utopia

The script had called for London in the autumn. The director, a wildly eccentric British man, had insisted on authenticity. “None of that Hollywood backlot pissing about,” he’d declared in your first Zoom meeting. “I want the real damp, the real chill, the real, glorious grey of my city.”

And so, here you were. In London. For three months. Filming a romantic comedy where you played a cynical American bookstore owner who falls for her charmingly chaotic rival, played by none other than Milo Manheim. The irony was so thick you could have choked on it.

Just six months ago, your own love story had imploded in a spectacular, soul crushing fashion. You’d found out the man you thought you were building a life with was, in fact, building a second, secret life with someone else. The discovery had hollowed you out, leaving behind a bitter, guarded shell. You’d sworn off love, relationships, and men in general. You built walls around your heart so high and thick, you figured they were impenetrable. This job was supposed to be your escape. A new city, a new project, a fortress of solitude where you could lick your wounds and pretend you were fine.

Then you met Milo.

He was a hurricane of sunshine. A human exclamation point. On your first day at the table read, he’d bounced into the room before tripping over a chair leg, all while grinning like he’d just won the fucking lottery. He was loud, and funny, and so unbelievably, genuinely sweet that it set your teeth on edge. Your carefully constructed defenses went on high alert. He was a threat. 

A beautiful, big brown eyed, perpetually smiling threat to your misery.

You’d tried to keep it professional, you really had. But Milo was relentless. He’d learn your coffee order after the first day. He’d find obscure little bakeries near your hotel that sold the ridiculously specific pastries you’d once mentioned you liked. He’d make you laugh on set, proper, ugly, snorting laughter, until the makeup artists had to descend on you for touch ups. He slowly, methodically, and with absolutely no agenda other than his own innate kindness, began to dismantle your fortress brick by brick.

“Road trip tomorrow?” he’d asked one Friday after you’d wrapped for the week. “I wanna see the countryside. I’ll even brave the whole– you know.” He mimed driving on the wrong side of the car, his massive hands comically gripping an imaginary steering wheel.

You’d hesitated, every alarm bell in your body screaming danger. But you were also lonely and tired of your own company. “Fine,” you’d sighed. “Just– don’t kill us. Left side of the road, okay?”

“Got it,” he’d grinned.

And that’s how you found yourself in the passenger seat of a rented Range Rover the next day, speeding out of the city. It was one of those rare, perfect autumn days where the sun burned through the mist, turning the countryside gold and crimson. You were driving on the left side road, and it felt as wonderfully strange as everything else did around him. The air was cold enough that you’d stolen the massive, ridiculously soft navy blue hoodie he’d left in the back seat. It smelled like him; some clean, woodsy scent and a faint hint of the mints he was always chewing.

He glanced over at you, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “You’re pretty wearing my clothes,” he said, his voice a low, warm rumble over the sound of the engine.

Your breath hitched. It wasn’t a line. It wasn’t flirty or performative. It was just a fact he was stating, as easily as if he were commenting on the weather. You ducked your head, a blush creeping up your neck. You propped your feet up on the dashboard, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie down over your hands, a pathetic attempt to hide how much his simple words affected you.

You watched his hands on the gear stick. They were huge, with long, elegant fingers and neatly kept nails. Strong hands. Those hands that make hell seem freezing cold. But right now, resting lightly on the shifter, they looked gentle. He turned the radio up, humming along to some old rock song you didn’t know, his profile sharp against the passing scenery. 

He looks like a poem. A poem I wish I wrote, you thought, the sentiment so sharp and sudden it felt like a punch to the gut. You quickly pushed it away, burying it under a layer of well practiced cynicism.

Weeks bled into one another in a montage of filming, exploring, and laughing. Mostly laughing. Your friend from back home, Sarah, had called you out on it during a FaceTime call last week.

“So, how’s London?” she’d asked.

“Oh my God, it’s amazing. Milo and I found this incredible Indian place, and he tried to order the spiciest thing on the menu, and his face turned the color of a fucking tomato, it was hilarious. And then yesterday, he bought this ridiculous tweed flat cap because he said he wanted to ‘look more British,’ but he just looked like a giant paperboy. He’s been reading this collection of short stories by–”

Sarah had cut you off, a knowing smirk on her face. “God, you’re so boring and you’re so rude!” she’d teased. “Can’t have a conversation if it’s not all about Milo? What about you? How are you doing?”

You had faltered. How were you doing? 

You were.. happy. And the happiness was so deeply intertwined with him. The way he dresses, and the books he reads. It was all consuming.

“I’m good,” you’d finally mumbled, feeling your cheeks flush. “Really good.”

“Uh-huh,” Sarah had said, not buying it for a second. “You sound like you’re not getting much sleep.”

She was right about that, too. 

You really love your bed, but it’s hard to sleep when he’s with you. Not in a literal sense, not yet anyway. But he’d taken to knocking on the adjoining door between your hotel rooms late at night, holding up scripts. “Wanna run lines?” he’d ask, his hair all messy, a hopeful look in his puppy dog eyes. And you’d let him in, every single fucking time. You’d run lines for twenty minutes, and then you’d spend the next three, maybe five hours just talking. Talking about everything and nothing, stretched out on your couches, until the London skyline started to turn a pale, pearly grey. And after he’d leave, you’d lie in your bed, your mind buzzing, his laughter still echoing in the room, and sleep would feel like a waste of time.

Tonight was one of those nights. You’d had a grueling day on set, a big, emotional scene that had left you both drained. Your director had finally called a wrap around 10 PM., and instead of retreating to your respective rooms, Milo had nudged you.

“I’m starving. I saw a kebab place on the walk here. You in?”

You were ‘too tired’ to say no.

The twenty minute walk through Soho woke you up. It had just rained, and the streets were slick and black, reflecting the gaudy neon signs of the theaters and pubs. The air was cool and smelled of wet pavement, exhaust fumes, and fried onions. It felt alive.

The kebab shop was a tiny, fluorescent-lit hole in the wall, blasting music that must’ve been ten years out of date. The man behind the counter was a whirlwind of motion, his accent so thick and fast it was practically a different language.

“Alright, what can I get for ya?” he chirped, looking at Milo.

Milo, ever the confident American, stepped forward. “Hi! Uh, can I get one lamb doner, please? With, um– all the salads? And– is that chili sauce very spicy?”

The man rattled off a response so quickly you only caught about every third word. Something about “a proper kick” and “not for the faint of heart, sunshine.”

Milo’s face was a perfect mask of polite confusion. He blinked his big, brown eyes. “I’m– I’m so sorry, can you say that one more time?”

The guy repeated himself, even faster this time, gesturing with his tongs.

Milo leaned forward slightly, cupping his ear. “My– my apologies. The music is a little loud. One– one more time?”

And that’s when you snorted, which you then tried to disguise as a cough. But it was no use. A bubble of pure, unadulterated hilarity rose up in your chest and burst out of you. You were laughing. It was so stupid. It was just an accent. But seeing this giant, usually so poised actor look as lost as a tourist at Times Square, it was the funniest fucking thing you had ever seen.

You’re both just so American for London.

Milo looked from the exasperated kebab guy to you, his own confusion melting away as he saw the state you were in. A slow grin spread across his face, and then he was laughing too. He leaned against the counter for support, his whole body shaking with it.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, wiping a tear from your cheek. “Just– just get two of whatever he said and pay the man.”

He finally managed to complete the transaction, and you stumbled out of the shop and into the cool night air, clutching your warm, paper wrapped parcels. You huddled under the cheap neon sign of the shop next door, a blinking pink and blue disaster that bathed you both in an unearthly glow.

You took a huge bite of your kebab, the spicy sauce a welcome shock to your system. Milo was still chuckling beside you.

“That was brutal,” he said, shaking his head. “I genuinely had no fucking clue what he was saying.”

You started laughing again, a quieter, more breathless kind of laugh this time. He was looking at you, not at his food. The neon light caught the warmth in his eyes, turning them the color of rich, dark chocolate. He laughed at all your jokes. Even the ones that weren’t funny. Especially when the joke was on him.

He nudged your shoulder with his. “You’re so American,” he said, his voice soft, the words laced with an affection so potent it made your heart ache. “Your laugh. It’s so– loud.”

“Hey!” you protested, but there was no heat in it.

“No, it’s a good thing,” he insisted, his gaze so intense it felt like he was seeing straight through you. “It’s my favorite sound.”

Oh God, it’s just not fair of him. To say things like that. To look at you like that. To make you feel this fucking much.

And standing there, under the tacky neon lights on a damp London street, with the taste of cheap food in your mouth and the sound of his voice in your ears, you felt it happen. A gentle, silent surrender. The walls you had so painstakingly built around your broken heart, the ones you had sworn were permanent fixtures, just dissolved. They crumbled into dust and were washed away by the misty London air, leaving your heart exposed, and vulnerable, and beating so fucking hard you were sure he could hear it.

You felt a dizzying terrifying sense of freedom. 

You’d go anywhere that sweet dipshit goes. You’d follow him to the literal ends of the earth if he asked you to.

He was still smiling that stupid perfect smile. 

Oh God, you’re gonna marry him.

If he keeps this shit up, you might just marry the fuck out of him. If he keeps looking at you like you’re the only person in the world, and laughing at your stupid jokes, and making you feel this safe and this seen and this stupidly, incandescently happy.. you might just be in love.

The walk back to the hotel was different. The boisterous energy had settled more softer and intimate. The space between you crackled. As you crossed a quiet street, Milo’s hand found yours, his fingers lacing through yours like they were made to be there. His palm was warm and a little calloused, and it anchored you to the spinning world. He didn’t say anything, just held your hand, and it was enough.

When you got to your hotel room doors, he finally stopped and turned to face you. He still hadn’t let go of your hand.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice low. He’d seen the shift in you, the moment the laughter had died in your eyes and been replaced by something else. Something raw.

You nodded, your throat suddenly tight. “I’m more than okay.”

A small, knowing smile touched his lips. “I’m glad,” he said. “When we first got here.. you had this– look. Like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. I haven’t seen that look in a while.”

He was so perceptive it was unnerving. He reached up with his free hand and gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear, his thumb brushing against your cheek. The simple touch sent a jolt straight through you. The air thickened, buzzing with everything you both weren’t saying.

You took in the gentle curve of his smile, the kindness in his eyes, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead. A poem you wish you wrote.

He leaned in slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away. 

You didn’t. You couldn’t. You met him halfway, rising onto your toes as his lips met yours.

It was soft and sure. It was a question and an answer all at once. It tasted faintly of chili sauce and mint, and it tasted like coming home. It felt like the final brick of your fortress turning to sand.

When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, his breath warm on your skin. His brown eyes searched yours, full of a quiet, hopeful light.

You looked at this boy, this ridiculously wonderful, giant hearted, life altering boy, and the truth of it all settled deep in your bones, as solid and real as the ground beneath your feet. The fear was gone, replaced by a terrifying, exhilarating certainty.

But ain’t it love?

Fuck, you thought, a slow, stupid grin spreading across your own face. Think you’re in love.

marathon concept + all credits @/delilahsturniolo

The world had fractured the day Milo left. You remembered the look in his big, bright brown eyes, usually full of reckless joy, dimming to a polite, regretful grey. He stood there, a giant in your small apartment, and delivered the lines that would shatter your universe. “I just– I can’t do this anymore, Y/N. I’m sorry.”

Sorry? Sorry didn’t cover the six months that followed. Six months where your days blurred into an alcoholic haze, where your phone became a weapon you wielded against yourself, stalking his every move. And he moved. Oh, he fucking moved. While you were drowning in a sea of your own snot and tears, Milo Manheim was glowing. New film offers, a lead role in an indie darling, a cover spread on some major magazine, his laugh, that infectious sound you once adored ringing out from interviews. He was everywhere, inescapable. And then, the new girlfriend. A fucking model, of course. Tall, impossibly slender, with a smile that was undeniably sweet and not at all predatory, which somehow made it worse. You compared yourself to her every single goddamn day, picking apart your own perceived flaws, convinced you were not enough, never had been, never would be.

You disappeared. From your friends, from industry events, from even your own damned apartment for days, opting for the shadowed corner of some dive bar, pretending the burning in your throat was just the cheap whiskey, not the choked back sobs. Your friends tried. God, they tried. They hauled you out of bed, forced food down your throat, and listened to the same broken record of your grief. “He’s not worth it, Y/N.” “You’re so much better than this.” “It’ll get easier, I promise.” You’d just nod, numb, and wonder what the hell was wrong with you that you couldn’t just snap out of it.

