetime of darkness, she leaned in. Impossibly gently, she closed the distance like it was holy ground.

Your eyes fluttered shut, your lips parted softly in anticipation, your heart pounding wildly in your chest.

And then—finally—

Your lips met hers.

And it wasn’t just a kiss.

It was fate and destiny and that invisible thread everyone spoke of, wrapping tightly around your souls, binding you back together. 

Her mouth tasted like tears and truth and the same undeniable hunger that had brought you together that first night. Your fingers tangled in her hair, pulled her closer, needing more. Her hands went south and tightened around your waist, gripping you like you were the only thing left holding her to the earth.

It was desperate, yet gentle.

Furious, yet forgiving.

You kissed like you were breathing each other’s air. Like you were finally letting yourselves live again.

Ellie’s hands held you tightly, securely. It was a reunion of your broken pieces, a reclaiming of everything you lost, a quiet vow that said: never again.

Because what had always held you both together wasn’t fate, or luck, or even destiny.

It was simply love—wild, endless, patient, fierce love. The kind that rewrote stars and healed wounds and bridged chasms so wide the world had called them impossible.

A love that refused to let go, that waited patiently.

And as you finally broke apart, just enough to rest your foreheads together, chests rising and falling in rhythm, Ellie whispered softly, voice thick with love and relief and awe and a small and sweet smile curling the edges of her mouth.

“I’m never letting go again,” 

You smiled softly, pecking her lips and holding her even tighter, knowing you were exactly where you belonged, exactly where you'd always meant to be.

“Good,” you whispered back. “Because I wasn’t planning on letting you.”

The world outside your door began to wake fully now, sunrise bleeding through the window, bathing both of you in gold.

Unaware it had just witnessed a miracle—two souls, once lost, finally finding their way back home.

And there, in the doorway, you kissed her again.

The end and the beginning. The hush after the storm’s last scream. The first note after a symphony of silence.

A moment that bent time—where everything broken came back to life.

The impossible reunion of two hearts that never truly said goodbye—only paused, mid-sentence, until the universe was ready to let them finish the song.

Time, once the cruel god of your story, has softened. 

It no longer roars through your chapters like a thief, no longer dares to take. It lingers now, lacing your hours with light. It lives in the steam curling from mugs at sunrise, in the shadow of windchimes flickering across your porch, in the breath that passes between when neither of you are saying a word, but everything is understood.

It moves slow now. Gentle. Forgiving.

There are still stages, but now balanced with the lull of domestic quiet. 

Ellie still sings. Still performs. Still fills stadiums like they were built just for her. But not to prove anything Not for the charts, not for the noise, not because the world is watching. She does it because the stage is the only place where her soul stretches out its arms and exhales. Where the fire inside her flickers steady, not wild. Where she can be everything at once—loud and soft, broken and healed, gone and home.

And you still fill stadiums too. Still write songs that echo down city blocks and through the hearts of strangers. Still pile up golden awards. But it’s different now. Less frantic. Less like bleeding. More like breathing. More like living with the wound instead of trying to cauterize it.

What once felt like survival now feels like grace.

But now, both of your music live in quieter places too. In the kitchen, where her low, rasping hum drifts through morning light as she makes you coffee, barefoot and half-asleep. In the bathtub, where your voice softens, half-lost beneath the rhythm of water, singing just for her.

Somewhere along the road, after the world gave you every crown and award, after your names were stitched into history with gold thread, you realized the only place you ever wanted to be legendary was in each other’s eyes.

And you are. 

Even when your bodies ache and your hair has changed and your voices go softer by evening. You look at each other and see the full truth. Every version. Every bruise, every resurrection. You both see a girl who wrote an album to survive. The one who stood in front of thousands and broke herself open just to be seen. Who wouldn’t let go. Who stayed. Who held grief in one hand and love in the other and refused to put either down. You both see all of it. You always have.

You don’t talk much about those years anymore. The dark ones. The bloody ones. The ones where you vanished from earth and from each other in different directions and came back new. 

But sometimes, when the night is quiet and the dishes are put away and the cat has found its usual place curled at the end of the bed—you sit with your backs against the headboard, and you remember. You talk about the club. The pretending. The songs. The silence. And you press your hands together, and you say thank you. Not to each other.

But to whatever thread in the universe refused to snap.

And you both remember the day you stood—beneath a sky that felt too small to hold the weight of what you were about to vow—and promised. Not perfection. But to choose each other. Loudly. Publicly. Eternally. Again. Again. And again.

The event of the decade. Cameras lined the coast, desperate for a glimpse. Celebrities and icons flew in from every corner of the world, but none of them mattered. You wore white. She wore black. She cried the second she saw you—before you’d even made it to the altar. You kissed her before the officiant could finish the words. And when the crowd threw roses into the air like prayers, Ellie looked at you like she always had.

Like you were the only person the universe had ever made. Like all the noise, all the years, all the fire had only ever been a road back to you.

Dina, Jesse, and Rachel wept like widows—shoulders shaking, faces buried in trembling hands. Even Joel couldn’t hold it in. Especially Joel. He cried the hardest, in a way only fathers understand.

And now, years later, you still look down at your hand all the time—at the ring that catches the light like it was carved from stardust itself. A massive diamond nestled in platinum like it belongs in a museum, but the band worn smooth from years of sleeping with her hand curled in yours. 

And then, there’s Melody.

Born in the late hours of a stormless night, in that suspended breath between yesterday and tomorrow, she arrived—howling and perfect and wrapped in light. And Ellie was there, holding your hand—the one she’d slipped the ring onto beneath a sky full of stars, the same hand she hadn’t let go of once that night. Her fingers trembled. Her cheeks were damp with awe. And when the doctor whispered she’s here, Ellie looked at you like the world had cracked wide open all over again—only this time, it wasn’t just you standing in the light. It was you. And her. And the little life you wished for together.

A new beginning, wrapped in warmth and wonder, weeping softly between you.

Her name chosen into the hush like it had always been waiting—on your tongue, in her bones. She came into the world with a freckled face and eyes the same shade of green that made you write entire albums, that made you bleed onstage, that made you believe in fate. Her hair was yours—soft, wild, unbrushable—and when she sings, which she does constantly, you swear it’s your own voice coming back to you, bright and velvety like she’s sharing a secret in the most intimate way.

She doesn’t walk. She bursts. She doesn’t ask. She declares. She runs through the house like it belongs to her—because it does. She fills every room before her feet even cross the threshold. Her laugh shakes the walls. Her tantrums are operatic. She stomps when she wants something, yells for both of you like the universe itself should answer. She has Ellie’s recklessness, your fire, and the defiant tilt of a girl born of storm and song. She performs in the living room with a wooden spoon as a guitar and insists on an encore every night before bed.

The little princess of the queen of rock and the queen of pop came into the world like she already knew who she was: the daughter of two legends. Born not just into a family, but into music royalty. Into myth. And not in the headline sense—not in the Rolling Stone profiles or the Grammy speeches—but in the real way. In the spilled coffee on sheet music. In the quiet harmonies hummed over pancakes. In the fierce, unwavering love that has become the pulse of her home.

Born of the greatest love story the industry ever knew. One written not just in verses and hooks, but in survival. In forgiveness. In the choosing—over and over—of each other. Her mothers burned the world down and built it back again just for each other. They laid the foundation in heartache and climbed out of the rubble hand in hand. 

Now she runs barefoot through hallways lined with platinum records and crayon drawings, her voice echoing between trophies and guitars, her tiny shoes lost somewhere under the couch where your first demo still sleeps. She sings lyrics that were written years before she was even imagined. She wears your old Supernova tour shirts like royal capes. She calls Ellie Mama and you Mommy, and her favorite place is between the two of you—wrapped in the kind of adoration most people spend their lives dreaming about, a love she’ll never have to search for.

Because she was born into music. Into magic. Into something rare and real and unspeakably beautiful. She was born into love that didn't just survive the fire. It composed a symphony from the ashes.

You are not at war anymore.

You have lived. You have stayed. You have kept the promises that mattered. 

And every day since that door opened, since you stood face to face and didn’t have to say a word, you have loved each other without apology or pause.

Because this is what the end of a love story looks like when it refuses to end.

And when you close your eyes and breathe, you feel it everywhere—in the warmth between the sheets, in the quiet laughter down the hall, in the pulse beneath your skin.

This is the life you bled for.

This is what it looks like when people don’t just survive, but bloom.

This is what it means to collide,

and never let go.

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡. 𝟸 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 →

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࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ Goosebumps. Just… goosebumps. I don’t even know what to say.

This story holds a piece of my soul—one I gave willingly, one I’ll never get back. Collide has been more than a fic to me. It’s been a home, a storm, a love letter, a scream into the void. And now it’s done.

And I’m mourning in the corner like the most dramatic widow you’ve ever seen.

Thank you—for reading, for screaming, for holding Ellie and the reader the way I did. Thank you for feeling with me.

They loved each other like the world was ending.

And maybe, somehow, that’s exactly how it had to begin.

THANK YOU, FOREVER.

Three years.

Three years have passed since that night.

Since the door slammed behind her and silence swallowed everything that was still breathing. Since her voice—wrecked, final—spilled those last words you’ve never been able to forget, no matter how many songs you wrote trying to erase them.

But now—

Let’s rewind.

Back to the night you made the call, that night you gave up the last piece of pride you were still clinging to and admitted—out loud, into the quiet hum of your empty kitchen—that you couldn’t save her.

You hadn’t spoken his name aloud before. Not even when she said it in her sleep, not even when you saw it inked on her guitar strap like a wound that never fully healed. 

“She needs help.” 

You said.

And he didn’t speak. The silence on the line stretched long, but not cold. Not angry. He was waiting. Letting you fall apart if you needed to.

So you did.

You told him everything.

Every show she stumbled through high. Every lie she fed you between whispered I love yous and trembling hands. How she started disappearing piece by piece—first emotionally, then physically. How her body got thinner, how her laugh got quieter, how her eyes stopped lighting up when she saw you.

You told him about the greenroom. The fight. The syringe. The way she flinched when you tried to touch her. How she kissed you like it was the last time, but never said it was.

How she left with your heart in her hands and didn’t look back.

You told him about the headlines. About the cancelled shows. About the silence.

You told him how it felt to hold someone in your arms and still not be able to reach them. You told him how much she needed help.

And that she wasn’t going to ask for it. Not from you.

Not from anyone.

By the time you were done, you were on the floor, the phone pressed to your ear with one hand and your other hand covering your mouth to keep the sobs from tearing your throat open.

Joel never interrupted.

He never asked you to calm down. He never once asked why now. He just said, low and steady,

“Send me the address.”

And you did. With shaking fingers and eyes that wouldn’t stop spilling over.

He didn’t ask if she’d let him in. He didn’t ask if she’d scream, or cry, or hate him for coming.

“I’ll be there in the morning. You did the right thing, callin’ me. Thank you so much for that. And… I hope you find happiness. You deserve it.”

And somewhere, hundreds of miles away, Joel Miller boarded a private jet with your heart buckled into the seat beside him—silent, heavy, burning—and flew straight into the wreckage she’d become.

The announcement came three days later.

No press tour. No farewell post with poetic closure or throwback reels. No soft-focus documentary promising they'd “see you again someday.” 

Just a black square. Posted across every official Fireflies platform at the same time. Instagram, Twitter, the website, streaming banners, merch store splash pages.

No comments allowed. No follow-up. No statement from the band.

No explanation.

Just one line, in stark white type, centered on the void:

THE FIREFLIES ARE ON HIATUS. INDEFINITELY.

And it was like the entire world paused in its orbit.

You could feel it across the planet. People didn’t just react—they collapsed. Group chats detonated. Teenagers dropped to the floor in bedrooms lit by laptop screens. Some left school early without explanation. Others drove hours to already-cancelled venues just to stand outside in silence.

The Fireflies weren’t just a band—they were the band. A once-in-a-generation phenomenon. The only group of their era to drag rock music back to the top kicking and screaming, draped in leather and glory.

They weren’t a revival. They were a resurrection.

They were the kind of band who didn’t promote albums—their three albums just arrived, like seasons, like weather, like destiny.

They didn’t follow trends—they set them. Their debut album went platinum in under a month. Their sophomore record broke streaming records before it even hit shelves. They racked up ten Grammys in five years. They headlined Glastonbury and Coachella by the time Ellie turned twenty-two.

Her voice was called the soundtrack of a decade before she turned twenty. Hoarse and raw in all the right ways, but still lyrical, still unmistakably hers. She growled and moaned and whispered and roared. She made every chorus feel like a confession and every verse feel like a wound.

But it wasn’t her voice that made her legendary.

It was the guitar.

She played guitar like it was an extension of her nervous system. She shredded and sobbed through solos that critics compared to Hendrix, Slash, Prince—but darker, sharper, more haunted. She was the one every magazine called the best female guitarist of her generation.

And Rolling Stone didn’t even qualify it—they just called her one of the greatest alive.

Jesse’s drumming was a signature in its own right—unpredictable, primal, full of tempo changes that made even seasoned producers pause mid-track and go holy shit. His beats were sampled by hip-hop legends, stitched into club anthems, spun at raves. The way he played live made people cry. Made people move.

Dina on bass was the heartbeat. Her timing was inhuman. Her tone made amps hum like they were falling in love. And off-stage? She’d wear shredded jeans and a tank top and Vogue would call it a revolution. Her basslines were as elegant as her glare was deadly.

Together, they weren’t a band. They were myth.

So when that black square appeared, when that single sentence ended everything indefinitely, the silence that followed wasn’t confusion.

It was mourning. 

They were never supposed to stop.

And definitely not like this.

No final tour. No goodbye album. No last acoustic performance on late night television with chairs too close and the stage too dim.

Just gone.

The post passed a million likes within minutes. Ten million within the hour. Fifty million by the time the sun rose. News outlets around the globe pulled planned coverage mid-broadcast. Editors in London, New York, Tokyo, São Paulo ripped up the front page and rewrote it from scratch.

“THE FIREFLIES GO DARK.” “GENERATIONAL ICONS DISAPPEAR INTO SILENCE.” “NO COMMENT FROM FRONTWOMAN ELLIE WILLIAMS—WHERE IS SHE?”

“DID ANYONE SEE IT COMING?”

They didn’t stop. Not for days. Not for weeks. Not for months. It became the dominant headline across countries, languages, time zones. Labels issued statements expressing shock. Concert venues issued refunds. Brands paused entire marketing campaigns. Radio stations across the globe held simultaneous tribute blocks.

Millions and millions begged them to explain what happened.

But they didn’t.

So the world did what it always does when starved for truth—

It picked someone to blame.

And it picked you.

Your name was trending before sunset.

“POP PRINCESS OR ROCKSTAR HOMEWRECKER?” “DID LOVE RUIN ROCK’S BIGGEST BAND?” “FROM LOVER TO LEGEND-KILLER: DID Y/N RUIN THE BAND?” “Y/N: THE YOKO OF THE FIREFLIES.”

They took photos—some old, some recent—and twisted them into knives. You kissing Ellie’s cheek on tour. You whispering something into her ear at an award show. You standing backstage at one of their concerts, hands pressed to your mouth, crying.

They looped the footage on cable and digital outlets like evidence.

They called you manipulative. Jealous. Controlling. A fame leech who couldn’t handle being second to a rockstar. A washed-up pop girl whose comeback relied on dragging someone down with her. They blamed your queerness, your softness, your sexuality, your songs. Said you were obsessed. Said you were a narcissist. Said you were weak.

You lost hundreds of thousands of followers overnight. Then millions. Radio pulled your songs. Magazines pulled your features. Brands dropped your campaigns without even calling.

You became a name to hate. A target for mourning dressed in outrage.

No one asked how you were. No one wondered if you had survived the wreckage. 

Because they’d already written you out of the story and rewritten you as the villain.

As if you hadn’t been the one who begged her to stay alive.

The worst part? you still had to perform the suspended shows. You knew it before anyone said it out loud—could feel it in the atmosphere like static before a storm. That thick, choking stillness that settles on your chest before the first crack of lightning. It wasn’t another tour stop. It was a burial. The final acts with its teeth bared and no interest in letting you leave the stage whole.

You hadn’t performed since the collapse.

Since Ellie disappeared into silence. Since the Fireflies went dark. Since the headlines multiplied like black vultures and your name stopped belonging to you. Since the world decided your heartbreak was public property, a story to stream, repost, and monetize. 

You weren’t a popstar anymore. You weren’t even a person. You were a scandal. A soundbite.

The girl who broke the Fireflies.

Your PR team bled behind the scenes, clinging to whatever was left of the narrative. Every morning, there was a new fire—new photos, new blind items, new hashtags clawing their way across the internet like vines made of glass. They tried to make you likable again. Paid features. Cease and desists. Media training.

But the damage was done. The walls were caving in.

And you saw it all.

But beneath all the headlines and hysteria, under the weight of rage and rumor and think pieces with your name misspelled, there was a quiet, cutting truth you clung to like a lighthouse in a storm:

There was no new Ellie content.

No blurry paparazzi photos at airports. No shaky footage outside clinics. No mugshots. No overdose. No funeral.

Nothing.

Just a silence so complete, it felt curated.

You didn’t know it at the time, but Joel was the one who made sure of it.

He didn’t just protect her. He erased her.

He bought silence the way other people buy coffee—quickly, absolutely, without blinking. Whatever he couldn’t cover with his monstrous wealth, he covered with something much more terrifying: influence. The kind of power that doesn’t come from only being a celebrity, but from being the last person in the room when the doors close.

He scrubbed metadata. Buried leaks before they surfaced. Paid off photographers, silenced editors, threatened entire media corporations with lawsuits they couldn’t afford and consequences they couldn’t calculate. Blogs lost access. Social media accounts were wiped clean. Mentions vanished mid-upload. Sources went dark.

Their last performance—her last performance—never made it past whispers.

Her addiction never made it to the main page.

Because Joel wasn’t trying to cover a scandal. He was trying to save his daughter. He wanted her to heal. Quietly. He wanted to build her a place without pressure, without headlines.

And in doing so, he forgot what the silence would cost you.

The one without enough influence, or power, or legacy to protect her. With no father in the shadows pulling strings to make the world go quiet. The only one left and the perfect target for their blame.

No one talked. Not the staff. Not Jesse. Not Dina. They disappeared too—folding into silence like it was an instruction. Like grief was classified and they were following protocol.

They left you alone with a story you weren’t allowed to correct. A love you weren’t allowed to grieve publicly. A collapse you couldn’t explain.

You couldn’t say a word. Not even a whisper of the truth.

Not even her name.

So, for another long week, you barely ate one full meal. Didn’t shower. Didn’t speak. The sun rose and fell without ceremony. You lay in the dark, wrapped in the clothes she left behind, watching the shadows shift across the ceiling like time-lapse footage of the destruction of everything you ever called yours.

The TV played on mute, your name flashing in ticker scrolls beneath strangers dissecting your ruin like it was commentary, not consequence.

You stopped brushing your teeth. Stopped checking your phone. Pain rotted in your throat like a secret. Not the kind that makes you cry. The kind that just… sits there. Dead weight in your chest. Too big to hold, too loud to name.

And then, on the eighth day, your assistant sent a single text.

They’re still expecting you to perform.

You didn’t respond, just stood. Not because you felt better, not because something clicked, but because numbness had settled so completely in your bones that you couldn’t even summon the energy to resist.

You took a scalding shower and scrubbed your skin until it stung. Sat while someone did your hair. Let a stranger paint your face in five different layers because she said a corpse looked more alive than you. Wore the outfit picked for you weeks ago, back when the tour was still a future, not an autopsy.

And when the black SUV pulled up outside your building, you stepped into it without a word.

It felt like climbing into a hearse.

The arena was sold out. Not a single empty seat. But it didn’t feel like a crowd.

It felt like surveillance. 

Like every eye in the room had already made up its mind about you. Like they weren’t here for music—they were here for evidence.

You hadn’t warmed up. Hadn’t done vocal prep. You hadn’t even opened your mouth in days. What was the point? You didn’t feel anything anymore. Not nervous. Not angry. Not sad. Just hollow. Carved out.

There was no buzz, no electricity in the air, no eager chatter or chants echoing in the rafters. Just a cold, unblinking silence. They didn’t scream when you stepped out under the lights—they lifted their phones like weapons, like proof. No one reached for you. No one cried. They just stared, eyes sharp, lenses sharper, like they were waiting for you to fall apart in real time.

Still, you sang. Not because you wanted to. Not because there was anything left inside you worth sharing. You sang because they told you that if you didn’t, the silence would be spun into guilt.

Because if you didn’t finish this show, if you so much as wavered, they’d never let you speak again.

So you opened your mouth and gave them what they came for.

Your throat was already burning by the second verse, every word scraping its way out like it didn’t want to be heard. The adrenaline faded too quickly, leaving your knees locked and your body stiff. The lights above you were blinding—too white, too hot, too cruel—and the crowd didn’t move.

Not a sway. Not a scream. Just thousands of eyes, blank and waiting. You gripped the mic stand like it was the only thing anchoring you to the earth, and even then, you weren’t sure you’d stay grounded.

And the worst part?

Every single song had Ellie’s name etched between the lines.

Every melody, every lyric, every bridge soaked in her fingerprints. You’d written them in hotel rooms with your legs tangled together. On studio floors with her mouth still fresh on your skin. You’d written them drunk on being hers. Every chorus was a memory. Every verse a scar.

They were love songs.

And now, they were ghosts.

Her face crossed your mind for just a second, and when you opened your mouth again—your voice shattered.

It cracked so violently it sounded like glass hitting concrete. The note split in half, raw and jarring, and you winced. You turned your back fast, pretended to fix your in-ear, anything to keep the big screen from catching the look in your eyes.

Because you were about to start crying.

And you couldn’t let them see.

Your voice, your strongest weapon, was now was working against you. It kept betraying, trembling with every word, cracking more horribly each time you tried to swallow the grief. The grief of singing songs you once believed in. Songs that were alive when she still was yours.

You gave the worst performance of your life.

And somehow, with a body that barely worked, limbs limp from hunger and anxiety and days without proper sleep or light or air, you still made it to the end. Eyes blurry, throat raw, heart barely hanging on — you gave them what they came for. You finished the show.

Not because you wanted to. Not because you could. But because it was all you had left to give.

And the only thought echoing in your skull was how impossible it felt that this had once made you happy. That once, the stage had been freedom. Purpose. Joy.

Because now, it felt like a sentence.

This world hadn’t just taken the love of your life impersonated. It had stolen the other love of your life too. The one that lived in your voice, in your art, in the part of you that still believed in beauty and sound and the holy act of giving something sacred to the world.

That part was gone now. Burned out. No body to bury. Just an empty space where something precious used to be. Loud in its absence, deafening in its silence.

When the show ended, they clapped, but it wasn’t joy—it was relief. Like they were just glad you made it to the end. Hollow. A slow, uncertain patter that echoed across the stadium like a dare not to cry.

You bowed because the contract said you had to. Didn't say thank you or goodbye.

You turned before the lights dimmed, your back to the humiliating, slow and disappointed applause before it even started. You walked offstage like a stranger in your own skin, like your body belonged to someone else—someone capable of surviving this.

You sprinted to the dressing room, and the second the door clicked shut, everything inside you gave away. The air vanished. Your vision turned to static. Your ears rang, sharp and high-pitched, like your whole universe was tearing at the seams.

And then you collapsed.

Your knees buckled. Then your whole body followed.

You don’t remember hitting the floor—just the sound it made when you did.