Then, one morning, six months and three weeks later, you woke up. Not with a jolt of panic, not with the familiar crushing weight on your chest, but slowly, gently, as if surfacing from a deep, dreamless sleep. You sat up straight in bed, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, the air felt light. The crushing emptiness was gone, replaced by.. nothing. Just quiet, peaceful blankness. You hadn't felt that hopeful since the day Milo left, and it felt nice. So nice. Almost alien.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed, the ache in your joints suddenly absent. You walked to the window, pulled back the curtains, and blinked at the sunlight streaming in. It didn't feel like a spotlight exposing your misery, but like a warm, welcoming embrace. Everybody told you it would happen in time. The fire would burn out and all the storm clouds would subside. And you always believed that it was some comforting lie, a platitude offered to soften the blow, but here you were, breathing deeply, feeling a genuine, unforced lightness. It felt nice, so nice.

You were half yourself without Milo, a fragmented shell of the person you once were. Now, as you stretched, hearing a satisfying crack in your spine, you felt so complete. The jagged edges had smoothed, the cracks had filled, and the missing piece wasn't missing anymore. You couldn't even remember what made you lose all that sleep, the endless nights staring at the ceiling, replaying conversations, dissecting every word. It seemed so distant, so irrelevant now. You cried a million rivers for him, entire fucking oceans, but that's suddenly somehow over now. Milo's just a stranger. 

A stranger whose laugh you could still conjure, whose scent you could almost recall, but, still, a stranger nonetheless. The intimate knowledge once a bond, now just a bizarre, archived file in your brain.

You made a pot of coffee, the rich aroma filling your small kitchen. As you poured yourself a cup, the steam curling around your face, you thought of all the pathetic, desperate things you did to try and win Milo's love back. The late night texts you never sent, the accidental "bump-ins" you orchestrated, the way you’d dressed up for grocery store runs just in case you saw him. How did that happen? You couldn't imagine ever doing all that stuff for just some guy. He's just some guy! Milo Manheim, the once-all-consuming sun of your universe, had shrunk to a manageable, insignificant star in your periphery.

And surprisingly, you didn't feel bitter. You felt an odd sense of detached wellbeing for him. You hoped that Milo's happy, surely he knows you really do. No malice, no lingering resentment. Just a quiet, genuine wish for his contentment, separate from your own. And God knows that you are the girl you are because of him. He broke you, yes, but in the shattering, you found a strength you never knew you possessed, a resilience forged in the fires of despair. Losing him forced you to find yourself. Milo knows you'll always think of him, you'll love him until the end of time, he is the best thing that you'll ever keep so far out of your life! A paradox, a truth that could only exist in the messy aftermath of a love that was once everything. He was a monumental chapter, a foundational experience, and one you'd never regret, even if it nearly destroyed you. But the book was closed. Firmly, irrevocably shut.

There's nothing left for you to know, you had to stay, Milo had to go. It was a simple, brutal fact you finally understood. And it was mean, the way he left, the way he seemed to thrive while you withered, but it doesn't matter anymore, though. The sting had faded to a dull throb, a scar instead of an open wound. There's nothing left for you to sing, no more mournful ballads for a lost love. You screamed, you cried, you did the whole thing. The catharsis was complete. And you loved Milo mad, more than you thought possible, with a fierceness that swallowed you whole, but it doesn't matter anymore. It just didn't.

The weeks that followed were a whirlwind of activity, a vibrant, major contrast to the stagnant months before. Your agent, who had patiently endured your radio silence, was thrilled. “Y/N, you’re back!” she’d shrieked, practically vibrating with excitement. “I knew you’d find your fire again! Just look at you!” And you did. You looked in the mirror and saw yourself, truly saw her, for the first time in ages. The dark circles gone, the hollows filled, a genuine sparkle in your eyes.

Roles started pouring in. A gritty drama, a witty rom-com, even a voice over for a major animation studio. You embraced them all, throwing yourself into the work with a passion that felt exhilaratingly new. You were networking again, laughing genuinely with directors, connecting with fellow actors. You were glowing, truly glowing, the kind that came from within, from a sense of accomplishment and self worth, not from the approval of someone else. You walked red carpets with a confidence that made heads turn, your smile genuine, your eyes bright. Posing for the cameras, you felt a surge of pride, a quiet triumph. Look at me now, motherfucker.

Then came the Hollywood Awards. You were nominated for Best Supporting Actress, a role you’d poured your heart into during your resurgence. The night glittered with a thousand stars, the air thick with anticipation and the buzz of a thousand conversations. You wore a dress that shimmered like liquid moonlight, feeling beautiful, powerful, completely at ease. Your friends were by your side, their faces beaming with pride.

“You look absolutely radiant, Y/N,” one of them said, squeezing your arm. “Seriously, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you just invented the word ‘glow-up’.”

You laughed, a genuine, joyful sound. “Stop, you guys. I’m just happy to be here.”

“Happy and about to win an award,” the other chimed in, clinking her champagne glass against yours. 

You spent an hour chatting with big name directors, laughing easily with producers, exchanging compliments with fellow actors. The whole room felt like a warm, supportive embrace. You were on top of the world, feeling deservedly proud, enjoying every goddamn second. You were laughing with a legendary director, his booming voice filling the air, your head thrown back, a picture of pure, unadulterated joy.

And then, your eyes, almost against your will, somehow found Milo’s.

He was across the vast ballroom, near the stage, surrounded by a small cluster of people. Time, sound, everything seemed to warp and slow. Your laugh died in your throat, a quiet, shameful gasp. You never thought you would’ve seen him again. Not here, not now, not when you were finally whole.

He was just as you remembered, but somehow even more vibrant. His brown hair was styled perfectly, catching the light. His stupidly tall frame was draped in a tailored suit that probably cost more than your first car. He was animated, talking with his hands, his head tilted back in that familiar way when he was really engaging with someone.

And then you saw her. Standing next to him, her hand casually linked with his, a soft, intimate gesture that spoke volumes. The model. Impossibly beautiful, her smile sweet. She looked up at him, her eyes adoring, and he looked down at her, his lips curving into that soft, tender smile, the one he used to save just for you. The one that used to make your fucking stomach flip.

Suddenly, all your confidence disappeared, evaporating like smoke in a harsh wind. The glow you’d cultivated, the inner peace you’d fought so hard for, it all shattered into a million tiny, sharp pieces. They both looked so happy. 

So effortlessly, perfectly, fucking happy.

A wave of nausea washed over you. All your carefully constructed walls crumbled. Because you knew everything about that stranger. You knew his favourite colour, a ridiculous and specific shade of blue he insisted on. You knew his dreams, to direct a gritty drama someday, not just act alongside Disney forever. You knew how he would look at you, how his eyes would crinkle at the corners when you made him genuinely laugh, how they would soften with a possessive, loving gaze when he thought no one else was looking. You knew the small scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood bike accident, the way he chewed on his lip when he was concentrating, the exact temperature he liked his shower water. All those intimate, cherished details, now just footnotes in the life of a man who was no longer yours.

Your breath hitched. Your friend noticed, his brow furrowing. “Y/N? You okay?”

You couldn’t speak. Your eyes were still fixed on Milo, on them. He reached out, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, a gesture so tender, so familiar, so utterly devastating. It was a fucking punch to the gut. The world tilted on its axis again, and you felt that familiar, heavy weight starting to press down on your chest.

“I– I just,” you finally stammered, forcing a shaky smile. “I need some air. I’m feeling a little– overwhelmed.”

“But the show’s about to start!” Your friend protested, looking concerned. “Your category is next!”

“I know,” you whispered, trying to sound normal, trying to ignore the way your hands were starting to tremble. “I just– I can’t right now. I’ll be back. Just– five minutes.”

You didn’t go back. You mumbled hasty goodbyes, leaving both your friends confused and worried. You made your way through the throng of people, a frantic energy propelling you forward, a desperate need to escape the suffocating closeness of the room, of him. You found yourself outside, hailing the first available cab, ignoring the confused glances of the doormen.

You rasped your address, pulling your shimmering dress around you like a shroud.

You stared out the window, the city lights a blur. The tears started then, hot and stinging, blurring everything to hell. All that work, all that fucking pain you’d endured, all the progress you thought you’d made; gone. Poof. Just like that, because of one goddamn glance across a crowded room.

You slammed the cab door shut when you got home, not bothering to pay attention to where you were. You kicked off your heels, the expensive gown pooling around your ankles, and stumbled straight to the liquor cabinet. You poured yourself a generous glass of whiskey; neat, no ice, no pretensions. It burned going down, a familiar, comforting burn. You downed it, poured another, and another.

The liquid courage, or rather, the desperate numbing, washed over you. You threw your phone across the room, watched it bounce harmlessly off the bed. You didn't want to see anything, hear anything, feel anything. You just wanted to disappear again.

Later, much later, the world a hazy, spinning mess, you were in the shower. You stood under the spray, the water hot against your skin, trying to wash away the lingering image of him, of them. You scrubbed at your skin as if you could erase the memory of his touch, his laugh, and his fucking smile.

The water turned. Slowly, impossibly, it turned to the exact same temperature as his body. That perfect, specific warmth you knew so intimately, the way he always set the shower when you were together. The heat that would surround you as you pressed your body against his, his arms around your waist, the steam clouding the small shower stall, making everything feel safe, intimate, yours.

A guttural sob ripped from your throat. Your knees buckled, and you sank to the shower floor, the water pounding against your scalp, mixing with your tears. Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck everything. You weren't over him. You were never going to be over him. He wasn't just some stranger. He was Milo. Your Milo. The wound, deep and raw, had just been ripped open all over again. Your glow was gone, replaced by the all too well suffocating darkness. You knew, with a chilling certainty, that you were going to drown for him all over again.

Milo mentioned her on a Tuesday night. It was pathetic, really. It wasn’t a romantic moment, it wasn’t even a big story. You were sprawled on the couch in Milo’s ridiculously comfortable, oversized grey hoodie, sharing a lukewarm bowl of pho you’d ordered in. He was trying to explain the history of a specific prop used in a show he was in, going off on a characteristic, energetic tangent.

“Yeah, I mean– the original director wanted to use that specific kind of, like, textured metallic paint, and I remember talking about it at the time,” Milo said, gesticulating wildly with his chopsticks. “It was before the second episode. My ex was trying to pull the same thing on the set of one of her movies— she was super meticulous about props, too.”

‘She’. Who is she?

He said it the way someone mentions a former neighbor or an old high school teacher. Completely devoid of feeling, devoid of weight. Just a casual, necessary detail in the anecdote. He didn't even look up from the bowl.

But you looked up. You felt the warmth drain out of your chest, replaced by a cold, sharp certainty that the easy contentment you’d been feeling for the last six months, the kind of genuine, messy, comfortable love Milo offered; was a fragile, temporary thing built on quicksand.

You swallowed the rubbery piece of beef in your mouth. "Oh," you managed, your voice flat. "Yeah? Who was that again?"

Milo finally caught your gaze, his brown eyes warm and guileless. "Oh, uh– Charlotte. Charlotte Hayes. She was on that big Netflix show, you know? Blonde, crazy talented." He nudged your knee playfully. "Don't worry, she's like– a walking billboard for All-American perfection. The total opposite of myself."

He laughed, moving on instantly to the metallic paint texture.

But the name, Charlotte Hayes, had already taken root, a parasitic bloom in the soft soil of your insecurity. Blonde. Crazy talented. All-American perfection.

You had known Milo had serious relationships before you. Duh. He was full of pure, golden-retriever charm, funny as hell, and successful. But in the mental ledger of your relationship, the exes were supposed to be shadowy, vague figures— not goddesses with recognizable IMDB pages.

"She sounds..." you trailed off, trying for casualness. "Successful."

"Yeah, she's doing great. We haven't talked in forever. It was a long time ago, Y/N." He brushed the topic aside with an easy wave of his hand, oblivious that he hadn't just mentioned an ex; he’d opened a portal to your personal hell.

That night, after Milo fell asleep face down, snoring softly, radiating the careless trust that made you adore and fear him; you didn't sleep.

You reached for your phone.

Anthropological research, you told yourself. Just a quick peek.

Charlotte Hayes. Jesus, even her name was perfect.

The search results didn't just confirm Milo’s description; they magnified it into dazzling, painful focus. She wasn't just blonde; she was sun drenched. She wasn't just beautiful; she was the kind of woman who looked air brushed even in candid-paparazzi taken airport photos. Her Instagram page was a curated masterpiece of sophistication; stunning premiere gowns, humanitarian work in Africa, candid laughter with other young Hollywood deities.

You scrolled for two hours.

The first pang of jealousy was a dull ache. The second was an insistent, pounding headache.

Oh God, she's beautiful.

Milo had said she was "a walking billboard for All-American perfection." He hadn't been exaggerating. Her smile was blinding. She had those full, perfect lips and a figure; those legendary hips, that looked like they belonged on a Botticelli cover.

You found an article from 2019 about the "It Couple's Summer Romance," featuring a photo of Milo looking younger and utterly besotted, his arm wrapped around Charlotte’s impossibly slender waist. In the picture, they were laughing, sharing an ice cream cone on a beach. They looked like two golden retrievers in love. Pure, uncomplicated joy.

You compared yourself. Your hair suddenly seemed duller, your hips were the wrong shape, your career was far less glittering. You felt cheapened. Like a dimmer second act.