A brutal crack, something falling from too high and landing wrong.

Your hands clawed at your chest, your throat, your face, desperate to find a switch, a lever, anything to stop the panic screaming through your nervous system.

The sob ripped from you before you even knew it was coming. It wasn’t delicate. It wasn’t poetic. It was pain. Unfiltered, ungodly pain. Ripped raw from somewhere deep—so deep you hadn’t even known it existed until now.

Grief. Rage. Sadness. Exhaustion. Humiliation. It all poured out of you in violent waves, none of it beautiful. None of it performative.

And no one in the crowd knew. No one watching through screens, through camera lenses, behind filters and hashtags, had any idea that what they had just witnessed wasn’t a concert. It your breaking point.

You couldn’t breathe.

You couldn’t breathe.

You gasped. Choked. Punched yourself in the ribs like you could force the air back in. Your nails scraped down your cheeks, dragging mascara and foundation with them and something salty and disgusting. Tears, sweat, shame.

Footsteps thundered behind the door. Voices shouting. Calling your name. Your team, your stylists, security. Too many sounds, too many movement.

But only one person opened the door and dropped beside you. Only one hand touched you.

Not with panic, but with purpose.

Rachel.

She pulled you into her arms like she’d done it a hundred times. Like your body fit there. Like she knew how to hold someone who was falling apart.

She cradled your head to her chest, curled her body around yours like a shelter, like a shield, like she could protect you even here—on the cold floor, under the too-bright lights, in the smell of hairspray and fear.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, one hand stroking your hair, the other pressing firm and steady against your spine. “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re not alone.”

You sobbed and gasped into her collarbone. Full-body, shaking gasps. Ugly. Gut-wrenching. The kind that stole sound and gave back only tremors.

You couldn’t control your body at all— like some frantic, panicked force had hijacked the controls and left you trapped in the passenger seat.

And still, she held you.

“You’re safe,” she murmured. “You made it through. It’s over, baby. The show 's over.”

Someone shouted—but she didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up. Didn’t let go.

Not when your breathing couldn't stabilize. Not when your fingers curled in her shirt like you were drowning and she was the only thing keeping you above water. Not even when you started to repeat the same phrase over and over, each one more broken than the last.

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t—”

You didn’t even know what, exactly, you couldn’t do.

You just knew you couldn’t. Not anymore.

She tried to ground you. Pressed her forehead to yours. Counted your breaths like she could keep time with your heart. But it was already spiraling.

The oxygen disappeared. Your limbs jolted. Your mouth opened wide but no air came in. Your chest seized.

You weren’t breathing.

“Hey. Hey. Hey, look at me,” Rachel’s voice cracked as she cupped your face. “You’re okay. You’re right here. With me. Breathe with me, in and out, come on, please, look at me—breathe—one, two, three—”

But you couldn’t.

You were sobbing so hard your ribs felt fractured, mascara bleeding down your chin in thick streaks of black and ruin. Every part of you had collapsed inward. Your strength, your posture, your ability to fake it. Gone.

The last scraps you’d saved for the stage, for the flashing lights and smiling lies—it had all gone up in flames the second you closed the door.

“I’m done, I'm done,” you choked out, not even able to hear your own voice over the pounding in your ears. “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore—I’m not going back, I won’t—I can’t—I—I want it to be over—”

You could only hear the sounds that heightened your panic. The ones always present in your nightmares. Footsteps. Loud. Rushed. Suits and heels. Voices shouting your name like it was urgent, like it belonged to them. People you worked with. People who profited off your face.

People who were still trying to get one more show out of you before your corpse cooled.

“Wait—wait, what the hell is going on—”

“She can’t leave like this—”

“We still have six shows—”

“Don’t make a scene. Don’t do this now.”

The words came fast, cold—like bullets. Like they’d prepared for this. Like they were ready to argue you back into submission.

You curled in tighter against her body, teeth clenched so hard your jaw spasmed. The pressure in your chest spiked again, all at once, unbearable. Your mouth opened, but the air caught in your throat, stuck like a scream too afraid to come out.

Your vision blurred.

The edges went white.

“I can’t—” you gasped. “I can’t—I can’t—”

You sobbed and choked, soundless, broken, gagging on the weight of your own breathlessness.

Rachel held your face in her hands, wiped the sweat from your temples, kept her voice calm even as she was about to break too.

“I—I—” you wheezed.

“Breathe,” she whispered. “Sweetheart, look at me. You’re safe. You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere you don’t want to go.”

Your lungs stuttered, seized, then finally gave in to a shaky inhale. Not enough—but more than before.

Your hands still trembled, still clawed weakly at the fabric over your chest, but Rachel caught them. Held them steady. Her thumbs traced soft, grounding circles into your palms.

“There you go,” she murmured. “That’s it. Breathe with me. In… and out. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

You blinked hard, your vision swimming back into focus one hazy layer at a time. The spotlight in your mind dimmed, the sharp edges softened. The wave hadn’t passed, but it was pulling back just enough to let your ribs move again.

Your breathing evened—still shallow, still trembling, but less violent. Your fingers stopped clawing. Your shoulders stopped jerking with every breath.

You looked up at Rachel.

She was looking at you. And she didn’t look away.

But behind her, the shouting didn’t stop. It pierced through the thin veil of your calm like thorns through gauze.

“She just needs to rest. We’ll move the next show. Reschedule—”

Rachel turned her head. Just barely. Just enough.

“You want her onstage again?” Rachel snapped, not raising her voice, not needing to. “She can’t stand up. She hasn’t eaten in weeks. You watched her collapse in my arms—and your first thought was damage control?”

“We’re trying to protect her—”

“No, you’re trying to protect the tour. You’re trying to protect the brand. The fucking bottom line. Not her.”

“If she leaves like this, the headlines are going to spiral—”

“You’re blowing this out of proportion—”

“She can’t take a break, not now,” someone snapped. “If she disappears again, she won’t recover—her reputation won’t recover—”

Rachel turned around, fully now. Voice hard. Knife-sharp.

“She won’t recover if you kill her first.”

Silence. Sudden. Heavy.

“She said it's over, and that's enough. She’s not finishing this tour. I don’t care what’s been signed. I don’t care who’s watching. I don’t care how much you paid. I will take care of everything.”

Then her voice dropped. Cold. Low. Lethal.

“And if any of you ever speak to her like that again, if any of you so much as text her without going through me, I swear to God I will burn this entire fucking industry to the ground with one phone call.”

No one dared speak again.

Rachel turned back to you. Her hand on your back. Her other cradling the base of your skull. You were still crying. The kind of sobbing that didn’t have sound left to give.

“You’re okay,” she whispered. “You’re going home, darling. I promise. It’s over.”

The penthouse was dark when you returned. Not dim. Not still. Dark. The kind of silence that hums, almost vibrates, because it's been left alone for too long. 

Rachel didn’t ask if you were okay.

She knew better than to insult you like that. 

She didn’t try to cheer you up or fill the space with empty comfort. She moved around you gently, hands steady, voice quiet. She helped you out of your coat, took your bag from your shoulder, unzipped your boots because your fingers weren’t steady enough to do it yourself. 

“I have to leave and take care of everything now, but I’ll come with groceries tomorrow,” she said quietly, voice kind, an old song. “Everything else can wait.”

You didn’t answer. Just nodded, eyes hollow. She stepped forward, kissed your temple, and smoothed your hair back once, slow and careful.

“You don’t owe anyone anything,” she whispered. “I love you. Take all the time you need.”

She didn’t say how long. Didn’t set a deadline. 

And then, quietly, she left.

You didn’t move for a long time.

You stood in the middle of the living room like you didn’t know where the walls ended. As if you weren’t sure this was your home anymore, or if you’d ever belonged in it at all. The furniture felt too sharp. The air too thick. The floor to ceiling windows looked like they belonged to a stranger.

You walked to the kitchen, the silence of your footsteps against the tile the only sound in the whole place, and you turned your phone off without even checking the screen. Not one glance at the texts or missed calls. Not one swipe to see the headlines you already knew were waiting for you.

The idea of looking felt dangerous—as if you saw your own name one more time, it would gut you.

You went back to lock the door. The deadbolt. The chain. Set the security code. Then walked to your room on autopilot, your body moving like it was detached from your mind. As if your brain had shut down the part that was supposed to care about survival. You didn’t turn on the light. You didn’t change out of your stage clothes. You didn’t even pull back the comforter.

You just dropped onto the bed like gravity had given out beneath you, the weight in your chest too much to carry even a second longer.

For a moment, you laid still.

And then it all came undone.

The sob hit without warning. Violent. Uncontrollable. It had been sitting there for weeks, months, years—waiting for this exact moment to break free. You curled into yourself, fists twisting in the fabric of the sheets, and let it take you.

No restraint. No composure. No performance. 

Just pure, unfiltered anguish.

You cried like your body had been holding it back your entire life. The kind of crying that tears through you, that claws its way up from your gut and explodes in your throat like shrapnel. You sobbed for hours into the mattress until your face was slick and your mouth tasted like salt and cotton.

You screamed—loud, broken, horrible, throat-aching screams—because words couldn’t hold what you were feeling. 

You cried for the headlines, for the think pieces, for the names you’d been called, for the way the media dissected your grief like it was a puzzle they were entitled to solve.

You cried for the fans who turned on you. For the ones who didn’t. For the ones who begged you to be okay like their lives depended on it.

You cried for the tour—for the nights you bled for an audience that only ever wanted a product. For the stage that used to be sacred and had become a crucifixion. For the days you starved yourself to look good in front of a camera.

You cried for your family, for your friends—the ones who didn’t call, who watched the rumors pile up and chose distance over understanding. You cried because you knew what they thought of you now. A failure. A disgrace. They turned their backs when you needed them most, and you were sure, deep down, that they wouldn’t come back. 

You cried for Ellie—because she was gone. Because the silence between you wasn’t just space anymore, it was shapeless, aching distance. Something neither of you had the tools to fight anymore.

You cried because you didn’t know where she went or if she meant it what she said before she disappeared.

And the worst part was, you did. You knew she meant it. You knew it in the marrow of your bones, in the echo of her voice cracking under the weight of all she couldn’t say. Because she didn’t leave you instead of loving you—she left you because she loved you, but couldn't do it properly. Not through the haze. Not while she was losing herself. Not while her hands shook and her eyes hardly met yours.

She couldn’t love you the way you needed —the way you deserved— no matter how much she wanted to.

You cried because maybe she was healing now. Maybe she’d finally stepped away from the edge, from the stage, from the pressure, from you. 

And if letting go of you was the price she had to pay to survive her own name, her own shadow—then maybe she paid it willingly.

Maybe she had to let you go to stay alive. 

Not whole, not well, not ready.

But alive, somewhere. 

And maybe that was all you’d ever get.

Maybe she would never speak to you again. Maybe she would carve a new life for herself far from the spotlight, somewhere no one could reach her. Maybe she would never sing or play guitar again. Maybe, when she looked back on all of this, she’d pretend it never happened.

But she would live.

And that was enough.

Because you didn’t need her beside you on red carpets anymore, or her voice low and close against your ear. You didn’t need her lyrics woven into yours, or her hand in yours while the world looked on. You didn’t even need to be remembered.

You just needed her to still be.

Still breathing. Still being out there. Still being Ellie.

And if the cost of her survival was your erasure, if she had to forget you entirely just to find her way back to herself,

Then you’d let her. 

Because you would rather her alive and gone,

Than dead and yours.

But most of all, you cried for yourself.

For the girl underneath it all—the one who never got to grow up because fame had stolen her first love, her first heartbreak, her first real moment. The one who had learned to smile through exhaustion and dress up her pain in designer. The one who had never been allowed to fall apart without someone telling her to pull herself together in five minutes.

You cried for the version of you that had once stood on a stage and believed it was the only truth of her existence. 

Because that girl was gone.

And you didn’t know who was left in her place.

Your body trembled. Sweat drenched your hairline. You gagged on your own breath, curled tighter into the blankets, fists pressed to your chest like you could hold your own heart together by force.

And the cruelty of it—all of it—came crashing down like a final blow. 

Ellie’s disappearance hadn’t just broken your heart.

It had detonated your life.

Everything you’d built, everything you’d bled for, shattered in the fallout. 

And still—it wasn't her fault. Still, you didn’t hate her.

Even when there was nothing left, you couldn’t.

And somewhere out there, the world turned without you.

Headlines multiplied. Clips from the performance circulated like wildfire—your voice cracking, your eyes vacant, your body barely moving. Commentators called it the downfall of an empire. Analysts speculated whether it was a stunt, a cry for attention, the end of your career.

“Unprofessional.” “Diva meltdown.” “Couldn’t keep it together.”

Some called you fragile. Some called you unstable. Others called you a fraud.

You didn’t defend yourself. You didn’t fight back. You didn’t post or clarify or explain. That would’ve required believing you were worth defending.

So you stayed right there, in that bed, with your voice gone, your body shaking, your ribs sore from sobbing—letting yourself crash all the way down for the very first time. 

And by the fifth day, the sheets didn’t feel like sheets anymore.

They felt like skin—sweaty, twisted, suffocating. You hadn’t opened the curtains since you got back. You hadn’t spoken. Just nods. Grunts. The occasional “no” when Rachel asked if you wanted to eat, shower, breathe.

She came and went without complaint. Brought groceries, clean clothes, herbal tea you didn’t drink. She folded your laundry even though it hadn’t been worn. Once, she left a vase of tulips on the windowsill. You didn’t look at them. They died in silence two days later.

It was late when she came in this time.

She didn’t knock. She never knocked, not anymore. She sat at the edge of your bed, like she had a hundred times before, and this time, she exhaled.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Fuck the day I told you to fake date her.”

Your eyes cracked open, barely “Yeah. Thanks a lot, Rachel. Fuck that goddamn day.” 

She let out a tired breath. “Baby… you’ve been in bed for three days.”

“Five,” you corrected flatly. “It’s been five.”

Her brows knit together. “That’s worse.”

“I know.”

“...You have to stand up eventually,” she said, not unkindly. 

Like it hurt her to say it, but it would’ve hurt her more not to.

“Why?” Your voice was a whisper, hoarse from disuse.

“Nobody likes me anymore. I don’t have a tour. I don’t have a career. I don’t have Ellie. I have nothing.”

She stilled. For a moment, she just let the words hang in the air, thick as fog, ugly as truth.

“That’s not true,” she said eventually, “That’s not—”

“It is,” you snapped, tears stinging your eyes without even the energy to fall. “I lost everything. She disappeared, and now I’m Yoko fucking Ono. They think I ruined her. I’m alone.”

“Do you want me to call your friends?” she asked carefully. “Get them over here? I’m sure they’d—”

“I don’t want to see those fake ass fucking snakes.” you spat. “They haven’t texted me since the hiatus thing. Not one of them. Not even Olivia. I bet they’re all out somewhere drinking and laughing about how they dodged a bullet by not standing next to me when the ship sank.”

“...Okay. Not them.” she said. “What about your therapist? Linda?”

You let out a broken laugh, more like a bark. 

“What the fuck is Linda gonna say? ‘And how did being blamed for the Fireflies’ downfall by the entire planet and the love of your life breaking up with you made you feel?’"

You mimed a deep, reflective breath. 

“It made me feel like I want to kill myself, Linda.”

Rachel flinched. But she didn’t leave.

She cleared her throat. “...Your mom?”

Your face crumpled, and you turned away. “No.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t—”

“She already thinks I’m a failure,” you whispered. “She asked me if it was true. If I destroyed the band on purpose. She told me to get a real job and go back home with them. I don’t want to hear her voice.”

Rachel nodded. Not pushing. Just absorbing. Holding space.

You flopped backward on the pillows, arm thrown over your eyes. “So maybe I’ll just go back to my fucking hometown in the South. Marry a man. Have a lavender marriage. Get a dog named Earl. Die slowly.”

“Aren’t you being a little…” she hesitated, “dramatic?”

You moved your arm just enough to glare at her.

“Yeah. I can’t even think about lavender marriage without wanting to gag.”

“Okay, then. So no hometown husband.”

You sighed, turning to face the wall. “Maybe I’ll move to a little town in Argentina. Change my name. Get three cats. Upload music to SoundCloud under an alias.”

There was a long silence.

Then Rachel said, quietly,

“So… you still want to make music.”

You didn’t answer.

You didn’t have to.

“I know what you need,”

She stood, slowly. Crossed the room. Opened your closet and rifled through the drawers. You heard things shifting, rustling, being pulled out.

When she returned, she set something on the bed beside you. A pen. A notebook. The guitar you hadn’t touched in months, polished smooth.

You stared at it.

Stared at her.

You blinked. “Guitar, paper, and a pen?”

Rachel smiled softly. “Yes.”

Your throat clenched.

“I can’t write,” you whispered. “I don’t know how to write about this. I don't even know if I remember how to write a song anymore.”

“You don’t have to write about it,” she said. “Just write through it.”

You looked down at your hands, at the calluses that had faded. At the instrument that had once been the only thing that made sense.

And for the first time in weeks, something inside you stirred. Not hope, not yet. 

But maybe the possibility of it.

Rachel leaned down, pressed a kiss to your forehead. Her voice broke just slightly.

“I can’t fix how you feel. But I can sit here with you while you figure it out.”

Rachel left without a word, but not without love. She lingered in the doorway for a moment, watching you as if she could will you to live just a little longer with her eyes.

You didn’t look up. You just stayed on the bed, the guitar by your side as if it was something ancient and sacred you didn’t dare touch. 

When the door clicked shut, the silence that followed was total. Complete. Not cruel, not yet. Just vast.

You didn’t know what made you reach for it. The guitar. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the weight of everything pressing against your ribs, needing to go somewhere. 

Maybe it was just the fact that you were still alive—and the thought of being alive without music hurt worse than anything else.

You sat, instrument on your lap, fingers hovering above the strings. They were still new. Tuned in. It gleamed in the low light like something waiting to be reborn. You placed your fingertips on the frets. Pressed down gently. Strummed once.

You didn’t know where to begin. Not lyrically. Not musically. Not emotionally. You had all this stuff—pain and confusion and anger and guilt—but it was shapeless. Smoke in your chest. You stared down at the blank page and felt something unfamiliar.

At first it was slow. Scratchy. Lines crossed out and rewritten. Fragments of phrases that made you wince when you saw them on the page—too much, too raw, too pathetic. But then something shifted. Maybe the guitar helped. Maybe it was the rhythm. Maybe it was the sound of your own voice, still hoarse from crying and not using it, whispering lines out loud.

“...i’m trying my best to keep you satisfied.”

After that, the words came faster. Not rushed, but inevitable—like they’d been waiting for you to stop holding your breath. 

"and you don't wanna know,

how alone i’ve been.

let you come and go,

whatever state i'm in."

You wrote about the weight of giving everything and getting less than nothing in return. About exhaustion. About being asked to stay by someone who couldn’t even stay for you. You wrote about silence. About the aching kind of absence that feels more like betrayal than distance.

You wrote, "man, am I the greatest" —and you didn’t mean it as a boast.

You meant it like a question. Like a whisper. A plea. Didn’t I give you everything?

Time stopped meaning anything. You just wrote—line after line, verse after verse—until the page was full, then the next, then a third. Each lyric sharper than the last, threaded with a bitterness you hadn’t dared name until now. Threaded with truth.

You played the chords again. Softer this time. Almost reverent. You found the melody without trying. Adjusted the tempo. Layered the harmonies like careful stitches across a wound. The chorus landed like an open wound. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t hopeful.

But it was real.

Your fingers ached. Your face was damp, though you didn’t remember crying.

And for the first time since she left, you looked out the window.

The city was still there.

So were you.

And in the quiet, in the wreckage, in the wake of everything you’d lost—you had something again.

You had this.

Later, when Rachel convinced you to get out of bed, you were curled up on the far end of the couch, knees drawn to your chest, blanket pulled tight over your shoulders even though the penthouse was warm. The curtains remained drawn, keeping the sunlight at bay. The only light came from the soft flicker of the muted TV screen and the gentle spill from the kitchen, where she stood barefoot in one of your hoodies, holding a plate.

“I made your favorite,” she said softly, walking over and placing it down on the coffee table. “Real food. Not a protein bar. Not pressed juice. I cooked it myself.”

You didn’t move. Just stared at your knees.

Your stomach was a void now. Not hunger. Not even pain. Just absence.

“I’m not hungry,” you whispered.

Rachel didn’t sit right away. She crouched beside you, eyes searching yours.

“You think I didn’t notice?” Her voice was so quiet. “All those years. The award shows. The shoots. The dinners where you barely touched your plate? You’ve been throwing meals away since your first red carpet. Baby, we’ve talked about this. A million times.”

You shook your head slowly, eyes burning. “I just… I can’t. It feels like there’s a pit in my stomach. Like I’m already full of something I can’t name.”

She brushed a strand of hair from your face. “I know. But your body’s still here. It’s still holding you up. Give it something back.”

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t.

“There are no cameras now,” she said. “No stylists. No fans zooming in on your body. No headlines to impress. Just me. Just you.”

You blinked.

A tear fell and soaked into the blanket without a sound.

“You are still made of flesh and bone,” Rachel whispered. “You are not made of numbers. You are not made of the things they said.”

She let the silence stretch between you, heavy and patient.

Then, slowly, she stood. Lifted the plate with careful hands—hands that trembled, just barely.

“I’m not asking you to finish it,” she said softly. “But I’m not leaving until you try. One bite. For me. Please.”

You looked up at her. Then at the food. Then back at her.

And you hated that she had to ask. That she had to see you like this. Hollowed out, fading, not quite here.

But you didn’t know how to fix it. You didn’t even know how to want to.

Still… your fingers moved.

You reached for the fork.

Rachel exhaled like she’d been holding that breath for days, maybe even longer.

And in the quiet aftermath, in that room that still smelled like grief and dust and darkness, something small shifted. Something fragile.

Like maybe, somehow, this was a beginning too.

Five months.

Five months passed since the door to the penthouse shut behind you and never really opened again.

You had vanished.

Just like she had.

Rachel moved in with you. Sometimes she brought vinyls — Joni, Fiona, Phoebe — spinning soft sadness through the apartment like a lullaby for the broken. Sometimes she showed up with Crumbl cookies, just to see the faintest flicker of light return to your face. One night, she tried to sneak kale into your pasta and you burst into tears so suddenly, so violently, that she started crying too.

And the first thread you pulled when everything else had already unraveled, was “The Greatest.”

You re-recorded it in the built-in studio you’d once carved into the bones of your penthouse—just a passion project at the time, a creative sanctuary meant for demos and ideas that couldn’t wait until morning. You never imagined it would become the place you'd rebuild your entire life. But thank god you had it. Tucked behind soundproof glass and velvet curtains, that little studio became the cathedral to record your prayers.

You sat at the console, alone, and started over. Stripped the track down to its bones and rewrote every inhale. Reproduced it from scratch. Layered harmonies like echoes in an empty room—soft, staggering, fragile. Like ghosts. You spent an entire week tweaking the reverb on a single breath, making sure it sounded exactly like what it was: loss wrapped in melody.

You then found yourself at the piano. You don’t remember walking there. You don’t remember sitting. But your hands touched the keys and didn’t flinch. A few scattered notes. A single chord. Your fingers found their shape like they'd never left.

The next morning, you opened your laptop and started building another demo.

And it didn’t stop.

Rachel brought you coffee and leaned against the doorframe, eyes warm, saying nothing. You’d work all night, sleep for four hours, wake up with a melody stuck to the roof of your mouth. It was obsessive.