This was fucking ridiculous. You knew it was ridiculous. You were in bed with Milo Manheim, the man who adored every fucking thing about you. He loved you. But your obsession became narcotic.

The next day, the stalking deepened. Instagram wasn't enough. You moved to YouTube. You needed context.

You found old interviews. Charlotte was articulate, witty, and managed to talk about serious issues while still sounding charmingly self-deprecating. You learned she was talented, she’d just won an award for an indie drama. She was good with kids, there was a segment of her volunteering at a children’s hospital, utterly genuine, giggling whilst playing with small children, all clinging to her.

There was a snippet from one of her interviews you’d seen where Charlotte was asked about Milo post breakup. She had simply smiled and said, "Milo is a deeply good person. I wish him all the best." No drama. No shade. Pure, dignified grace. She even speaks kindly about you. 

That politeness infuriated you more than any catty comment ever could. It meant she had truly moved on and was truly happy, cementing her as the superior, evolutionarily advanced model.

You found a fan thread that someone had kept alive for years. Here, in the cesspool of fan speculation, you struck gold, or rather, toxic sludge.

Charlotte Hayes is a Leo, Sun in Virgo. Her foundation palette is custom mixed. She donated a massive sum to a local animal shelter. She prefers Argentinian Malbec.

You internalized it all. You knew her star sign. You knew her blood type (A positive, thanks to a deeply weird forum post referencing a charity blood drive photo). You had seen every movie she had been in, often pausing the screen to try and find signs of the flaws Milo must have eventually seen.

You found none. That son of a goddess bitch was fucking flawless.

The slow unraveling started to impact your actual time with Milo.

He tried to plan a romantic weekend getaway up the coast. "We could get a little cabin, just relax, watch movies," he suggested, his arm lazily draped around your shoulders as you were supposedly watching a basketball game.

"Wait, the coast?" you asked, your voice tightening despite yourself.

"Yeah. Big Sur, maybe. Why?"

You remembered a paparazzi image of Charlotte and Milo from four years ago, laughing on a cliff edge in Big Sur. A photo you had saved to a burner folder on your desktop labeled C.H.

"No. Absolutely not," you snapped, pulling away.

"Whoa, okay. What the hell? What’s wrong with Big Sur?" Milo turned, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"It’s just– cliche, Milo. Fuckin’ everyone goes there. Can’t we be original for once?"

"We are original! We're us! What, do you want to rent a yurt in the desert? What’s the big deal, Y/N?" He sounded genuinely hurt.

You couldn't tell him, I can’t go to Big Sur because I know, based on extensive geological research of grainy Instagram photos, that Charlotte’s perfect feet have trod on those exact rocks, and I can almost feel her presence mocking my mediocrity.

"It doesn’t matter! Just pick somewhere else!" you yelled, standing up and slamming your beer bottle down a little too hard on the coffee table.

Milo stared at you, his mouth slightly open. "Jesus Christ. Fine. We’ll go to, I don’t fuckin’ know– Utah. I don't know what the fuck that was, but fine."

The tension started to permeate the air in the apartment. You were perpetually cranky, perpetually withdrawn, and always on your phone when he wasn’t looking, comparing your current life to her ghost life.

You started analyzing the furniture.

Milo had this massive, ridiculously plush velvet throw blanket that he swore was necessary for his nap efficiency. You often shared it.

One evening, while folding laundry, you picked it up and felt a sudden wave of icy revulsion.

She had slept here. She's been asleep on your side of your bed, and you can feel it.

You threw the blanket onto the floor as if it were contaminated.

Milo walked in, wearing only boxers, rubbing sleep from his eye. "Hey, what’s up? Why’s the throw on the ground? Did Louie puke?"

"No," you said through gritted teeth. "I just– I hate this fucking thing, it’s ugly."

"Ugly? You literally stole this from me last week because you were cold! What the hell is going on with you, Y/N? You’re so stressed out lately."

"Nothing’s going on!" you lied, hugging your arms tight. "I just have a bad taste in blankets, I guess. Go back to sleep, Milo."

"No, I’m not going back to sleep. Tell me what I did! Is it the work schedule? Are you mad I missed dinner Monday?" He was leaning in, trying to connect, his hands reaching for yours.

You flinched away. "I’m fine. Just leave it! You’re so fucking dense sometimes!"

You saw the hurt flicker across his face, but he retreated. He didn't understand the internal calculus: that if you accepted comfort from him, you were accepting the comfort he had once offered her.

The worst part was the fear that he occasionally confused you. You two were physically different, sure, but you knew the mechanism of attachment was slippery.

One morning, you were rushing out the door. Milo reached out and grabbed your wrist, pulling you back for a sloppy goodbye kiss.

"Love you, Char," he mumbled sleepily into your ear, his eyes still closed.

Your entire body went rigid. The blood froze in your veins.

He pulled back, smiling, finally opening his eyes. "Hey, babe. Have a good day."

"What did you just call me?" you demanded, unable to modulate the terror and rage in your voice.

Milo looked genuinely confused. "Uh… babe? Did I say something weird?"

"No. Before that. You called me… Char. Short for Charlotte."

His smile evaporated. He looked stunned, his brain rapidly trying to process the gap between his reality and yours. "No, I didn’t. Are you serious? I said babe. I call you babe."

"Don’t you fucking lie to me, Milo! You just called me Char! You miss her so much you can’t even keep our names straight, can you?" You were shaking now, tears of pure, molten jealousy blurring your vision.

"Y/N! Stop! That is insane! I swear on my life, I did not call you that! Why would you even think that? We broke up four fuckin’ years ago! We don't even talk!" He was defensive now, leaning back against the doorframe.

"Because she’s perfect, Milo! She’s got those fuckin’ lips, she’s the life of every fucking party, she’s talented, and she’s good with kids! And I bet she was easy going, huh? Not controlling? Well-traveled? Well-read? God, she makes me so fuckin’ upset!" The words were torrent, hysterical and uncontrolled.

Milo just watched you, his previous confusion deepening into a look of genuine alarm. "I don't know what you're talking about, Y/N. You are those things. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met! Why are you pulling up the past?"

"Because the past is better than the present, isn’t it?" you spat, wiping furiously at your eyes. "Tell me the truth, Milo. Is she friends with your friends? Does she text them?"

"She’s friendly with a few people, yeah. Why does that matter?"

"And was she good in bed?" The question was out before you could stop it, sharp, ugly, and humiliating.

Milo’s jaw hardened. He took a heavy breath, running a hand through his perpetually messy brown hair. "That is not fair. That is my personal life from before you, and it is absolutely none of your business. But more importantly, I don’t think about her, Y/N. I think about you. I think about our future. Why are you so obsessed with her?"

"I'm not fucking obsessed!" you screamed, although the absolute mountain of evidence on your laptop screens said otherwise.

"Then why do you know so much about her? Why are you this panicked? This is insane, Y/N!"

You stormed out of the apartment, the argument unresolved, the past of Charlotte Hayes standing triumphantly between you both.

Two weeks later, Milo was preparing for a press junket, rushing around the apartment gathering notes and scripts. He was muttering about a difficult scene he had to discuss later that day, a scene involving a character who finds out a deep, personal secret about a loved one.

"I just can't get the motivation for the reveal right," he sighed, dropping his script onto the kitchen counter. "It needs to feel earned, not just dramatic."

You were making coffee, your hands trembling slightly, an occupational hazard of running on 20% sleep and 80% jealousy.

"Well, you know," you started, trying to sound helpful and casual, "she always said that when you work a reveal, the emotional stakes are always higher when the secret involves a fundamental incompatibility, like a food allergy."

Milo looked up, frowning. "A food allergy? What the hell are you talking about?"

"No, I mean, remember how she couldn’t have gluten?" The words were out. They slipped out like small, deadly vipers.

Milo froze. He put down the pen he was holding. The silence in the kitchen was instantly dense and stifling.

"Wait," Milo said, very slowly, his voice dropping an octave, becoming dangerously quiet. "Who are you talking about?"

You nervously stirred your coffee, watching the cream swirl. "I– I don't know. Just actors in general."

"Bullshit, Y/N. Charlotte is severely gluten intolerant. She got sick once on a press trip to Italy because of it. And you wouldn't know that. That’s a detail from years ago. A detail I maybe mentioned once- actually maybe not at all. How the fuck do you know about her gluten allergy?"

Your throat closed up. There was no casual lie, no easy retreat. This was the precipice.

"I’m fine, it doesn’t matter," you whispered, trying to push past him.

Milo blocked your way, his tall frame suddenly formidable and angry. His face was a mask of disbelief and hurt.

"No. It fucking matters. You have been acting like a psycho for a month. You know her star sign? You’ve been asking my friends weird questions about her? You knew about the Big Sur trip! Did you look through my old texts? Are you going through my social media, Y/N?"

"No!" The denial was weak and reedy.

"Then how, Y/N? How do you know such specific, deep cut trivia about a woman I dated half a decade ago if you aren’t completely, pathologically obsessed?"

"Because she’s better than me, Milo! Because she’s everything you deserve! And every time you look at me, I know you’re thinking about the blonde, perfect version of the girl you should be with!" you screamed, the pent up anguish of weeks finally detonating.

"I’ve seen her movies, I’ve read her interviews, I know she’s sweet and kind and funny and she doesn’t throw massive, irrational temper tantrums over blankets and fucking Big Sur!" You were sobbing now, ugly, wracking sounds. "I know her resume, I know her habits, and I know that you loved her! And I’m staring at her like I wanna get hurt, and I can’t stop! I can’t stop reminding myself that she was asleep on my side of this bed before I was!"

Milo didn't shout back. He just stared at you with a mixture of pity and terror. The terror of realizing the person he loved was drowning in a self inflicted, toxic fantasy.

"Y/N," he said, the name sounding heavy and burdened. "You are researching her blood type. You are researching her blood type. This is not normal jealousy. This is sick."

"I know it is! I know it's crazy! But I can’t help it, I have issues, I can’t help it!"

"Do you really think I mistake you for her? I love you! I chose you! Do you think I’m walking around here wishing I was still with her? She doesn’t even exist to me anymore!" He rubbed his temples, overwhelmed. "We were over four years ago! We broke up because we were incompatible, not because she was perfect! She was controlling, she was high maintenance, and she treated my friends like paid staff, Y/N! You are so easy going, you are so loving, you are everything that was missing in that relationship! Why are you trying to turn yourself into her?"

"I just– I just need to know! I need to know the official story!"

"The official story is that the relationship was over, and you are here now!" Milo stepped back, putting distance between you. He looked devastated, not just angry, but deeply wounded by the lack of trust. "I am telling you, Y/N. I love you. And the fact that you think I'm constantly comparing you to her, or that I called you her name, or that I regret this– it’s an insult. It’s a massive slap in the face to everything we have built."

He grabbed his script, his eyes wet but clear. "I have to go to work. I have to go pretend to be a functional human being. But when I come back, we need to talk about this, because I can’t be with someone who is constantly digging up shit from the past and weaponizing it against herself."

He stopped at the door, turning back for a moment. His voice was low and raw.

"I don't think you're in love with Charlotte, Y/N, but I think you're destroying us both by making her your fucking project. Get off the internet. Please. Just– just fuckin’ stop."

And then he left, the door clicking shut quietly, leaving you alone in the suddenly vast silence of the apartment, standing over the spilled fantasy of that perfect, Hollywood-smiling, blonde actress. You still, and probably always will, have her star sign memorized.

The bright lights of the deserted Split River High hallway casted a sickly fluorescent bright white glow on the lockers that had remained unchanged for decades. You leaned against one, the metal cold against your skin, and watched Wally. He was, as always it seemed like, tracing the faded lines of a football play diagram etched into the corkboard by the gym entrance. His brown hair, forever perfectly tousled, caught the light. He was forever an 18-year-old boy, forever full of life, and forever perpetually on the cusp of tomorrow. Except his tomorrow never came.

“You still trying to figure out how to beat that next school, Wally?" you asked, your voice a soft echo in the empty space. You'd been asking some variation of this question for.. well, forever. Time was a blur here. Time was a cruel joke.

He turned, that bright, boyish smile flashing, the one that made every parent, teacher, and cheerleader in Split River swoon. His brown eyes, usually crinkling with mischief, were focused, intense. “Just thinking, Y/N. The coach might’ve had something here. If we’d just shifted the tight end a little wider on that second down..” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to some far off phantom memory, distant for a split second before snapping back to you, bright and present. “You know, I swear I can still feel the turf under my cleats sometimes. The roar of the crowd.”

You nodded, an ache settling in your chest. You knew. You felt it too, sometimes; the ghost of a touch, a scent, or a sensation from a life long gone. But for Wally, it was different. For him, the sensation was a constant reminder of the moment he’d been stolen from, eternally replaying the lead up to September 30, 1983. His big homecoming game. The tackle. The sickening crack that had echoed across the field and through eternity.