But you finally had a reason to live for.

You wrote everything yourself. Played every instrument. Guitar. Piano. A drum pad you hadn’t touched in years. Bass you borrowed from a neighbor and sanitized twice. You didn’t ask for help.

Because for the first time in your life, something was completely and solely yours.

The songs were sad. Devastating, actually. Every single one about her. You never used her name, but she lived in the lyrics. She was in the opening synths. In the bent guitar notes. In the pause before the final chorus. You wrote about waiting. About watching someone unravel. About the way her voice had sounded the last time you heard it. You wrote about the silence afterward. The not-knowing. The breath you never got to hear on the other end of the line. 

The way you still loved her.

And Rachel—God bless her—never asked you to stop.

She stayed, always. Bought four pairs of the same sweatpants in different colors and laid them out like wardrobe options.

You only left the penthouse ten times in those months. Some doctor’s appointments. Once because the fridge broke. Once because Rachel begged you to walk to the corner to see the cherry blossoms.

Each time, you wore oversized men’s clothes, hair tucked under a baseball cap, face tilted towards the sidewalk. She called you “Dave”. 

No one recognized you. The world had moved on.

And yet—it hadn’t.

Sometimes Rachel showed you stuff. Just to let you know. 5 Months of Silence. Fireflies Hiatus Continues. Y/N Still Missing. Fans Worry. 

There were photos of the last time you were seen in public, in that last performance you couldn’t even bare to remember. Pixelated, unkind. 

People still cared. Or at least, they cared enough to keep talking.

About the Fireflies. About Ellie. About you. Threads unraveled. Podcasts theorized. Fans cried and fought and defended and betrayed.

A dozen narratives tried to rise to the top, but the truth remained locked behind the soundproof walls of the 57th floor, hidden behind tinted glass and a private elevator.

Because you learned how to live without being watched.

You learned to live in a room full of sound and no applause.

And somewhere, in the middle of it all, you realized you were making an album.

The sadness was still there, but so was something else—something like purpose. A lighthouse in reverse, guiding you inward.

Healing.

Late at night, you’d sit on the floor with her, eating cereal out of the box, letting the speakers play the rough cuts. She’d point at a bridge and say, “That one’s gonna ruin lives.” You’d roll your eyes and mumble something about the compression being wrong and your voice too nasal and hoarse. 

She’d swat your arm and say, “You’re doing it, bitch. You’re really fucking doing it.”

You still didn’t know what would happen when the door finally opened.

But for the first time in a long time, you weren’t making music for them.

You were making it for you.

And that's how the 1st part of the album —Dead— was born.

Fifteen songs. Fifteen grief-soaked, gut-wrenching crafted pieces of you. Every one of them carried the weight of a different version of her. Her ghosted haunted every harmony, every downbeat, every breath and break of your voice you captured on the mic and didn’t bother editing out.

You waited until sunset.

Rachel came back with Thai food and a six-pack of something you used to drink when things were good. She kicked her shoes off and flopped onto the velvet studio couch like she always did—like it was her throne, like she was waiting for a show.

But this time, she was quiet. She knew what tonight was.

You turned the lights down, opened the master folder on your desktop, and hit play.

Track 01: The Greatest.

By the time the first chorus hit, Rachel had one hand over her mouth.

By the second track, she was curled into the armrest, tears sliding silently down her face.

By the third, she was yelling “BITCH—” at the ceiling and clutching your throw pillow like a defibrillator. “WHAT THE FUCK YOU MEAN SHE GOT, SHE GOT AWAAAAY? YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?”

You sat on the floor cross-legged, chewing little bites of cold pad thai and whispering anecdotes she already knew.

“This one was supposed to be a voice note. I recorded it at 3 a.m., locked in the bathroom because I couldn’t breathe.”

“This one? I almost deleted it. I wrote it as a joke — then broke down crying halfway through the demo.”

“This one happened in ten minutes, standing in the kitchen. Got PTSD from the way she looked at me the last time."

“And this one… I wrote a long time ago. After I found her in the bathroom. I don’t think I ever really came back from that.”

And Rachel? She wept. She sobbed. Loud, theatrical, ugly crying. Like she had held all of it in for you. For five months. Maybe longer.

“You made me go through it,” she wheezed into a napkin around track nine. “I’ve been normal this whole time! I’ve been fine! I’ve been the one getting your stupid oat milk and refilling your lavender oil diffusers and telling the world you’re not dead and now you do this to me?? I’m grieving like she left me!”

You giggled, even through your own tears. “Okay, first of all, you love it.”

“I do,” Rachel groaned. “And I fucking hate her for this. How dare she inspire the best album of all time and not be here to hear it.”

You both laughed, then cried again.

Song after song played. Some soft. Some devastating. One was practically instrumental except for your voice whispering lines of a letter you never sent. One had a heartbeat sample from the panic attack backstage—you’d clipped the audio from your own security camera, distorted it, looped it until it sounded like something alive. Rachel stared at you for a long time after that one.

When the last track started, number 15—“Bigger Than the Whole Sky”—neither of you spoke.

You just sat there, two girls in socks and sweatshirts, the lights low, your eyes rimmed red, listening to a song that felt too big for the room.

You had debated leaving it off the album. It was almost too honest. Too final. But now that it played, you knew there was no choice. It was your goodbye. It was the song you’d write for her if you never got to write another. Rachel didn’t cry during that one. She just held your hand.

The last note faded. Silence bloomed.

A full minute passed. Then another.

Finally, she turned to you, voice thick but sure.

“You know you’re still the Princess of Pop, right?”

“...What?”

“I’m serious,” she said, wiping her face and sitting up straight. “No one has come close. Not even remotely. Your songs still chart. Your fans still play them. You vanished, got crucified by the media, dropped off the face of the earth—and you still own them.”

You strayed silent. It didn’t compute.

“I didn’t tell you,” she continued, a little breathless, as if the realization had only just hit her too. “But your streams? They went up after the last show. After people said you were done. Your Spotify page never dipped. You still hold the title.”

You stared at the floor, jaw slack.

You couldn’t wrap your head around it. You thought your name had been buried. That all they saw when they looked at you was failure.

Rachel grinned now, wicked and electric.

“And if... if you did some more pop... catchy songs?”

She leaned in like she was telling you a national secret. 

“You could become the Queen of Pop.”

You laughed. Shook your head. “I don’t even know how to write songs that aren’t sad anymore. I’ve forgotten how to write about anything else. I can’t even remember what catchy-pop sounds like.”

“So don’t write it for love,” Rachel said. “Write it for revenge.”

You looked at her.

“Write it about you,” she said. “About the media. The fans who turned. The people who used you. The people who made you feel like you deserved what happened. Write the way it felt to be watched while falling apart.”

She paused. Then, quietly:

“Take your crown back. Respond.”

And something in you clicked.

You could feel it in your blood. Not like hope. Not like healing. Like fire. A heartbeat of defiance. The version of yourself you buried started to rise.

You turned towards your desk.

And you began to write again—not for her,

But for them.

For you.

And the second half of the album —Star— began with a synth.

You didn’t mean for it to happen that way—it was just a sound you stumbled across late one night, messing with an old analog patch in your bedroom studio, fingers twitchy with nerves and a Red Bull. It was metallic, sharp. You played it over and over again. Then layered a kick under it. Then a baseline. 

Then you whispered into the mic: “Kill the lights.”

And seven months passed.

Seven months of sweat-slicked nights dancing in your kitchen with Rachel, testing beats at 2 a.m., exporting stems from your bed and watching her improvise choreography in mismatched socks and a sports bra. Seven months of sneaking razor-edged lyrics into candy-coated choruses. Seven months of learning to write songs that made people move—while still ripping their hearts out if they dared to really listen.

You were writing pop again, but it wasn’t empty. I

You wrote vengeance. Every synth line was survival. Every kick was a rebuttal.

Rachel gave notes in between mouthfuls of cereal and dancing on your couch. “Track two needs more drama,” she’d say. “Give me bridge-that-makes-me-blackout energy.” Or: “No, no, this one’s only slutty. Make it sad and slutty. Let them cry in the club.” 

You took every note seriously. She had good ears.

You started going outside more.

Still undercover—always undercover. Hoodie pulled low, hat snug, sunglasses swallowing half your face. Jeans sagged just enough to soften the sway of your hips, the parts of you that always gave you away. You wandered through farmer’s markets like a ghost, bought overpriced candles that smelled like memory and sea salt. You sat in corner coffee shops, watching strangers mouth your lyrics, old songs still spinning on the radio like they belonged to someone else. No one recognized you.

You were just a shadow. A whisper.

But inside, quietly, something was beginning to shift.

You felt alive.

You were eating again. Tentative bites at first. Then real ones.

Meals. Moments. You chewed slowly, like you were relearning how to stay.

Rachel didn’t say anything every time you finished your plate. She just smiled —soft, steady— like she’d been waiting for that moment longer than you realized. Like it mattered more than applause ever did.

You threw out the weight scale one morning without ceremony. Just picked it up and let it go. No breakdown. No second thoughts. You didn’t need numbers to tell you anything anymore.

Bit by bit, you stitched yourself back together.

Not perfectly—never perfectly. But beautifully.

And one night, while polishing track eleven —purple lace bra— Rachel walked into the studio holding her phone like it had a pulse.

“They want to renew your contract,” 

“Who?”

“The label. Sony.”

You stared at her like she’d just said NASA wanted to put you on the moon.

“They want to what?”

“They want to renew, babe.”

“After everything?”

She tossed the phone onto the couch and leaned against the table, arms crossed, grinning. “After everything. After the press, after your full collapse and disappearance. Yes.”

“Why?” you asked, half-laughing, half-wheezing. “Why the fuck would they want me back?”

“Because you have thirty songs in your hands. And I showed them three.”

You froze. “You what?”

“Three,” she repeated casually. “Kill the Lights. The Greatest. And that one that made me cry into my bowl of Lucky Charms. The Subway.”

“You sent those to the label?!”

“I’m still your manager, babe,” she said, completely unfazed. “But also, surprise—I studied law.”

You stared at her. “You did?”

“Bitch, I have a law degree. NYU, full ride, thank you very much. Passed the bar in two states.”

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”

“Because you were too busy being a popstar in love.”

You stared at her like she was a stranger.

A really well-dressed, brilliantly chaotic stranger that just changed your life again.

She walked over to the dining table and pulled out a folder. A real one. Like, paper.

“I drafted something.”

You laughed, breathless. “You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

You opened it. Scanned. And your heart did something violent.

Because she wasn’t joking.

She had rewritten your contract from the ground up.

No limit budget. Final say on all visual and marketing assets. No interference with musical direction. Full creative control and ownership of masters. You choose collaborators. You approve performances. You decide your image.

It was a declaration. A manifesto.

“This is the deal,” Rachel said, calm and steady. “They want you because you are the full package. You write like god. You sing, and DAMN, you can sing. You dance, and even produce. You have thirty songs ready to go and you did it all by yourself. You’re not just a popstar. You’re the star.”

You didn’t say anything.

You sat there, staring at the paper, feeling the weight of it settle on your chest. Not in a crushing way. In a real way.

For the first time in your career, you weren’t asking. You were telling.

“I’m not going back to being their puppet,”

“You’re not,”

“I want to direct my own music videos.”

“You will.”

“I want to choose who interviews me. And I don’t want them to mention Ellie or anything related to what happened in any interview. Or I'm standing up and leaving.”

“Done.”

“I want to wear what I want. Decide how much skin I show. Be who I want. When do I speak. Say what I fucking feel.”

“Good. Because that’s the only version of you they’re getting now.”

You looked up. And for the first time in years, you saw it clearly.

You had a fucking bomb in your hands.

And this time—you were going to drop it.

Another full year went by in the studio this time, but now it was official—no more demo booths or mic stands balanced on pillows. This was the real thing: glowing floors, velvet-lined walls, mixers worth more than your car, and lights that blinked like the heartbeat of a body being brought back to life.