Wally Clark was the teenage dream. Forever trapped in the golden of his youth. To the living, he was a legend, whispered about by generations of Split River High students. Of course he was. He was named after the football field, after all. "Wally Clark, the best quarterback Split River ever had." "Great for his age," they’d say, not realizing the heartbreaking truth behind that compliment. He’d always be great for his age, because he’d never get to age past it. He never got to grow. Never got to fall apart and piece himself back together. Never got to evolve past people’s idea of him.

You watched him now, humming a tune that probably hadn't been popular since the early 80s, the brunette leaning casually against the corkboard. He was still the energetic, bubbly, endlessly talkative boy you’d fallen for, even in this damned afterlife. But the edges of that boyish charm were fraying, worn thin by decades of relentless stasis. 

“Come on,” you said, pushing off the locker. “Let’s go to the auditorium. I heard a new group of drama kids are performing Grease for a spring show. Might be fun to watch.”

His face lit up, a genuine, unburdened smile. “Oh, hell yeah! Danny Zuko is a legend. Always wanted to try out for that role if I wasn’t, you know,” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Busy with football. And, uh– dead.”

You caught his hand, your ghostly fingers intertwining with his. His touch was cold, always cold, but familiar. It was the only warmth you had left. “You’d have been a great Danny Zuko, Wally.”

He chuckled, a sound that briefly chased away the shadow in his eyes.

You drifted through the silent, empty corridors, the school a mausoleum of memories. Every year, new faces would fill these halls, new laughter would echo, new dramas would unfold. But for you and Wally and all the other ghosts stuck in the afterlife, where your world stayed the same while generation after generation swapped out. You saw the living, oblivious, walking straight through your forms, and you heard their conversations fade in and out like radio static. They called Wally a legend, oblivious to the fact that the legend himself was still here, eavesdropping on their reverence, suffocating under its weight.

Sometimes, you’d sneak into the library and read the yearbooks. You’d find Wally’s face, frozen in time, on every page from ’81, ’82, ’83. Photos of him grinning, yearbook quotes filled with promises of a bright future; "To all my boys on the team, we're going all the way!" or "See you at the big leagues!" It was hard to look at them, to feel the crushing weight of those unfulfilled dreams. You’d sometimes catch him staring at them too, a distant, haunted look in his eyes that he quickly masked if he sensed you watching.

One afternoon, you found him on the empty football field, lying on the turf, throwing the ball up in the air then catching it. His movements were fluid, powerful, still holding the athleticism that had once defined him even after all these decades. His eyes were filled with a profound sadness.

“What are you thinking about?” you asked, your voice soft, sitting next to him.

He caught the ball, tucking it against his chest. “Just– the NFL. My dad always said I had a shot. A real shot. Said I had the arm and the drive and the talent. Said I could do anything.” He sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of decades. “Funny, isn’t it? I can do anything. Except grow old. Except leave this fuckin’ place.”

You leaned back to lie beside him, your shoulder brushing his. “It sucks, Wally. I know it does.”

He laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that made your own spectral insides ache. “Sucks? Sucks is when you miss a field goal. Sucks is getting grounded for sneaking out. Sucks is not having your entire future ripped out from under you because your fucking neck snapped like a twig on a Friday night in front of everyone you ever knew.” His voice, usually so bright, so full of youthful exuberance, was laced with a raw, guttural pain you rarely heard from him. The usual bubbly facade crumbled, revealing the agony beneath.

“Wally,” you started, reaching for his hand, but he pulled away, his spectral fingers clenching into fists.

“No, Y/N. Don’t. Don’t tell me it’ll be okay. Don’t tell me I’m still a legend. I’m a fucking museum exhibit! I’m the ‘good old days’ for people who weren’t even born when I died. I’m the 'greatest what-if' in Split River history, and I hate it. I fucking hate it. Shit, I hate it so much.” His voice cracked, a sound that tore at your very core, and he turned away, taking in the battered goalposts and the trampled turf, haunted by the memory of kids who got to grow up while he stayed frozen at eighteen.

You watched him, helpless. This was the Wally people didn't see. The Wally who wasn't smiling for the camera, wasn't charming the new batch of living students, and wasn't endlessly reminiscing about a game that solidified his legend. This was the Wally who was trapped– screaming inside a prison of perpetual youth. The kind boy you loved was still there, but he was slowly being devoured by the unchanging nature of his existence.

“I just want to know what it feels like,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, thick with unshed tears. “To have a bad day. A really bad day, Y/N, and then wake up the next morning and know it’s over. To know I can still change. I can still learn something new that actually matters. I can fail. I can fall apart. I can grow a fucking beard, for Christ’s sake!” He ran a spectral hand over his eternally smooth jaw, a gesture of profound frustration. “I want to be able to look in a mirror and not see the same goddamn kid who died almost forty years ago.”

“You do change, Wally,” you tried, weakly, knowing full well it was a desperate lie. “You’ve learned so much. You’ve seen so much.”

He scoffed. “I’ve seen the same building, and walls, and classroom for forty fuckin’ years, Y/N. I’ve watched Grease performed a dozen times. I’ve seen this school renovated, then renovated again. I’ve seen kids come and go, grow up, have their own kids who then come here. They grow. They live. I just– exist. I’m a fucking echo in a tomb. And you’re stuck here with me.”

That last part hit you hard. You were stuck, too. But your story was different. You hadn’t been a legend. You hadn’t had a future so brightly imagined, so violently severed. You died here too, yes, but quietly, without the fanfare, without the constant reminder of what you could have been, or had a building named after you. Your death was a tragedy, his was an epic, a public spectacle frozen in amber.

You shifted over to him, wrapping your arms around his waist, your head resting on his chest. You held him tighter, wishing your embrace could somehow warm his desolate soul. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck anywhere else, as long as I’m stuck with you.”

He leaned into your embrace, his breath warm as he sighed against your hair, a sound of profound exhaustion. “You’re a fucking liar, Y/N. You deserve so much more than this. We both do.”

The cruelest part was homecoming. Every year, as the crisp autumn air rolled in, the school would start to buzz with preparations. The banners, the dance decorations, the pep rallies. And the football games. Wally would become almost frantic. He’d pace the deserted fields at night, his energy crackling around him, a ghost of his former self itching to play, to live. He'd watch the current team practice with an intensity that burned, a silent judge, eternally stuck in the prime of his own unmatchable skill.

This particular year, the anniversary was especially painful. It was September 30th. Forty years. Forty years since he’d taken his last breath on this very field.

You found him on the 50 yard line, standing alone under the harsh stadium lights that the living had already turned off for the night. The field was empty, silent, but you could almost hear the roar of the crowd, the thud of the pads, the frantic calls. The past was thicker here, almost tangible.

“Wally?” you called out.

He didn’t turn. He just stood there, his back to you, his shoulders slumped in a way you rarely saw. His athletic, once unbreakable frame seemed to sag under an invisible weight. “Forty years, Y/N,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual spark, a dull monotone that terrified you. “Forty fucking years. And it feels like yesterday.”

You walked out to him, the phantom grass crunching under your feet. “I know, Wally. I’m here.”

“Do you know what the worst fuckin’ part is?” he asked, finally turning, his eyes red rimmed and distant, glassy with unshed tears. “It’s not missing the future. It’s not even missing my family, though fuck, I miss them with every fucking particle of my being. It’s– it’s the expectation. From everyone. Even from me. I’m supposed to be happy, Y/N. I’m supposed to be the smiling, talented star. The eternal optimist. The one who makes everyone feel good about this fucking school. And I have to keep smiling. I have to keep being that kid because that’s all I am. That’s all I ever can be.”

He threw his hands up, a gesture of profound despair. “I see the alumni come back. They point to the sign at the football field with my name on it. They talk about the good old days and how I was the epitome of them. They romanticize me, Y/N. They romanticize my fuckin’ death. They talk about how I went out on top– how I’ll always be young and beautiful. But they don’t get it. They don’t fucking get it. They don’t know it’s a fucking curse. A fucking eternal punishment.”

A sob tore through him, a raw, guttural sound that ripped through your own spectral form. He stumbled, collapsing onto the phantom turf, burying his face in his hands. His broad shoulders shook, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, you saw Wally Clark, the invincible quarterback, completely broken, and completely undone.

“I just want to stop,” he choked out, his voice muffled by his hands. “I want to stop being this kid. I want to stop having to pretend. I want to just– fall apart. For real. And then get back up, maybe, as someone else. As an adult who finally knows what the fuck they’re doing. As a man who’s lived, and who’s made mistakes, and who’s healed. But I can't. I can never heal. I’m stuck in this– wound, Y/N. Forever.”

You knelt beside him. All you could do was wrap your arms around him, feeling like your touch was offering no real comfort, only presence. A silent acknowledgment of his unbearable suffering.

“I see them,” he continued, his voice thick with tears, muffled words that were laced with bile. “The kids who graduate. The ones who come back years later, with their wives and husbands and kids. They’ve got lines around their eyes, a little grey in their hair. They’ve got stories. Real stories. Not just the same fucking memory of a single football game. They’ve lived entire fucking lives out there. And I’m still here. Still a goddamn teenager. Still talking about the same goddamn plays, the same goddamn homecoming game. It’s sickening. It’s nauseating. It’s an insult to everything I ever wanted!”

He pulled away from you, pushing himself up to his knees, his brown eyes, usually so full of life and warmth, now filled with a crushing despair, an emptiness that chilled you. “I used to love this school, Y/N. I used to love this field. Now– now it’s my tomb– it’s fuckin’ named after me. It’s my cage. And I’m an exhibit, eternally young, eternally full of promise, and eternally smiling. But I hate it. I hate this fucking smile.”

He stood up, towering over you, his form shimmering uncontrolled emotion under the moonlight, a hurricane of grief and rage confined within his unaging skin. “I don’t have my life ahead of me, Y/N. I have this. This loop. This endless loop of being ‘the best quarterback Split River ever had.’ I’m permanently stuck in the years everyone else tells me to ‘enjoy.’ But how the fuck am I supposed to enjoy forever, when forever  basically just the same fucking day repeating itself?”

You stood too, reaching for his face, letting your fingers trace the lines of anguish etched there, the tears that blurred his vision. “Oh, Wally,” you whispered, your own heart shattering into a million pieces, mirroring his desolate pain. “Wally..”

He leaned into your touch, his eyes closing, a single tear, cold and spectral, tracing a path down his cheek. “I just want to be forgotten, Y/N. I want to be able to fade. To finally be at peace. But I can’t. This school won’t let me. My legend won’t let me. And I’m so fucking tired. I’m so goddamn tired of being Wally Clark, the teenage dream.”

You pulled him into another embrace, holding him tightly. You knew this feeling, this profound weariness. You were both stuck, but his burden was heavier, gilded in false glory. You couldn't offer him release, only solidarity. Only a constant, unwavering presence in his endless, unchanging nightmare.

You pressed your face into his shoulder, tasting the salty phantom tears on his skin. "I'm here, Wally," you murmured into his ear, a promise as eternal and as desolate as their shared existence. "I'm always here. We'll be tired together. We'll be stuck together. Forever."

Inevitably, everyone would still forever immortalise Wally Clark, the boy who never got to grow up, the legend who just wanted to fade, forever trapped in the heartbreaking lie of the teenage dream. And you knew, with a certainty that chilled you to your core, that this was your life and your eternity. A beautiful, devastating, unending agony. And it would never change.

 It was the Class of ‘84’s fortieth reunion, held in the gym, where the noise was a dull, persistent roar, a wave of sound that washed over you without ever truly touching you. It was the sound of the living. Laughter that was too loud, music from a decade you barely knew, the squeak of sensible shoes on the polished wood floors. You stood with Wally near the bleachers, two silent, shimmering figures in a sea of solid, aging bodies. 

You watched them, these strangers with familiar last names printed on their sticky tags. They were wrinkled and graying, their high school physiques softened by four decades of life, of mortgages and children and divorces and joy. They pointed at each other, shrieking with recognition, hugging bodies that had changed beyond recognition. Wally was quiet beside you, his form radiating a familiar, restless energy. He was forever eighteen, forever clad in his faded sweatpants and the Split River High letterman jacket he's stuck with for eternity. He didn’t belong to these people anymore, but a part of him would always be tethered to them.

“Jesus, is that Billy Jensen?” Wally muttered, his voice a low hum only you could hear. “He’s bald. Like, cue-ball bald. He used to spend forty five minutes on his hair every morning. I timed him once in the locker room.”

You managed a weak smile, your gaze drifting from the bald man doing a clumsy version of the robot to the ghostly boy beside you. “Time’s a bitch, I guess.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, the joke falling flat between you. Forty years for them. An eternity of the same day for him.

You nudged his arm, a gesture that sent a faint, cool tingle through your own. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. This is depressing as hell.”

He nodded, and you both drifted out of the loud, warm gymnasium and into the familiar, silent halls of the school. The lockers, freshly painted but still dented in the same places, stood like silent witnesses. This was your world, these empty corridors your eternity.

Down the main hall, they had set up a ‘memory lane,’ a series of corkboards covered in faded photographs and yellowed newspaper clippings. You both stopped in front of it, drawn by an invisible string. There were pictures of pep rallies, proms, and football games. And there, right in the center, was the Class of ‘84’s graduation composite. Row after row of smiling, hopeful faces, frozen in time.

Your eyes found him instantly. Walter ‘Wally’ Clark.

The photograph was perfect. Of course it was. His dark brown hair was feathered back flawlessly, not a single strand out of place. His smile was dazzling, a flash of perfect white teeth that reached his warm, brown eyes. He looked tan, healthy, the very picture of the all-American boy who had it all. Best on the football field, homecoming king, the guy every girl wanted and every other guy wanted to be.

“God, look at you,” you said, a genuine laugh bubbling up. It felt good to laugh, to break the heavy silence. “So fucking perfect. Bet it was so easy to look like that back then. No effort at all, just rolled out of bed a fucking teen heartthrob.”

You expected him to laugh with you, to preen a little, to make a self deprecating joke about the sheer amount of hairspray it took to achieve that look. But he didn’t. The playful energy that always surrounded him seemed to dim, to retract into itself. He stared at the picture, at the smiling boy who wore his face, and his expression was one you rarely saw: a hollow, aching sadness.

“Easy?” he finally whispered, his voice rough. “Y/N– I fuckin’ hated myself back then.”

The air went still. His words hung between you, sharp and cold. You looked from the photograph to his face, searching for the joke. There wasn’t one.

“What are you talking about?” you asked softly. “Wally, you were– you were perfect. Everyone thought so.”

“Yeah, that was the whole fucking problem,” he said, his gaze locked on the picture. “It was all a lie. I spent every goddamn second of every day hating what I saw in the mirror. Hating myself.”

A memory suddenly broke through the surface of his grief.

1982.

The bathroom mirror was fogged from his shower. Wally, seventeen and alive, wiped a clear circle with the heel of his hand. His heart was still hammering from his morning run, a five mile punishment for the slice of pizza he’d eaten the night before. He leaned in close, his breath ghosting on the glass. His eyes, critical and unforgiving, scanned his own face.

There. Right there. The bridge of his nose had a tiny, almost imperceptible bump from when he’d broken it during a game. No one else ever noticed it. But to him, it was a mountain, a glaring imperfection that ruined the whole landscape of his face. His jaw wasn’t as sharp as Tom Cruise’s. His chin had a weird shadow under it in certain lighting. There’s always something missing, a nasty little voice whispered in his head. There’s always something in the mirror that he thinks looks wrong.

“Wally! You’re gonna be late!” his mom’s voice called from downstairs.

“Coming!” he yelled back, his voice bright and cheerful. He forced a smile at the stranger in the mirror. It was a good smile. He’d practiced it. Wide, easy, convincing. He grabbed the hairspray, slicking his hair back, forcing the cowlick near his crown into submission. Another battle won. But he knew, with a certainty that settled like lead in his gut, that he would never, ever win the war.

You looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time, you could see the faint cracks in the cheerful facade he’d maintained even in death.

“I, uh– I had no idea,” you breathed, your own spectral heart aching for him.

“Nobody did,” he said, a bitter laugh escaping him. “That was the point. I looked around and everyone else seemed to have it all figured out. Billy Jensen and his perfect hair, Mark Peterson and his clear skin– everybody’s keepin’ it up, so I thought it must be me.”

He finally tore his eyes away from the photo and looked at you. The pain in his brown eyes was so raw, so deep, it was like looking into an open wound.

“I started skipping lunch my junior year,” he confessed, the words spilling out of him now, a dam breaking after forty years. “I’d tell the guys I had to study in the library or meet with a teacher. Sometimes I’d just sit in a bathroom stall until the bell rang, my stomach screaming. It was easier than sitting there, watching them eat, feeling their eyes on me if I took a fry.”

Another wave of his memory crashed over him, where it was his seventeenth birthday. The whole team was at his house, his backyard filled with rowdy, laughing teenagers. His mom brought out the cake, a giant sheet cake from the bakery with a badly rendered football on it. ‘Happy Birthday, Wally!’ was written in blue icing.

Everyone sang. He smiled, blew out the candles, and made a wish. He wished he could just eat the fucking cake without a war erupting in his head. He wished he could be normal.

His mom cut him the first, biggest piece. He took it with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Mom. Looks great.”

He held the plate, the smell of sugar and frosting making his stomach clench with a mixture of desire and disgust. He carried it around, taking a fake bite here and there when people were looking, smearing the frosting around with his fork to make it look like he was eating.

“Not hungry, Clark?” his teammate, Dave, asked, his own mouth full of cake.

Wally laughed, a perfect, easy sound. “Nah, man. Gotta watch my weight for the season, you know? Coach would kill me.”

Dave nodded, accepting it without a second thought. Of course. Wally Clark, the dedicated captain. Always disciplined. Wally smiled until his cheeks hurt, and when no one was looking, he scraped the entire slice of cake into the trash can behind the garage, his heart pounding with shame and a sick sort of triumph.

You reached out, your fingers grazing his arm. An empty, useless gesture. You couldn’t fix it. All you could do was listen.

“Wally, why didn’t you tell someone? Your parents? Your friends?”

“And say what?” he scoffed, the sound sharp and brittle. “They would’ve thought I was a freak. Or worse, that I was ungrateful. I had a good life. I had no right to feel that way.”

He paced in front of the memory board, a caged, restless energy crackling around him.

“I even went to the doctor,” he said, his voice dropping. “Told him I was having trouble sleeping before big games. So much pressure, you know? He bought it. Gave me a new prescription to try and stay calm. Little white pills. They didn’t make me hate myself any less. They just– quieted the panic a little. Made it easier to put the mask on in the morning.”

The mask. The smiling boy in the photograph. The bubbly, energetic ghost you fell in love with. It was all a performance, honed by years of practice. You felt a profound, heartbreaking sadness wash over you. The tragedy wasn’t just that he died so young. It was that he’d never really lived at all. He’d been a ghost long before his neck snapped on that football field.

“I tried to fix it,” he continued, his voice strained. “God, I tried so hard. I’d run until I threw up. I’d do a hundred sit-ups every night before bed, praying for abs to magically appear. I’d fix one thing, and my brain would just find another. I’d lose five pounds, and suddenly all I could see was how my ears stuck out. I’d get a compliment on my smile, and I’d spend the next hour obsessing over the one tooth that was slightly crooked. It never ended. I’d fix the things I hated and I’d still feel so insecure.”

He stopped pacing and stood before you, his spectral form seeming to waver.

“And I try to ignore it, even now,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I try to be the happy go lucky Wally everyone remembers. The guy who tells jokes and doesn’t have a care in the world. But sometimes– sometimes I’ll catch my reflection in the dark glass of a classroom window, and it’s all still there. The hate. The feeling that something is wrong with me. After forty years of being dead, it’s still everything I see.”

Tears shed burned behind your eyes. All the moments you’d spent with him, all the laughter and the quiet conversations in the dead of night, replayed in your mind, now cast in a different, tragic light. Every time he’d deflected a compliment, every time he’d gotten quiet for a moment before snapping back with a joke— it hadn’t been modesty. It had been pain.

You moved to stand in front of him, forcing him to look at you and to see you.

“You are not broken,” you said, your voice fierce with a love and anger that felt solid and real. “You never were. They were the broken ones, this whole fucking world was, for making you feel like you had to be perfect. For making a teenage boy feel like he wasn’t enough.”

You looked back at the photograph on the wall. The smiling, perfect boy. It was a lie. A beautiful, tragic, soul crushing lie. You hated that picture. You hated what it represented— a cage he had built for himself and that everyone else had helped lock.

“I wish I had been there,” you said softly, the futile words tasting like ash. “I wish I had known you then. I would have told you every single day. I would have made you listen.”

He looked at you, and for the first time that night, the deeply etched pain in his face softened, replaced by a vulnerable, shimmering grief.

“I know,” he whispered.

The silence in your bedroom was a physical thing, like a heavy blanket smothering the fuck out of you. It had been two months since you’d ended it, two months of this goddamn suffocating quiet. Ryan Baker wasn’t good for you, and you knew it. You knew it with the certainty of knowing the sun would rise, but that fact did absolutely nothing to soothe the aching chasm in your chest.

You had met him in the summer, a whirlwind of sun soaked hair, a cocky grin, and the smell of chlorine and cheap beer. He was all heat and energy, a human bonfire you couldn't resist getting closer to, even knowing you’d get burned. And you did. You left him in the spring, when the last of the winter chill had faded and the toxicity of your relationship had finally bloomed into something undeniable.

You both argued about everything. Fucking everything. The music in the car, where to get pizza, the way you looked at the cashier. He had an ego the size of Plymouth High’s football field times five, a temper that could flash from zero to a hundred over a misplaced remote, and a wandering eye that was practically a fucking twitch. You’d catch it, that subtle flick of his gaze to the waitress or the girl in the ridiculously short shorts, and your stomach would plummet.

But God, he was so much fun. When he was good, he was incandescent. He had such weird friends, a collection of misfits and burnouts and future CEOs who all orbited him like he was their sun. He would take you out to parties where the night would never end. It was always another song, another club, another bar, another dance, a dizzying carousel of neon lights and thumping bass that made you feel like the main character in a movie you’d be too embarrassed to admit you loved.

You flopped back onto your pillows, the memory so vivid you could almost feel the phantom vibration of a subwoofer in your bones. He’d pull you close, his tall frame a fortress around you on the dance floor, his brown eyes sparkling with a mischief that was just for you. And when he said something wrong, which was often, he'd just buy you something expensive. A stupid, thoughtless fight would end with a new pair of earrings in a velvet box on your passenger seat the next day. A necklace to apologize for a comment that had cut you to the quick. It was his fucked up love language, a transactional apology that you, embarrassingly, accepted every single time.

So yeah, you missed him some nights when you're feeling depressed, like tonight. The loneliness was a sharp, physical pain. You missed the weight of his arm over you in bed and maybe even his messy energy he brought into your life. The silence was deafening because he had been so loud.

Until you remember every time he made a pass on your friend.

You sat bolt upright, the warmth of the memory instantly replaced by a familiar, icy rage. Yulia– your best friend. At Gaby’s bonfire, he’d cornered her by the keg while you were in the bathroom. "You know, Y/N's great," he'd slurred, leaning in way too close, "but you've got this– fire. I like fire." Yulia had pushed him off and told you immediately, her face a mask of disgust and pity for you.

When you’d confronted him, his face had twisted not with guilt, but with indignation. "What the fuck are you talking about? I was just joking around with her. Jesus, you're always trippin'." He told you you were tripping. He’d said it with such conviction, such dismissive annoyance, that for a terrifying second, you’d almost believed him. That was his superpower– making you feel insane for reacting to his bullshit.

Do you love him? Do you hate him? It's up and down. A fucking emotional seesaw. One minute you were scrolling through old photos, your finger tracing the outline of his stupid, annoyingly handsome face. The next you were fantasizing about running into him with your car.

Tonight, the seesaw was tipping hard. You wanted him back. Shit, you were pathetic. You wanted to make him really jealous, wanna make him feel bad enough to come crawling back to your door. You wanted to see that crack in his composure, that flicker of panic in his eyes that told you he’d made a colossal mistake. You wanna get him back.

Because then again, you really fucking miss him and it makes you real sad.

You grabbed your laptop, the screen a harsh white light in the darkness. You opened a blank document, the cursor blinking, waiting. You started typing. You wrote him all these letters before deleting them. You wrote about the summer, about the first time he’d kissed you behind the bleachers, how his hand felt in yours. You missed the way he kissed and the way he made you laugh, that big, stupid, booming laugh that could make you forget you were mad at him. You poured your little heart out, every messy, contradictory feeling spilling onto the page.

Ryan, I hate you. I fucking hate you for what you did to me, for how you made me feel so small. You said I was the only girl, but that just wasn't the truth, was it? You were a liar. A beautiful, charming, fucking liar. You hurt me, and when I told you how he hurt you, you acted like I was the crazy one. But I miss you. I miss your stupid jokes and the way you’d grab my hand in the middle of a movie. I miss driving around at night with you, listening to your shitty music. I miss your friends. I miss the chaos. My life is so quiet without you. Maybe we could

You stopped, finger hovering over the keyboard. What? Maybe you could what? Try again? Let him break your heart a second time? As you’re hitting "save"— you pictured all the faces of your disappointed friends. Yulia’s look of betrayal. Jess’s weary sigh. They had held you while you cried, they had listed all of his unforgivable sins, they had celebrated when you finally found the strength to walk away. Going back would be a slap in their faces. You slammed the laptop shut.

But you are my father's daughter. Your dad always said that to you, a reminder of your own strength, your own resilience. He’d taught you how to change a tire, how to stand up for yourself, how to never let anyone make you feel less than. So maybe you could fix him. The thought was intoxicating, a dangerous little spark of hope. Maybe you were the one who could sand down his rough edges, who could teach him how to be a better man.