You rerecorded every song yourself. Mixed them until your ears bled. You learned choreography that left bruises on your knees and your ribs. And with your now unlimited budget, you shot music videos until four in the morning—on rooftops, in deserts, underwater tanks, in glass boxes. You designed the visuals frame by frame, picked the colors, styled the looks, storyboarded the lighting.

Every single person who stepped into the room signed an NDA.

No one knew what the world was about to get. No one dared say “no.”

And that was the point.

You were given no budget because there was no ceiling anymore—not for you. 

You went out more. Still undercover, still “Dave” in your oversized hoodie, Rachel trailing behind in sunglasses and AirPods—but you started tasting life again. You drank matcha lattes and wore rings on every finger. You watched sunsets from the fire escape. You swiped on strangers and didn’t answer.

It ended up feeling like freedom.

Not the loud kind—not the kind with flashing lights and open bars and roaring crowds. It was the quiet kind. The slow kind. The kind that blooms behind your ribs one morning when you realize the fear is gone. When you open your window and let the light in without flinching. When you walk down the street in oversized jeans and sunglasses and no one looks twice, and you smile—not because they didn’t recognize you, but because you recognized yourself.

Every day you made something. A beat, a demo, a visual, a verse. Every day you moved your body not to impress anyone, but just to feel alive. You went from singing into the mic with trembling hands to dancing alone at midnight. You weren’t healing for the cameras this time. You were healing for you.

And then—your first appearance.

An interview. No teaser. No preview. No cryptic post.

Just you. Sitting in a chair under soft lights, head tilted slightly, hair longer now—darker, like it had remembered its roots. You wore black velvet. No glitter. No gloss. Just confidence. Cold and refined. You didn’t blink too much. You didn’t fold your hands and blush like you used to.

You looked the world in the eye and didn’t apologize.

You answered every question without flinching. Controlled. Graceful. No label-approved anecdotes. No media-trained smiles. Just facts. Truth. You told them about the album. About staying inside and disappearing for two years. About the blood, sweat and tears that went into every note. About how you wrote the best music of your life alone, with a keyboard in your lap and the world forgetting your name.

Millions wept at the sight of your face again—flooded timelines, lit-up screens, strangers sobbing in living rooms like you were someone they’d lost and just found again.

Kill the Lights and The Greatest dropped like twin detonations—two forces hurtling from the same galaxy-wide rupture. You were grief and vengeance. You were heartbreak and hunger. You were soft acoustic and razor-sharp synths. 

The two songs battled for the top spot on the Billboard 100 like tectonic plates fighting for space—like you were at war with yourself, and winning both sides.

The world froze.

People paused meetings. Turned up their radios. Sat in silence in their cars, crying through traffic lights, replaying your songs again and again like it might save them.

And when the album dropped—

The world didn’t just listen. It obsessed.

Thirty tracks. Each one a chapter. Each one a constellation in a story they tried desperately to piece together. They printed out the lyrics. Annotated them like sacred texts. Drew timelines. Mapped connections. Fans and journalists and college professors debated the order, the meaning, the metaphors.

They tried to tell the story of you and Ellie.

Of two girls who had everything and lost it. Two artists who vanished like smoke and left nothing behind but silence and rumors.

But they never got it right.

They didn’t understand why the heartbreak in your songs never curdled into hatred or spite. Why every lyric sounded like a hand reaching out, not a door slamming shut. Why the choruses built like pleas, not accusations. 

They didn’t understand why, after all that, after everything—you still sang about her like she was holy.

No one could explain her disappearance. No one could explain the pain without resentment. No one could explain why you never named her. Never blamed her.

But in the end, they understood one thing:

You loved her.

And it was never your fault.

Some people still clung to the lie. Still whispered the old narratives. Still clutched at the tabloid versions of you, the girl who ruined the Fireflies. But the world? The world saw you now. Fully. Finally.

And this time, you weren’t just a popstar. You were a woman reborn. A myth rewritten in your own handwriting.

Thirty Billboard Hot 100 entries. A once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. History rewritten in your voice.

And this time, you didn’t flinch. You didn’t shatter.

This time, you stepped into the light and claimed it. Not as an apology.

As a reign.

And your crown?

Eight Grammys.

Weapons and relics. Golden, glinting under the lights, heavy in the most sacred way. They stacked in your arms and sat on the floor like proof. Of your voice. Of your pain. Of your survival.

You’d swept every category they once swore you’d never be nominated in again—each win a quiet, stunning defiance.

And then came the final envelope. The inevitable.

Album of the Year.

The same award the band you “destroyed” won, three years ago.

Poetic justice, millions said.

You stepped onto the stage slowly, breath shallow, heels silent against the polished floor. The applause thundered in your ears. Spotlights bloomed across the walls like flowers. You passed legends in gowns and tuxedos who stood to greet you. People you used to idolize. People who doubted you.

All of them on their feet now, clapping until their hands went red.

Rachel had been crying since the first win. She stood with both hands over her mouth now, mascara running.

You reached the mic. And for a moment—just one breathless, shivering second—it felt like that night again. The collapse. The silence. The concrete floor. The dressing room lights. 

And for another second, it felt like that night when you stood on this same stage, trembling in heels too big and a glittering dress and dreams too loud, clutching your Grammy for Best New Artist.

When Ellie was there.

In the crowd. Eyes on you like you were the only religion she ever believed in. Enamored. Steady. Still by your side.

But now there was only you.

Still, you exhaled. No speech. You just leaned in and spoke.

"Two years ago, I disappeared."

Your voice rang clear, but quiet. Intimate, like a confession.

"Not by accident. Not as a PR move. Not for mystery or drama or effect. I disappeared because I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t breathe. Because, simply, I couldn’t do it anymore."

The room fell into stillness. Cameras. Artists. Critics.

You held all of them in your hands.

"I remember being on a stage like this and feeling like the air was being ripped out of my lungs. I remember not recognizing my own voice. Not recognizing myself in the mirror. I remember feeling like I had nothing left to give except the pieces of myself people wanted to pick apart."

You glanced down at the Grammy in your hand, then back up. The silence ached.

"Supernova isn’t a comeback album. It's not a rebrand. It’s not an apology or a reinvention. It's a war report. My version of the story."

Rachel pressed a hand to her chest. You kept going.

"I made it at home, when I was so alone I thought even music had left me. I wrote it with nothing but my grief. I produced it through panic attacks and insomnia and a silence that lasted years. I made it with no team. No timeline. No help."

"And I never thought anyone would want to hear it."

Your hands shook.

"So, I made it for myself. Because I had to. Because I didn’t know how to survive without making something out of the wreckage."

"This album is about death—not literal death, but the death of who I was. The death of what people thought I was supposed to be. It’s about watching everything fall apart, including myself, and choosing not to stay shattered."

A hush rippled across the audience like wind in a cathedral.

Your voice trembled on the next words.

"I didn’t know I could survive the kind of silence I went through. I didn’t know I could come back from that kind of grief. I didn’t know… that healing could be loud. That you could dance through pain. That you could sing your way out of a breakdown."

You looked up.

"Because that’s what a supernova is—a dead star. A star that explodes at the end of its life, and still manages to shine brighter than ever before. A last, defiant burst of light. Brighter than anything else in the sky. Brighter even in its ending."

And the room leaned in.

"So I want to thank everyone who made space for me—to the fans who stayed when it would’ve been easier to leave, to the people who kept playing the songs even when the world stopped saying my name, to the team who let me take my power back, to the academy for believing in me again, for gifting me eight awards tonight… and to Rachel."

You paused, voice catching just slightly, as your eyes found her in the front row.

"To Rachel—who has been by my side every single day. Who I love deeply. Who fed me when I couldn’t feed myself. Who sat on the floor at 3 a.m. while I rewrote the same chorus fourteen times. Who held me through the silence. Who told me to keep going when I didn’t believe I could. Who reminded me who the I am, even when I forgot."

"Because not only music saved my life. She did too. She didn’t just manage me—she fought for me. She negotiated for me. She became my armor when I had nothing left to wear but pain. She believed in this album before it existed, before I existed again. And I wouldn’t be standing here without her. Not as an artist. Not as a woman. Not as me."

Your voice cracked.

"This is our win, Rachel. You are my home. You’re the family I chose."

The camera caught Rachel whispering “I love you” as tears spilled down her cheeks, her eyes bright and shining, not with sadness, but with pride.

And the tears blurred the edges of the moment—every single person in that room was crying. Some quietly. Some not at all. But all of them, undone.

You blinked, a tear slipping down your cheek too.

"And finally..."

Your voice dropped into a hush that vibrated all the way to the back of the theater. Your fingers curled around the award like a lifeline.

And just for a moment—just a breath—you weren’t the most talked-about artist in the world. You weren’t the girl who just won eight Grammys and who millions and millions were watching live.

You were just a girl —still— in love.

"And if the main person who inspired this album is watching…”

A silence fell over the room like snowfall. Slow. Holy. Electric.

You took your time.

“I hope you know I made it through.”

Your voice cracked a little. Tears started flowing with more force.

“I hope you found your way back to yourself, wherever you are. I hope you’re safe. I hope you're not afraid of your own name anymore.”

You smiled then. Not for the cameras. Not for the crowd. 

For her.

 The kind of smile that knows everything it’s lost and still chooses to love.

“And I hope you know…” 

You inhaled, steadying yourself. 

“I will love you until the day I die. Always.”

A quiet gasp rippled through the crowd.

A collective intake of breath.

Behind you, the screen lit up—Supernova in white-hot letters. Galaxies and wreckage and rebirth. The cover pulsed like a living thing.

You turned to look at it. Then back to the crowd. And your voice rang out clear, with a kind of peace the world had never heard from you before.

“Because that’s what a supernova is.”

A pause.

“Two stars that collide.”

Applause thundered through the room like a tidal wave. The loudest applause you have ever heard. Rachel stood sobbing, clutching her heart like it might fly out of her chest. The cameras shook from the impact of the ovation.

But you?

You stood in the golden light, head held high, dark blue gown trailing behind you like smoke. Your hands steady. Your eyes wet.

Your name immortal.

Bathed in gold. Crowned in fire. Unfathomably alive.

And as the room rose to its feet, as the cameras clicked, as the world screamed your name—

you smiled again. And the world bowed.

And touring again wasn’t just a return. It was a reignition.

You didn’t come back to the stage out of obligation. You came back hungry, starved—for the lights, for the roar, for the electricity that only exists when you’re standing at the center of a world and it chants your name like gospel.

You rewrote the entire rulebook. Tore up the expectations. Took back the lights, the cameras, the narrative. You walked into rehearsals not as a product—but as a visionary. The choreographers didn’t lead, you did. The stylists followed your sketches. The tech team adjusted to your cues.

You weren’t the face of the machine anymore. You were the engine.

THE SUPERNOVA TOUR wasn’t just a tour—it was a world event. Every stadium was transformed. Not just staged, not just lit—rebuilt. Custom arenas. Traveling architecture. Immersive catwalks that extended into the crowd like light-years. Stages that moved, shifted shape, breathed. Ceilings filled with artificial stars. Laser rain that fell in sync with the beat.

People screamed. Fell to their knees. Passed out. Cried. It was more than spectacle. It was a mass. A shared fever dream.

You didn’t just dance—you commanded. 

And your voice?

Every note was a revelation. Every live performance better than the album version. You didn’t need tuning. You didn’t need tricks. You only needed air—and even that bent to you. The control, the power, the emotion—you could level a room with a whisper. Critics dropped their usual qualifiers. No “for pop.” No “for her age.” 

Just: the best voice in the industry. Full stop.

A once-in-a-generation voice in its prime.

But let's rewind to the first night.

Your 25th birthday.

Because yes, all of this happened in your early twenties.

Crazy, right?