You wanted sweet revenge but at the same time you wanted him again. The two desires weren’t separate; they were tangled together, a poisonous vine with a beautiful flower at its very end. You needed to get his attention. A text wouldn’t do it. A phone call? He’d ignore it. You needed something loud. Something he couldn’t ignore.

The thoughts came in a chaotic flood. You wanna key his car. You wanna make him lunch. The whiplash was dizzying. One thought was pure vengeance, the other pure domesticity. You wanna break his heart, then be the one to stitch it up. You wanted to be both the wound and the medicine. You wanna kiss his face, with an uppercut. Yes. That was it exactly. A violent, passionate, completely fucked up contradiction. You wanna meet his mom, just to tell her her son fucking sucks.

An idea began to form, a terrible, brilliant, absolutely insane idea. An idea that perfectly encapsulated every single one of your conflicting emotions. It was a plan that involved both the key and the lunch, the uppercut and the kiss. You grabbed your own car keys from the hook by the door.

The streets of your suburban town were dead quiet at two in the morning. Your headlights cut through the darkness as you drove towards his house, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. This was crazy. This was felony level crazy. But you couldn't stop.

You parked a block away and walked, the cool night air doing nothing to calm your nerves. His stupidly expensive black Mustang was sitting right there in the driveway, gleaming under a streetlight like a monument to his father’s money. It was his pride and joy. He washed it every weekend, bitched and bitched if a bird so much as looked at it, and you knew, with absolute certainty, that damaging it was the quickest way to get his undivided attention.

You pulled the spare key to your own house from your pocket. The serrated edge felt cold and wicked in your hand. You took a deep, shaky breath, glancing around. The houses were dark, the street was empty. It was just you and the Mustang.

You pressed the tip of the key against the passenger side door. The first sound, the initial screech of metal on metal, was so loud it made you flinch. It was a violent, ugly sound. You dragged the key along the length of the car, from the front fender all the way to the back, carving a deep, silver scar into the perfect black paint. It felt both horrible and incredible. A release. A primal scream became silent and permanent.

Adrenaline surged through you. You stared at the jagged line, your handiwork. It was ugly. It was real. You had done it. Panic started to bubble up in your throat. What the fuck did you just do? You turned and ran, not stopping until you were safely back in your car, peeling away from the curb with your heart trying to beat its way out of your chest.

You didn’t sleep. You just lay in bed, replaying the sound of the key on the paint over and over again, the thrill souring into a thick paste of dread and anticipation.

Your phone buzzed at 7:15 AM. It was him. A string of texts.

Ryan: WHAT THE FUCK

Ryan: DID YOU FUCKING KEY MY CAR

Ryan: ISWEAR TO GOD

Ryan: IF THIS WAS U UR FUCKING DEAD

Ryan: PICK UP YOUR FUCKING PHONE

You ignored them. Part two of the plan was about to begin. You needed to do this face to face.

You saw him before he saw you. He was standing by his locker, surrounded by his friends, but he wasn't laughing or joking. He was vibrating with rage, his face dark, his hands clenched into fists. He was telling them, you could see it, pointing in the direction of the student parking lot.

You took a breath, and walked right up to the group. The chatter died instantly. All eyes were on you. Ryan’s head snapped in your direction, and his brown eyes were practically black with fury.

“You,” he seethed, taking a step towards you. His friends tensed.

“I did it.” you said, your voice surprisingly steady. You looked him right in the eye.

A stunned silence fell over the hallway. Even Ryan seemed thrown. He’d expected a fight, a denial, a screaming match. He hadn’t expected a calm, simple confession.

“You– what?” he stammered, his rage momentarily short circuiting.

“I keyed your car,” you said, louder this time, so his little audience could hear. “And I’m going to pay to get it fixed.”

That really threw him. His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Why the fuck would you do that?” he finally managed to get out, his voice a low growl.

“Because you’re an asshole, Ryan,” you said, and the words felt good, clean. “You broke my heart, you lied to me, you flirted with my best friend and then you had the nerve to tell me I was tripping when I called you on your shit.”

“This is about the bonfire? That was months ago! It was nothing!” he shot back, his temper flaring again. “You’re fucking insane. Completely psycho.”

“No,” you said, taking a step closer, lowering your voice so only he could hear. “I’m not insane. I’m just fucking hurt. And angry. And I wanted you to feel a fraction of how shitty you made me feel. I wanted to break something you loved. And now,” you took another breath, delivering the final piece of your insane plan, “I’m going to be the one to fix it. I’ll get another job, I’ll pay for the whole damn thing. Every cent.”

He stared at you, his face a war of conflicting emotions. Anger, confusion, and something else you couldn’t quite name. Maybe, just maybe, it was a flicker of respect. You hadn’t just cried, you hadn’t just disappeared. You had done something dramatic and destructive and were now taking responsibility for it like an adult. You were just as chaotic as he was.

“I don’t let people treat me like shit. But I also clean up my own messes.” you added, the words feeling powerful on your tongue. 

He was silent for a long time, just searching your face. The warning bell for first period shrieked, and his friends started to shuffle away, muttering. It was just the two of you now, in the crowded, noisy hallway that suddenly felt completely empty.

Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet, all the bluster gone. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”

It wasn’t a compliment, but it wasn’t an insult either. It was just a statement of fact.

“So,” you said, pressing your advantage. “After school. You, me. We’ll go get an estimate from the body shop.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking exhausted. He looked at the long, ugly scratch you’d pictured in your mind. Then he looked back at you. A slow, reluctant nod. “Fine. After school.”

He turned and walked away without another word, leaving you standing by his locker, your heart doing a strange fucking stutter step in your chest.

It had worked. You had broken his heart, or at least his prized possession— and now you were going to be the one to stitch it up. You had keyed his car. And tomorrow, maybe, you’d offer to make him lunch. The seesaw was still moving, up and down, up and down.

But what about the disappointed faces of your friends?

marathon concept + all credits @/delilahsturniolo

The silence of Split River High was a language you had learned to speak fluently. It was a language of dust motes dancing in phantom sunbeams through the library windows, of the low hum from the spectral glow of the vending machines in the cafeteria, of the hollow echo of a footstep that made no sound. You’d been here so long, the memories of your own life, your own death, had faded into a dull blur. You were a ghost of a ghost.

And then there was Wally. Wally Clark was the opposite of silence. He was a cacophony, a roaring bonfire in the desolate quiet of your shared purgatory. When you first met, a decade after your own end, his energy had been a lifeline. He was forever eighteen, trapped in the memory of his own glory; the star football player, the homecoming king, the boy with the world at his feet until a single, brutal tackle snapped it all away. 

September 30, 1983. He never let you forget the date.

His boisterous laugh had filled the empty gymnasium, his endless stories of a life brimming with potential had colored the gray monotony of yours. He was purely solid, spectral charm, with brown eyes that still held the spark of a Friday night football game and a smile that could have convinced the devil to take up prayer. In the crushing loneliness of eternity, he wasn't just a comfort; he was the entire world. He’d taught you how to laugh again. He’d held your cold hands until he warmed them and promised you weren’t alone.

You fell in love with a memory. A beautiful, vibrant, and ultimately, a dying memory.

The change was gradual, a slow poisoning you didn’t notice until the venom was already in your veins. It started with little things. A flicker of annoyance in his eyes when you couldn't recall a detail from one of his often repeated stories. A sharp edge to his voice when you wanted to sit in the quiet of the theater instead of watching him kick footballs on the football field for the millionth time.

“God, you’re so morose sometimes,” he’d said one evening, the sky outside perpetually stuck in a bruised twilight. You were by the lockers, tracing the dents.

“I’m just quiet, Wally,” you’d replied softly.

“It’s the same fucking thing,” he’d scoffed, his form shimmering with agitation. “It’s like you enjoy being miserable. You drag everything down. Do you know how hard it is to stay positive in this shithole? And you’re just– this black hole of sadness. It’s exhausting.”

You’d felt a prickle of hurt, a phantom sensation for a heart that no longer beat. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” He’d stepped closer, his height looming over you. “You never want to do anything fun. You just want to float around and brood. It’s always about what you want, your quiet time, your fucking feelings.”

The argument had spun out from there, a dizzying carousel of accusations. By the end of it, you were the one apologizing. You were the one promising to be more cheerful and more like him. You had to. The thought of his vibrant light dimming, of being left alone in the silence again, was a horror beyond measure.

That was how it always went. He’d plant a seed of doubt, a tiny, poisonous kernel of an idea that you were the problem. And in the barren soil of your forgotten self worth, it took root and grew.

The concept of deserving anything had evaporated from your consciousness long ago. Deserving was for the living, for people with futures and choices. You had neither. You had these halls, this silence, and him. To ask for more, to think you deserved more, felt like the height of selfishness. Who were you to deserve kindness? Respect? Who were you to deserve peace? You were dead. It was a binary state. You were here, and that was that. Anything else was a bonus. Wally was the bonus.

You were in the library, the scent of old paper and decaying glue in the air. You were just about to reread To Kill a Mockingbird for what felt like the a hundredth time, your fingers grazing the worn cover. It was a peaceful moment, a rare pocket of solace.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you in here again?” Wally’s voice boomed from the doorway, shattering the quiet. He strode in, his spectral letterman jacket seeming to glow with his impatience. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I was in my key– I was on the field. I almost made the touchdown this time. I swear to God, I was so close to seeing what happens when I make it.”

“That’s great, Wally,” you said, not looking up from the book.

The silence that followed was heavy, charged. “That’s it? ‘That’s great, Wally’?” he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. “I’m out there, literally reliving the worst day of my fucking life, trying to find a way out of this hell, and you’re in here sniffing old books and you can’t even be bothered to give a shit.”

“I do give a shit,” you said, your own voice rising. “But you do this every day, Wally! Every single day! And it never changes! What do you want me to say?”

“How about some fucking support?” he yelled. “How about you act like my girlfriend for five goddamn minutes instead of some moody librarian? You know what? This is why I can’t get out. It’s you. Your– your fucking apathy. It’s like an anchor, dragging me down.”

Tears you couldn’t shed burned behind your eyes. “How can you say that? How can you blame me for this? We’re both trapped here!”

“But I’m trying to leave!” he roared, his face a mask of fury. “And you’ve just accepted it! You’ve rolled over and died— again! It’s pathetic!”

The cruelty of it stole your breath. You just stared at him, your spectral form flickering. His anger seemed to drain as quickly as it had crested, replaced by a look of weary frustration. He ran a hand through his perfect brown hair.

He came closer, his voice softening into the gentle, persuasive tone you knew so well. The one that always made you feel like you were going insane.

“Hey,” he murmured, kneeling in front of you. “Hey, look at me.”

You refused, staring at the faded linoleum.

“Baby, come on. You know I didn’t mean that,” he said, his voice a velvet trap. “I’m just– frustrated. This place gets to me. And when I see you looking so sad, it– it makes it worse. It feels like you’re giving up on me.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” you whispered, the words tasting like a lie even to yourself.

“Then why do you pull away from me?” he asked, his voice full of manufactured hurt. “Why are you always hiding in here? It feels like you hate me sometimes.”

“I don’t hate you, Wally.”

“Then what is it?” He paused, his timing perfect. “You get these ideas in your head. You think I’m attacking you when I’m just trying to talk. You twist everything I say into something awful. Don’t you see that? It’s all in your mind.”

That phrase had become the cornerstone of your reality. It’s all in your mind.

He said it so calmly, with such conviction, that you felt the foundations of your own perception crumble. Was he right? Did you twist his words? Were you the one starting these fights, feeding on the drama because your own existence was so empty? The line between his manipulations and your reality had blurred into nonexistence. You couldn't tell where he ended and you began.

“Maybe..” you choked out. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” he said, his smile returning, gentle and victorious. “I love you. I would never try to hurt you. You just have to trust me, okay? Not all the crazy shit you cook up in your head.”

He'd lost the meaning of true love. You knew that, somewhere in the static filled ruin of your soul. Love, for him, wasn’t a partnership; it was ownership. It wasn’t about support; it was about control. He didn’t love you; he loved that you were his, the one audience member who could never leave his tragic, one man show. He was a king in a kingdom of two, and a king needed a subject to rule.

His death anniversary arrived. September 30th. He was always unbearable on this day, a raw, exposed nerve of grief and rage. You’d learned to make yourself scarce, to hide in the furthest classroom, the one place he never went.

But this time, he found you. 

“There you are,” he said, his voice chillingly calm. “Hiding from me.”

“I was giving you space, Wally,” you said, your voice small.

“No,” he said, stepping towards you. “You were abandoning me. On the one day I actually need you. You fucking coward.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?” he sneered. “You can’t stand to be around me when I’m not fucking loud, and talking and talking, can you? The second things get real, the second I’m not entertaining you, you disappear.” He let out a bitter, barking laugh. “God, it’s all so clear now. You never gave a shit about me. You just latched onto me because I was better than being alone.”

Every word was a physical blow. You felt yourself shrinking, becoming more transparent. “Wally, please don’t do this.”

“I’m just getting started,” he snarled. “You want to know what I’ve been thinking about all day? Out on that field? I was thinking about that night, on the bleachers. The first time I told you I loved you. Remember that?”

You nodded silently, a flicker of a precious memory. The moon had been full, the air had felt cool. He’d been so sweet, so vulnerable. It was the one memory that felt entirely yours, entirely pure.

“You told me you loved me, too,” he continued, his eyes boring into yours. “You said you’d never felt that way before. You cried.”

“I did,” you whispered.

His face twisted into a grotesque smile. “Yeah, well. I was lying.”

The silence that followed was absolute. It was a silence so profound it felt like the end of the universe.

“What?” you breathed.

“I lied,” he repeated, savoring each syllable. “I didn’t love you. I felt sorry for you. You were so pathetic and so fucking broken. Floating around like a sad little rain cloud. I said it because I knew it’s what you needed to hear. I knew it would make you mine.”

The classroom, the school, your entire existence seemed to dissolve into a gray, featureless void. The one pure thing you had, the origin point of your love for him, he had just ripped it out and stomped on it.

“You– you’re the one who’s lying,” you stammered, desperation clawing at your throat. “You’re just saying that to hurt me.”

“Am I?” he said, his voice dropping to that terrifyingly reasonable tone again. “Or are you remembering it wrong? You do that a lot, you know. You build these stupid fuckin’ fantasies. You create these perfect moments that never really happened. It was never as romantic as you think it was. You’ve embellished it. It’s all in your mind, Y/N. All of it. Our entire relationship is a story you made up to feel less alone.”

He hadn't just rewritten a memory; he had erased your entire emotional history, branding it as fiction. He had taken your love, your pain, your reality, and dismissed it as a symptom of a broken mind. In that moment, broken and hollowed out, you believed him.

It was easier to believe him than to face the truth; that you had given the entirety of your desolate eternity to a boy who saw you as nothing more than a mirror for his own misery. It was easier to believe you were crazy than to believe you had been so horrifically, monumentally foolish.

He left you there in the dark.

You drifted out to his key later, having to go through your horrifying one first. The roar of the crowd was a faint ringing in your ears. The 50 yard line, where his body had fallen, glowed with a faint, sickly light. You floated to the center of it and stopped.

The phrase you had forgotten for so long finally came back to you. I deserve this.

It wasn't a cry for justice. It wasn't a demand for better. It was a statement of fact. A final, crushing acceptance.

You deserved this agony. You deserved this heartbreak. You deserved him. Because you were the problem. You were too sensitive, too young, too soft. You imagined the love and you provoked the hatred. You took his pain and made it your own. You were the anchor.

It was all your fault.

Wally was right. He had always been right.

It was all in your mind.

The memory was like a phantom limb, an ache where something had been brutally amputated. It was your seventh birthday. You’d been so proud of the lopsided, four layer cake you’d “helped” your mom make, your small hands covered in flour and rainbow sprinkles. In your excitement to show your dad, you’d tripped over the corner of the rug. The cake, your masterpiece, had splattered across the hardwood floor in a tragic mosaic of chocolate and crushed dreams.

Your father hadn't yelled. His voice had been worse— a low, disappointed hum that vibrated in your bones. “Well, look at the mess you’ve made.” He’d looked from the ruined dessert to your tear streaked little face. “You made your bed, Y/N. Now you have to lie in it.” You’d cleaned it up yourself, your small sobs echoing in the too-quiet kitchen while the other kids ate store-bought cupcakes.

That sentence became the soundtrack of your life. It was the ghost in every room, the whisper behind every mistake. You made your bed. Now lie in it.

And this bed, the one you were currently making, was becoming a fucking coffin.

It started, as it always did, with something only small. A drop of coffee. You were in the kitchen, buzzing with a nervous energy that always seemed to follow you like a hungry stray dog. Milo was at the island, his long legs hooked around the stool, brow furrowed in concentration as he went over his lines for his. He was prepping for a new audition, a big one, and the air was thick with his quiet ambition and your loud, unspoken fear that you would somehow fuck it up for him.

You turned, mug in hand, and your elbow caught the edge of the counter. The hot coffee sloshed over the rim, a perfect brown arc landing right on the corner of his script.

“Shit! Oh my god, Milo, I’m so sorry!” The words tumbled out, frantic and sharp. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape its cage. Stupid. Fucking clumsy. You ruined it.

He looked up, his initial startle melting away into that easy, gentle smile that had first made you fall for him. “Whoa, hey, it’s okay.” He grabbed a paper towel, dabbing at the pages. “It’s just coffee, baby. It’s fine. The words are still there.”

“No, it’s not fine! It’s warped and stained, and it looks unprofessional. They’re going to think you don’t care. Fuck, ‘m so fuckin’ stupid.” Your voice was tight, thin. You were already spiraling, the memory of a chocolate smeared floor flashing behind your eyes.

“Y/N.” His voice was firm but kind. He took your hand, his thumb stroking over your knuckles. His touch was warm, solid, a lighthouse in your storm, but you felt like a ship determined to crash against the rocks. “It is fine. Seriously. It’s a script. Look at me.”

You forced your gaze up to meet his. His brown eyes were swimming with a concern that felt like an accusation. He was so bright, so full of life and effortless charm. He was sunshine incarnate, and you felt like a walking, talking raincloud, perpetually threatening to pour all over him.

He’s just being nice, the voice in your head hissed. He’s pissed. You messed up. Just like you always do.

You pulled your hand away. “I’m just going to.. I’ll print you a new one.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I do,” you snapped, the edge in your voice surprising even you. “I made the mess. I have to clean it up.”

You made your bed. Now lie in it.

The silence that followed was heavy. He watched you, a wounded look flickering in his eyes before he masked it. “Okay,” he said softly, and turned back to his stained script. You felt the chasm between you widen, and the most fucked up part was that you were the one digging it.

A week later, he got the part. The call came while you were making dinner. His shout of pure, unadulterated joy echoed from the living room. You rushed in to find him bouncing on the balls of his feet, his tall frame radiating an energy that could power a small city.

“I got it! Holy shit, Y/N, I got it!” He scooped you up, spinning you around until the world was a dizzying blur of his smiling face. He smelled like his and your favorite sandalwood cologne and victory.

“Oh my god, Milo! That’s amazing!” you cried, and for a moment, the joy was real. It was pure. You were so incredibly proud of him.

But then, as he set you down and kissed you hard, the familiar cold dread began to seep in. It started in your stomach, a knot of ice, and spread through your veins. This was big. A lead role in a major film. This was the start of something huge for him. And you? You were the girl who spilled coffee on his script. You were the girl whose anxiety was a third person in your relationship, a demanding, toxic guest who refused to leave.

He’s going to leave you, the voice whispered, smug and certain. Once he realizes you’re just dead weight, he’ll be gone. You’re going to drag him down.

That night, he wanted to celebrate. He took you to that fancy Italian place downtown, the one with the white tablecloths and candles that made everything feel like it was from a movie scene. He was electric, talking a mile a minute about the director, the script, the location shoots. You watched his hands as he talked, so expressive and sure. You felt a million miles away.

“You’re quiet tonight,” he said, pausing mid sentence to look at you, really look at you. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” you lied, pushing a piece of pasta around your plate. “Just tired.”

“Are you sure? It feels like more than that.” He reached across the table, his fingers brushing yours. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”

And there it was. The opening. The chance to be honest, to tell him about the crushing weight on your chest, the fear that you weren't good enough, that you would inevitably ruin this for him. But vulnerability felt like weakness, like handing him a weapon to hurt you with. It was easier to build a wall.

“I’m fine, Milo. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” You pulled your hand back.

His eyes clouded over. “I’m not trying to make a big deal out of it, Y/N. I’m trying to understand why my girlfriend looks like she’s at a funeral when I just landed the biggest role of my career.”

His words, meant to be concerned, struck you like a slap. See? You’re ruining his night. You can’t even be happy for him properly.

“Oh— is my face not performing happiness to your satisfaction?” The sarcasm was acid on your tongue. “God, forgive me for not being a fucking Disney character 24/7 like you are.”

Milo recoiled, his jaw tightening. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’t get it!” The words were pouring out now, a torrent of anxiety and self-loathing redirected at him. “You just float through life, and everything works out for you! You don’t understand what it’s like to feel like you’re constantly one wrong move away from everything falling apart!”

“So that’s what this is about? You think I don’t struggle? You think this was just handed to me?” His voice was rising, drawing the attention of the couple at the next table. “I have worked my ass off for this, Y/N! And all I wanted was for you to be happy with me. For one fucking night.”

“I am happy for you!” you half-shouted, your voice cracking. “But I’m also terrified! Terrified that you’re going to get this huge life and realize I don’t fit into it. That I’m just some– fucking anchor holding you back.”

There it was. The truth, ugly and exposed.

His expression softened instantly. The anger drained from his face, replaced by a deep, aching sadness. “Baby, no. How could you ever think that? You’re not an anchor. You’re the best part of my life.”

But his words couldn’t penetrate the armor you had built around your heart. They felt like pretty lies meant to placate you.

He’s pitying you. He feels sorry for you.

“I don’t believe you,” you whispered, the admission costing you everything. “I think– I think maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore.”

The silence was absolute. The clinking of silverware from other tables seemed to fade away. It was just you and him and the bomb you had just detonated on the white tablecloth between you.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I do.” You stood up, your legs shaking. “You’ve made your bed, Milo. You’ve got this amazing career ahead of you. Don’t let me be the mess you have to clean up.”

You walked out of the restaurant, leaving him sitting there alone, the candlelight flickering on his stunned, heartbroken face. You didn’t look back. You couldn’t.

The next few days were a blur of hollow hours and the constant, screaming silence in your apartment. You’d pushed away the one person who knew you best, the person who saw the cracks and loved you anyway. And for what? To protect him from a monster that only existed in your own head.

It was you who’s been making the bed.

Your phone buzzed with texts from your fair-weathered friends, the ones who only tb showed up for the party. 

Friend: Come out with us

friend2: drinks? forget that asshole

They didn’t know your Milo. They didn’t know he was the furthest thing from an asshole. A galaxy away from being an asshole. But you needed the noise and you needed the distraction. So you went.

The club was a sensory assault. The bass vibrated through the floor, up your legs, and into your chest, a poor substitute for a heartbeat. The air was thick with smoke and cheap perfume. You let your friend drag you to the bar and you ordered tequila shots. One, two, then three. The burn was a welcome distraction from the ache in your heart.

You danced, or you moved your body in a way that resembled dancing. You were surrounded by people, yet you had never felt more alone. You saw their plastic smiles, heard their shallow laughter. These people didn’t know you. They wouldn’t be there to pick up the pieces. Hell, they didn’t even know there were pieces to be picked up.

Across the room, you saw a couple tangled up in each other, laughing into a kiss. It was a physical blow. Suddenly, you were remembering Milo’s laugh, the deep, rumbling sound that could make you smile on your worst days. You remembered the feeling of his arms around you, the only place you ever truly felt safe. Every good thing has turned into something you dread.

He was the best thing. The purest, most wonderful thing that had ever fucking happened to you. And your fear, your deep seated belief that you were destined to ruin everything, had made you dread his love. You feared it because you felt unworthy of it. And so you destroyed it. Proved yourself right.

You were so tired of being the girl that you are. The girl who self sabotages, the girl who sees disaster around every corner. The girl who can’t accept simple, unconditional love. And you're playing the victim so well in your head. The thought was sharp, brutal. Was that what you were doing? Framing it as some noble sacrifice? Pushing him away for his own good? Or were you just a coward, too afraid to fight the demons in your own mind?

But it's me who's been making the bed.

That realization was a hard punch to the gut. It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t your parents. It wasn’t Milo. It was you. You built this prison of anxiety and self hatred, brick by fucking brick. And now you were living in it.

You shoved your way through the crowd, gasping for air. You stumbled out into the cool night, the tequila churning in your stomach. You made it back to your apartment, fumbling with your keys, the world tilting on its axis. When you finally pushed the door open, your heart stopped.

He was sitting on your couch. Your Milo. Well, once yours.

He stood up the moment he saw you, and the look on his face shattered what was left of your composure. He was exhausted. His eyes were red rimmed, and his usual vibrant energy was gone, replaced by a heavy, desperate stillness.

“Milo,” you breathed.

“I used the spare key,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ve been calling you. Texting. I was so fucking worried, Y/N.” He took a step towards you. “What’s going on? Talk to me. Please. Don’t do this.”

The smell of tequila and regret was probably rolling off you in waves. You felt disgusting. Undeserving.