So, the beginning of it all. Back on the stage after two years in a room. Michigan Stadium. One hundred thousand people. Sold out in less than ten minutes.

It was the most anticipated show in a decade. The largest stadium in the country pulsed like a living, breathing thing.

Backstage, the atmosphere buzzed like static. You could feel the weight of it in your chest. The stage manager called out cues. Dancers warmed up. Rachel checked her clipboard for the fifth time. Crew members whispered. Cameras readied.

But you stood just offstage, frozen.

Your chest tightened. Your breath thinned. Your palms sweat through silk gloves. The echo of two years ago crawled up your spine—the night you collapsed, the crowd watching while you crumbled. 

The headlines. The expectation. The fall. The shame. The humiliation.

You stepped backwards, towards the shadows.

And then—Rachel.

God bless that woman. At this point, you’re completely convinced she might be your personal angel—sent not with wings, but with patience and the uncanny ability of being the only one able to hold you together when you’re unraveling.

She found you, as she always did. Not with panic or urgency. But with knowing. She stepped in front of you and placed both hands on your shoulders, firm but gentle. Her forehead touched yours.

“Breathe,” she whispered. “You’re not her anymore.”

You blinked. Tears threatening.

“You’re not coming back to beg,” she said. “You’re walking out there to reign.”

You nodded. A tear slid down your cheek. She caught it before it could fall.

And then—

The lights dimmed.

The stadium screamed.

The first note of "Kill The Lights" began to hum—your heartbeat, engineered, trembling through the floor. The crowd felt it before they heard it. It crawled into their skin, a vibration in the bones, anticipation curling around every breath. Lights blinked in time with the rhythm, and the arena seemed to inhale all at once.

Then you rose. Literally.

The stage lifted, slow and reverent, and your silhouette appeared against a backdrop of stars so real it felt like the night sky had cracked open just for you. You stood there, light pouring over your figure like a coronation.

The crowd went feral. One hundred thousand voices screamed your name like it was holy. People cried. Cameras shook. Security lines blurred. Entire sections of the stadium pulsed with devotion.

And this time, there was no fear, no ghosts clinging to your shadow.

You sang like the planet had been waiting to hear your voice again, like something ancient had broken open and was pouring out of you, pure and unforgiving. You danced like gravity belonged to you, like every beat was orbiting your hips. You didn’t miss a breath. Didn’t break. Your voice carved through the air like velvet laced with glass—lush, sharp, unforgettable.

And when you finally slowed down, when the lights dimmed and the band hushed, the stage softened into something smaller, more intimate. You sat at the edge of the platform, guitar resting in your lap, crowd holding their collective breath.

And you sang the songs you wrote for her. The ones soaked in grief and memory. The ones no one else could ever fully understand but you.

"Bigger Than the Whole Sky" echoed into the night, and somewhere in the bridge your voice cracked. Just a little.

You looked up at the sky, blinking against the heat in your eyes, like maybe—just maybe—wherever she was, she could see you. That maybe Ellie was watching. That maybe the girl you still loved, the girl you still couldn’t stop writing about, was somewhere in the dark with her hand over her heart.

You whispered into the mic, "I'm okay."

The crowd screamed back,

“We love you!”

You smiled, small and real. “I love you too.”

You played "My Everything" on a baby grand with white lacquer that shimmered under the lights. And when you reached the verse that gutted you the most, you couldn't help it. The tear came. Quiet and clean, just one.

But it slid down your cheek as you sang, and the note trembled as the world held its breath.

Between songs, you knelt at the barricades. You reached for their hands. You took fan letters and tucked them into your boots. You harmonized with people sobbing in the front row.

You gave pieces of yourself away like confetti, and somehow, it made you more whole.

This wasn’t just a comeback tour. It was the performance of the decade. A cultural reset. A historical imprint. The kind of show people would talk about for the rest of their lives. Critics had no adjectives left. Fans tattooed your lyrics down their spines.

And by the time the last chorus of “No tears left to cry” exploded around you, by the time the final spotlight dimmed and you stood there, breathless and burning—you weren’t a popstar.

You were the Queen.

Undisputed. Untouchable.

And finally, unmistakably, home.

The tour had a rare break—eight whole days without a flight, a choreography run, or a stadium full of people screaming. Eight days of silence, of stillness, of the strange ache that comes after the fire.

And how did you choose to spend your sacred, golden downtime?

By agreeing—against your better judgment—to go to a football game with Rachel.

Not just any football game. The national championship. In a luxury suite at the Rose Bowl, no less. Your name on the guest list. 

Your face caught on the stadium cam five seconds after sitting down. Your tour jacket—SUPERNOVA stitched across the back in thread that shimmered—glinting under the floodlights. You smirked sharply and winked. The crowd erupted like they just saw Jesus.

You sat curled into a seat with a mojito in hand and sour candy tucked between your thighs. Rachel was next to you, heels kicked off somewhere under the seats, one hand wrapped around a tequila soda, the other holding a tub of popcorn like it was a baby.

The stadium pulsed with sound. It was chaos. Beautiful, American, screaming chaos.

“Okay,” Rachel said, “Admit it. You’re having fun.”

You raised your brows. “I’ve been here for twenty minutes and thirty girls have already tried to take a selfie with me.”

She shrugged. “Icon problems.”

You rolled your eyes and leaned forward just as the players emerged from the tunnel. The crowd exploded. Fireworks burst into the air. Marching band horns stabbed the night like glittering knives. And at the center of it all—

“Aaand there she is,”

Rachel said, elbowing you sharply.

“Miss Abby fucking Anderson.”

“Who?" You squinted. "Which one?”

“Girl. You live under a rock.”

“Try thirty-eight cities in four months.”

“Okay, fair. But that,” she said, pointing like she was unveiling a piece of art, “is Abby Anderson. Number 7. The quarterback of the moment. Six feet of pure lesbian chaos. Built like a Greek statue and allegedly makes girls see God.”

You looked.

And yeah. She was… fine.

More than fine.

Blonde under the helmet, jaw sharp, broad shoulders filling out the jersey like it was designed for a movie montage. And she had that look—composed, locked-in, calm in a way that made your pulse stutter.

“I mean, okay,” you muttered.

Rachel nearly dropped the popcorn. “Okay?! You’re looking at a panty-dropper in cleats and giving me ‘okay’? You need help.”

“I’m not trying to get tackled in the press again, thank you.”

“You haven’t even touched a woman since Ellie.”

Your lips parted. “Don’t—”

“Girl, two years. And a half.”

“I know.”

You looked away, cheeks heating—but it was already too late. The thought was a match, and your memory was all gasoline.

Because it was true.

You hadn’t touched anyone. No one touched you. Not since her.

And it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. Men and women alike lined up for a chance to sleep with you. 

It was because your body still belonged to someone who wasn’t coming back. You still remembered the way her fingertips dragged over your hipbones, the weight of her hand resting between your thighs like it had always been meant to fit there. You remembered her voice in the dark, breathy and low, the way she said your name like a secret no one else was allowed to know. The rasp of it against your jaw. The low groan when you bit her shoulder. The way she kissed you—possessive, unhurried, knowing.

You remembered her mouth.

The way she looked up at you from between your legs like you were the only thing in the world worth ruining her eyeliner for. The way she’d laugh when you begged. How she’d press her lips behind your knee. That little smirk she wore like a weapon.

Her scent still lingered. Sometimes. In your sheets. In your sweat. In the shirts you still hadn’t thrown out.

Her ghost lived under your skin.

And your body? It hadn’t forgotten. Not even for a second. 

So, no.

You hadn’t touched anyone since her.

“Your pussy is in hibernation. The spiders are webbing.”

“RACHEL.”

“I’m sorry, but the poor thing needs some action.”

You buried your face in your hands. “Why are you like this.”

“We talked about this like a million times. I’m tired of watching you cry about the same girl every night. I want you to have fun again.”

“I don’t know how to.” You shook your head. “I can’t even think about touching someone else.”

Rachel quieted. Her voice softened.

“Because you’re still in love with her.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to.

The screen above the field lit up suddenly, and before you could brace yourself, there you were. Big-screened. The crowd screamed again.

And down on the field, Abby Anderson looked up.

Saw you.

And tripped.

Rachel screamed. “OH MY GOD.”

“No she didn’t.”

“She DID! Replay that in your mind, bitch! The most famous quarterback in the world just ate turf because she saw you. The Queen of Pop has entered the building!”

You groaned and slumped in your seat. “You’re unbearable.”

She was already texting the group chat. “Girl. Be real. You haven’t had sex in two years and a half. That’s a federal crime.”

“I bought three vibrators last month!”

“Great. Maybe that dark purple one can bend you over and dirty talk you—since we both know that’s your favorite.”

And yeah, you both knew the exact reason why that one’s your favorite.

You nearly spit out your drink. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m just saying,” she continued, now in a whisper only for you, “A little one-night stand wouldn’t kill you.”

You shook your head. “I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

Rachel looked at you. Really looked. 

Past the jokes. Past the fame.

Past the perfect eyeliner and the platinum record sales.

“I know,” she said. “But maybe it’s time to try. You have every right to move on, because this isn’t good for you. you have to get over her someday.”

You just stayed silent and focused on the game.

And you didn't even realize how into the game you’d gotten until the fourth quarter hit, when Rachel had to physically pry the candy bag out of your clenched hand.

“Jesus,” she whispered. “You’re holding onto those sour patch kids like they’re rosary beads.”

But you couldn’t answer. You were too busy watching Abby.

Abby Anderson had just played the best game of the season. Of the year, probably. Maybe of her entire career. Three touchdown passes. One brutal breakaway run that made half the stadium leap to its feet. A fourth-quarter interception that changed the momentum of the game entirely—and ended with her launching the ball with precision so vicious, the announcers couldn’t even get the words out fast enough.

The girl was on fire.

The stadium was buzzing with it. Cameras lingered on her. Commentators said her name like they were in awe. The student section went feral every time she moved.

And still—every few minutes, every time the adrenaline ebbed just enough for her to breathe—she looked up at your suite.

Not a glance. Not a passing look.

She searched for you.

And when she found you, her face cracked into a smile like thunder breaking sky.

“She’s trying to impress you sooo bad,” Rachel murmured, practically vibrating beside you.

“She’s not,” you muttered, though your stomach flipped violently.

“She’s out there playing like she wants to fuck a Grammy winner. Which, if we’re being honest, is a pretty impressive life goal.”

You shoved her. “Stop.”

She raised her drink. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”

You tried to focus on the game again, but it was hopeless. All you could see was Abby—Abby snapping her helmet off between plays, face flushed, eyes burning. Abby wiping sweat off her jaw. Abby looking up at you like she was already winning something else.

The final buzzer sounded. The crowd exploded.

And her team won. Of course.

They swarmed the field, screaming, jumping, throwing helmets. Champagne bottles sprayed. Confetti cannons fired. Cameras flooded the turf. Reporters sprinted in heels. The screen overhead lit up with her face—smiling wide, eyes glinting, cheeks pink.

Rachel leaned in, whispering, “Okay, if you don’t ask for her number, I’m gonna.”

You didn't respond. You were in a trance.

Your name was still trending worldwide. The stadium still screamed your lyrics between plays. Your face had just been projected to seventy-five thousand people.

And everything started the night of the championship afterparty.

Abby found you in a rooftop lounge lit by champagne and expensive fog machines. The city glittered below. Music pulsed, and your name was passed between lips like a prophecy. You were in a black mini-dress, leaning against the balcony with a glass of wine you didn’t finish. 

She walked up behind you and said, “You looked bored.” You turned, eyebrow raised. She grinned, calm and sharp. “Thought I’d offer a distraction.”

And then she kissed you.

Hard. Clean. Like it was the only thing she’d wanted to do since spotting you on the game.

Her hands were huge. Steady. She kissed like someone who trained for it, like someone who played to win. You gasped into her mouth and she caught it with her tongue. 

Her hand gripped your hip like she’d done it a thousand times in her head. 

And you let her.

Because for one second, you wanted to forget. You wanted to give in.

You ended up at her hotel.

You don’t remember the elevator ride. You barely remember the door clicking shut. But you remember her mouth was on your throat. Her body pressing you into the mattress with that easy, practiced strength. You remember thinking—God, she’s strong. Strong and careful and good. So good. Her fingers moved with precision, her mouth everywhere you needed it. Her strap was deep, steady, relentless. She made you come twice, coaxed it out of you with murmured praise and quiet intensity, her palm warm against your stomach like she was anchoring you to the moment. And after, she kissed your shoulder, tucked the blanket up to your chin, and didn’t fall asleep until you did.

It should’ve been perfect.

Abby did everything right. She was steady hands and quiet warmth. She looked at you like you were something to be cherished. She made space for you. She kissed you like she meant it.

But the whole time, it felt like you were mouthing someone else’s lines. Like reciting a love poem in a language you’d only ever learned phonetically—beautiful, but not yours.

You couldn’t stop comparing.

Not out of cruelty, but instinct. Your body remembered a different kind of heat.

Because she was good. Better than good. She was present. She was gentle. She made you feel seen.

But she didn’t make you feel undone.

There was no spark. No chaos. No desperate, breathless hunger that left you trembling in the aftermath. No thunder in your chest. No fire behind your ribs.

Nothing lit on fire.

Still, you kept showing up. Let her hold your hand. Let her sleep beside you. Let her call it something close to love.

Because it was easy.

Because it didn’t hurt.

Because convincing yourself felt safer than being alone with the truth.

And maybe, if you said it enough times, if you pretended hard enough—one day it wouldn’t feel like pretending.

The headlines ate it up like wildfire. QUEEN OF POP DATING STAR QUARTERBACK. Pictures of you in sunglasses and oversized denim jackets sitting next to her courtside. Her hand on your thigh at brunch. Her arm around your waist walking into a gala.

You went to some of her games. Front row. Her jersey number burning your back. You cheered, clapped, smiled for the cameras.

The internet called you power lesbians. The world loved it.

Abby took you to restaurants with three Michelin stars. Private jets. Islands. She picked you up in a Ferrari after rehearsals. She brought you flowers so big they looked fake.

She was perfect. Too perfect.

This restaurant had no sign. Just a man in a tuxedo who opened the door like he’d been waiting for you all his life. Inside, it was all soft gold light and white-gloved service. Every dish looked like a painting. Every glass cost more than someone's rent. The tablecloth was actual silk. The menu didn’t have prices.

Abby looked unfairly good across from you—shirt unbuttoned just enough, blazer perfectly cut, smile easy, confident. She leaned back in her seat like she owned the place. And honestly, she probably did.

When the third course arrived—a tower of food so small it looked like a joke—Abby reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tiny velvet box.

“I saw this and thought of you,” she said, sliding it across the table.

Inside: a diamond necklace. Massive. Blinding.

You blinked.

“Abby, this is…wow. It’s gorgeous. Thank you.”

She shrugged like it was nothing. “I just wanted to spoil you.”

You opened your mouth to say something, but she was already shifting topics.

“You saw the game last night?” she asked, cutting into her dish. “That cornerback from Dallas tore her ACL. Brutal.”

“No, I didn’t catch it.”

“Man, you should’ve seen it. She went down hard. I mean, she’ll recover, but it’s career-altering.”

You nodded, stirring the sauce on your plate.

Abby kept talking. Stats, transfers, coaching decisions. Every few sentences, she’d drop a you’re so pretty when you’re quiet or that dress is killing me, and you’d laugh on cue.

You glanced at the necklace. At the wine. At her hand resting on the table, waiting for yours.

And then you noticed—

She hadn’t asked about your day. Not about what you were writing. Not how you were feeling.

Just sports. And how hot you looked. And diamond gifts you didn’t ask for.

The necklace around your neck was heavy—gold, oversized, nothing like you. Loud. Expensive. Thoughtless in its sparkle.

You remembered another necklace.

Platinum. Your birth stone. Understated. Designed just for you— two tiny initials woven together like they were bounded to eternity. Hers and yours. Ellie's.

It had arrived in a black velvet box with a note you still keep, her messy handwriting spelling:

"I know you don’t need anything to know I love you, but if you ever forget how much of me is yours, you can wear this. So you never have to wonder.

I will love you in every version of forever.

— E"

You wore it everyday until she left.

And suddenly, all you could feel was the space between her hand and yours — the silence screaming louder than anything she’d said all night.

And sometimes—when the room was quiet and her breathing even beside you—you thought, maybe I could fall in love with her.

But you never did.

That’s what destroyed you.

Because you liked her. You really liked her.

And still—your heart never settled. Never slowed. Never opened. 

Until one night, she held you afterwards, arm draped across your waist, and you realized you were crying.

Silently. Into the pillow.

Because all you could think about was Ellie.

Ellie, with her messy auburn hair and her tattooed arms and her sharp, beautiful green eyes. Ellie and her goddamn laugh—low and rough, like gravel and thunderstorms and freckles you traced a thousand times with your fingers, with your mouth, like you were trying to memorize the constellations written on her skin. Ellie, who made love to you like it was a language only the two of you spoke—like your body was a song she was born knowing. Ellie, loud and chaotic and funny and unapologetic and always leaving guitar picks in your shoes and lighters in your makeup bag. Ellie, who pulled you onstage during soundcheck just to kiss you in front of the crew, like it was a declaration, like it was defiance. Ellie, who wrote you more than twenty songs, some released, some unreleased, and swore every single one of them was your fault. Ellie, who said I love you with a Grammy in one hand and your heart in the other. Ellie, who you wrote two entire albums for, like bleeding out was the only way to survive loving her. Ellie, your greatest muse, your brightest spark, your most devastating collapse.

Ellie, who made you feel more alive than anyone ever had—or ever would.

Ellie, who left. 

The most intense love you’d ever known. And then—left.

And never reached out. Not once. Vanished like ash. No public sightings. No leaks. She left the band. She left you. She left everything.

And still, you loved her.

You hated that you loved her.

You hated that you remembered her voice in the shower. That you remembered the way her hand tangled with yours when you were nervous.

That you remembered every word she spoke that final night—the way her voice cracked on the edges, how the silence between sentences felt heavier than the ones she said. The sound of her boots retreating across the floor still echoed in your skull, sharp and final. The weightlessness of her body, slipping away. The hollowness of her eyes.

The coldness of her lips in that final kiss had etched itself into the very cells of your mouth—an imprint beneath the skin, a memory your body would never stop carrying.

How the ache in your chest turned unbearable when she said, “I will love you until the day that I die,” like it wasn’t a promise— but a farewell.

You hated that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t write a single song about Abby, but you could sit down and pour out ten songs about Ellie in a single breath, like she lived in your bloodstream, like the words had been waiting for you to stop pretending.

You hated that you had someone next to you in bed, and still—you slept with the ghost of someone else.

There was none of the wild, consuming heat that made you feel like loving Abby might kill you—but God, what a way to go. No hunger that clawed through your chest. No sense of ruin and worship tangled into one.

No love that made you forget who you were before it.

Ellie had been that.

She had been storms and screaming and things only the two of you would ever understand. She had set you on fire and you couldn't stop smelling smoke since. She had been Ellie fucking Williams.

It wasn’t Abby’s fault.

But the fact that she didn’t inspire you—not even a verse, not a melody, not a single chord that didn’t sound borrowed—was what made the realization hit harder than anything else ever had.

Because with Ellie, you and her hadn’t just been connected by feeling, or by fate, or by that magnetic force that made gravity feel heavier when she was near.

It was also music.

From the very beginning. Before the first “I love you.” Before the fall.

It was the language your hearts spoke when words weren’t enough. It was the quiet confession in a harmony you built without meaning to.

The song you wrote together before you even admitted what you felt for each other was a confession all on its own—every lyric of yours dripping with the ache of love you hadn’t said out loud yet, her guitar holding more truth than she was ready to face.

She had been your muse. And you had been hers. You were fire feeding fire, melody wrapped in melody. It was inexplicable. It was holy. It was the kind of connection that people search for their whole lives and never find, the kind of alchemy that doesn’t come twice.

Music didn’t just tie you together. It fused you. Deep and sacred and permanent.

And even in her absence, even in the silence, she was still shaping your life. Still sparking something in you. Still changing the way you moved through the world. Ellie didn’t need to be in the room to leave fingerprints on your voice.

Because if it hadn’t been for her, none of this would’ve happened.

You wouldn’t have written Supernova or Better Lies. You wouldn’t have clawed your way back from the wreckage. You wouldn’t have found your sound. Your truth. Your power. You’d probably still be performing dumb songs, smiling on cue, praying your sophomore album didn’t flop. You would’ve been a popstar with a beautiful voice but no direction—just another one-hit wonder, fading into dust.

But she made you want more. Be more.

Ellie had given you the kind of love that tears everything apart—and then dares you to build something greater from the rubble.

And in doing so, she gave you everything.

Even when she was gone.

Especially when she was gone.

So you kept mourning her.

In Abby’s shower. In the back of black SUVs. On the balcony of your hotel suite while Abby slept inside. On stages in front of thousands of people. In your lyrics. In your silence.

And every time you looked at Abby—doing everything right, being everything right—you hated yourself a little more for the way your heart still lived in the hands of a girl who never mouthed the word goodbye.

And all of this, takes us here.

Three years passed.

The room buzzed with soft laughter, the clink of ice in glasses, the kind of lazy joy that came with triumph. You were curled up on the velvet sectional, Rachel lounged beside you with a mimosa in one hand and a cheese cube skewered on a tiny sword in the other, looking obnoxiously pleased with herself. The rest of your team was scattered around the room—your stylist, your publicist, someone from the label, two assistants.

Everything was normal. Everything was okay.

You were scrolling through photos from your Vogue shoot when someone from the label looked up from her phone and laughed.

“Yo,” she said, grinning. “Someone finally took you out of the top spot.”

You didn’t look up. “Took them long enough.”

Rachel raised a brow. “Wait, what?”

“Kill the Lights,” the girl said, waving her phone. “You’re not number one anymore. Billboard updated.”

A chorus of groans and mock gasps rippled through the room. Rachel clutched her chest in fake horror.

“Our queen dethroned,” she said dramatically.

You laughed. “Alright, alright. Who is it? Who do I have to duel for my crown?”

Rachel was already grabbing her phone.

The room kept talking, jokes bouncing off walls, glasses refilling. You leaned back, sipping your drink, basking in the comfort of it all. And then—

Rachel went quiet.

You glanced over. Her smile was gone. Her whole body had stilled, like something ancient had just brushed past her skin.

You sat up. “Who is it?”

She didn’t move.

“Rach.”

She finally looked at you. And in twenty years, you’d still remember the look in her eyes—stunned, weightless, like the ground had opened beneath her feet.

She didn’t speak.

She just stood, slow and deliberate, as if any sudden movement might break something fragile in the air. She walked over, silent. Her face pale. Her phone shaking just slightly in her hand as she held it out to you.

You took it.

The Billboard Hot 100.

Freshly updated.

#2: KILL THE LIGHTS — You.

#1:

Your stomach turned.

Your breath caught halfway up your throat.

And when your eyes locked on the name, the rest of the universe vanished.

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

← 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 | 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟸 →

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࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ Damn… Collide Nation, are yall breathing...? I know this chapter might have felt intense — maybe even shocking or painfully raw. I just want to say I approached it with as much care and respect as I possibly could. I actually spent a lot of time researching the subject to make sure it felt grounded, realistic, and not exploitative in any way. This topic means a lot, and I wanted to do it justice.

And if you’re someone who’s sensitive to these themes: I really hope it didn’t reach you in a hurtful way. My DMs and inbox are always open if you need to talk. ♡