“You should go,” you said, your voice flat. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Bullshit! There’s everything to talk about!” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “You can’t just blow up our lives and walk away without an explanation! I love you. I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means you should leave,” you said, the words tasting like ash. “I’m a mess, Milo. I’m toxic. I will ruin you. I will drain every good thing—because that is what I do. It’s all I’ve ever known how to do.”

“I don’t believe that!” He was in front of you now, his hands hovering in the air as if he was afraid to touch you. “You’re not a mess. You’re hurting. Let me in. Let me help you. We can do it together.”

Tears were streaming down your face now, hot and silent. You wanted to collapse into him. You wanted to let him hold you and tell you it would all be okay. But the voice, that relentless, venomous voice, was louder than ever.

He’ll resent you. He’ll get tired of it. You’ll be a burden. A project. You’ll destroy him.

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself. You had to finish this. You had to make the final stitch in this bed you were making.

“You can’t help me,” you said, your voice devoid of all emotion. “No one can. This is my burden. My responsibility.” You finally looked him in the eye, letting him see the cold emptiness there. “I made my bed, Milo. I have to be the one to lie in it. Alone.”

He stared at you, his face a canvas of disbelief and pain. It was like he was searching for a flicker of the person he loved behind your eyes, but you wouldn’t give it to him. He finally let out a choked sob, a sound that would haunt your nightmares for the rest of your life.

“Okay,” he whispered, the single word conveying a universe of defeat. “Okay, Y/N. If that’s what you really want.”

He walked to the door, his shoulders slumped. He paused with his hand on the knob, his back to you. “I hope one day,” he said, his voice thick with unshed tears, “you realize you deserve to be loved. Even by yourself.”

Then he was gone. The sound of the door clicking shut was the loudest sound you had ever heard. It was the sound of finality. The sound of your self fulfilling prophecy coming true.

You slid down the wall, your body wracked with sobs that tore from your throat. The false bravado, the cold armor, it all melted away, leaving you raw and exposed in the crushing silence of your apartment.

You had done it. You had successfully pushed away the sweetest, most loving person you had ever known. You were safe from hurting him now. But you weren’t safe from yourself.

The air was stale. A faint trace of his cologne still lingered in the air, fading quick. His grey hoodie was still slung over the back of the armchair where he’d left it. You knew you’d be unable to move it, and unable to wash his scent out of it. It was a monument to your own stupidity. 

You walked past it, into your bedroom. The moonlight filtered through the blinds, casting long, lonely stripes across the room. Your bedsheets were a tangled mess from the morning you’d spent tossing and turning. One side of it, his side, was unnaturally smooth. 

It looked so cold. So empty. It was a perfect, physical manifestation of the life you had chosen for yourself. An empty space where warmth and laughter and love used to be. 

You didn't bother to undress. You didn't even turn on a light. You just crawled under the covers, your club clothes sticking uncomfortably to your skin. You curled into a ball on your side of the vast, empty space, pulling the cold sheets around you. 

A single, hot tear finally escaped and traced a path through your makeup. Then another, and another, until you were shaking with silent, wracking sobs. This was it. This was the consequence. The quiet, the cold, the crushing, absolute certainty that you were alone because you’d willed it to be so. 

You made your bed. Now, you had to lie in it.

im fucking CRYING the warnings list is a whole paragraph,,,, I LOVE THIS SONG

The moving truck had pulled away weeks ago, leaving behind a quiet that felt both liberating and terrifying. Seabrook. The name itself was as bland as the beige siding of your new house, a stark contrast to the vibrant, unsettlingly normal life you’d only ever glimpsed from behind the carefully curated walls of your homeschooling. Now, after a lifetime of being the odd one out, the perpetual outsider, you were about to dive headfirst into the shark tank that was Seabrook High.

The thought alone made your stomach do nauseating flips. Zombies. Actual, flesh and blood, coming-for-your-brains zombies were now enrolled in your school. Your parents, ever the optimists, had spun it as a “cultural integration opportunity,” a chance for Seabrook to embrace its undead residents. You, on the other hand, saw it as a recipe for social disaster, a nightmare scenario painted in shades of grey skin and vacant stares.

You smoothed down the fabric of the jeans that felt two sizes too big, or maybe your legs were just too thin. The pink sweater, soft and sugary looking in a way that didn’t feel like you at all, did little to boost your confidence. Every outfit felt like a costume you hadn’t learned to wear, a skin that didn’t quite fit over your bones. You’d spent hours staring at your reflection, trying to mold yourself into someone who wouldn’t immediately broadcast their crippling awkwardness to the world. It was a losing battle.

The first day. It was an assault on your senses. The cacophony of locker doors slamming, shrill laughter, and the surprisingly booming voices of teenagers filled the air. You clutched your worn backpack like a shield, navigating the crowded hallways with the grace of a newborn giraffe. Every interaction felt like a minefield.

Your first class was biology. Zombies and humans, all crammed into one room. The irony was almost too much to bear. You found a seat in the back, as far away from any potential conversational vortex as possible. And then you saw him. Zed Necrodopolis. He was striking. 

Tall, with a shock of vibrant green hair. His skin was a pale, almost ethereal white, and his eyes, a dull brown but yet seemed to hold a spark of genuine warmth. He was talking animatedly to a girl wearing a cheer uniform, a wide, energetic grin splitting his face. He was a football player, you’d heard. A god. And somehow, impossibly, he was in your class. You felt a flush creep up your neck. This was going to be a problem.

You cannot seriously be catching feelings for a zombie. No way.

The teacher droned on and on about cellular respiration. You tried to focus, but your gaze kept drifting to Zed. He was leaning forward, his entire being radiating an infectious energy. He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that made your heart do a little stutter step. Then, he caught you looking. He offered a small, knowing smile, a flicker of recognition that sent a jolt of pure panic through you. You immediately snapped your head down, your face burning. Smooth, Y/N. Real smooth.

Lunch was a whole new level of hell. The cafeteria was a sprawling expanse of noise and judgment. You scanned the tables, your eyes darting from group to group, a silent plea for inclusion hanging in the air. Everyone seemed to have their designated spot, their established cliques. You felt like a stray atom, desperately searching for a molecule to bond with.

You spotted Zed at a table near the windows, surrounded by a boisterous group. He was telling a story, his hands gesturing wildly, his laughter ringing out. You longed to be part of that easy camaraderie, that effortless belonging. But the thought of approaching them, of interrupting their flow, was paralyzing.

Instead, you drifted towards a smaller table in the far corner, occupied by a single boy with headphones and a vacant stare. You sat down, the silence between you deafening. You picked at your sandwich, the bread suddenly tasting like sawdust. You’d searched “How to start a conversation?” on your phone earlier, a desperate, pathetic attempt to arm yourself. The results were a blur of generic advice you couldn't possibly implement.

“So,” you started, your voice cracking. The boy didn’t even look up. “Um… good lunch?”

He grunted, a sound that could have meant anything from agreement to utter disdain. You swallowed, your throat dry. “The.. the pizza is okay today.”

He paused, then finally turned his head, his eyes, thankfully not vacant but rather filled with a sort of weary resignation, met yours. “It’s school pizza. It’s never good. It’s just– edible.”

You managed a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” You were making it weird. You knew it. You could feel the awkwardness radiating off you in waves, a palpable force field pushing him further away. You wanted to disappear. To melt into the linoleum floor.

The afternoon classes were a blur of anxiety. In history, you were called on to answer a question about the Civil War. You opened your mouth, and a jumbled mess of facts and misremembered dates tumbled out, each word a clumsy, stilted offering. Zed, who was somehow in this class too, gave you a sympathetic look. It was both comforting and mortifying.

After school, you were lingering by your locker, pretending to reorganize your already perfectly organized binders. You were trying to summon the courage to leave, to face the daunting walk home, when you heard a familiar voice.

“Hey! Y/N, right?”

You jumped, slamming your locker shut a little too hard. Zed was standing there, his green hair catching the fluorescent light, a playful grin on his face. Your heart did that stupid fluttery thing again.

“Uh, yeah,” you managed, your voice betraying you with its sudden tremor.

“Zed. We’ve had, like, three classes together already,” he said, stepping closer. He was even taller up close, a towering presence that made you feel even smaller. “You’re the new girl. I’m Zed.”

“I… I know,” you stammered, feeling your cheeks heat up. “You’re… Zed. The zombie.” You stopped, mentally kicking yourself. You’re so fucking brilliant at this.

He chuckled, a warm, genuine sound. “Yep. I saw you looking a bit lost in bio today. Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally. Just– getting used to it all. It’s a lot. School, I mean. And.. everything.” You gestured vaguely with your hands, a futile attempt to articulate the swirling chaos in your head.

“Totally get it,” he said, his gaze steady and kind. “Seabrook can be– a lot. Especially when you’re new.” He paused, then his grin widened. “But hey, don’t worry. Most of us are pretty chill. Even the undead ones.”

You let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I– I figured.” You wanted to say more, to ask him about football, about his classes, about anything that would keep him talking to you, but the words refused to form. They snagged in your throat, a tangled mess of unspoken impulses.

“So,” he continued, as if sensing your internal struggle, “I was heading over to the practice field to get some extra reps in. Want to come along? Get your mind off things?”

Your mind instantly conjured images of you tripping over your own feet on the sidelines, or accidentally a zombie player’s lunch. “Oh, I– I’m not really a.. sports person.”

“Doesn’t matter!” he said, clapping his hands together with an almost childlike enthusiasm. “You can just hang out. Watch. Or, if you’re feeling brave, you can even try a drill. I could teach you how to tackle properly.” He smiled wider, and your stomach flipped again.

“Tackle?” you repeated, the word laced with a healthy dose of panic. “I’ll stick to observing.”

“Fair enough,” he said, shrugging good naturedly. “Lead the way, then.” He gestured for you to go first, and you practically stumbled over yourself to comply.

As you walked, you tried to keep up with his easy stride, the rhythm of his footsteps a comforting counterpoint to the usual thudding anxiety in your chest. He chattered about his day, about a particularly brutal practice session, about a new movie he’d seen. You found yourself nodding along, interjecting with the occasional, breathy “uh huh” or “that’s crazy.” You were still awkward, still stumbling over your words when you did manage to contribute, but Zed’s unwavering patience was a balm.

At the field, the energy was electric. Other zombies and humans were already there, practicing drills, laughing, their movements a blur of coordinated chaos. You found a spot on the bleachers, feeling a familiar pang of being on the outside, but it was dulled by Zed’s presence. He’d pointed you out to a few of his teammates, who’d offered you waves and nods, and for the first time all day, you didn’t feel like an alien.

Zed was a whirlwind on the field. He was strong, fast, and surprisingly agile for someone who, technically, was dead. He roared with effort, his green hair flying, his energy seemingly boundless. You watched, mesmerized. He was a natural, a born leader, and there was something incredibly captivating about his raw, uninhibited passion.

Between drills, he’d jog over, panting, sweat glistening on his pale skin. “See that? That’s pure zombie power!” he’d exclaim, a triumphant grin on his face. “You could totally learn that!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure my body’s not built for that.” you’d reply, trying to sound witty and failing miserably.

He’d laugh, and you’d find yourself laughing too, a genuine, unforced sound that surprised you.

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the field, practice wound down. Zed, looking more exhausted than you’d ever seen him, jogged over to the bleachers, collapsing next to you.

“Whew! That was a good one,” he huffed, running a hand through his green hair. “Thanks for coming, Y/N. It was– nice having you here.”

Your heart did that stupid fluttery thing again, this time with a bit more force. “It was– it was nice watching you. You’re.. really good.”

He beamed, a genuine, heartwarming smile that made you feel like you’d just won the lottery. “Thanks! You know, for someone who claims not to be a ‘sports person,’ you’ve got a pretty good eye.”

You shrugged, trying to play it cool, but your internal monologue was a frantic mess of, He thinks I’m good! He noticed! Oh god, don’t screw this up.

“So,” he said, his voice a little softer now, the boisterous energy of the field replaced by a more relaxed calm. “If you’re not busy, maybe we could grab some… uh.. non school pizza? Or something? For dinner?”

Your brain short circuited. Dinner? With Zed? The awkwardness, the self-doubt, the constant fear of saying the wrong thing– it all threatened to overwhelm you. But then you looked at him, at the hopeful, slightly nervous expression on his face, and something shifted. Maybe, just maybe, you could do this. Maybe, for the first time, you didn’t have to be on the outside looking in.

“Yeah,” you heard yourself say, the word surprisingly firm. “Yeah, I’d like that, Zed.”

His smile widened, and for a brief, glorious moment, you felt like your skin was finally starting to fit, like you might actually belong. It was a tentative feeling, a whisper of hope, but it was there.

marathon concept + all credits @/delilahsturniolo

Like perfume, you lingered.

It was the first thing you learned to do, back when your own death was still a fresh, gaping wound. How to make your presence an afterthought, a scent in the air that no one could quite place. You’d drift through the halls of Split River High, hidden in plain sight, a footnote in a history no one living had read.

And you watched. Mostly, you watched Wally Clark.

He was the sun around which your dead, useless planet of an existence revolved. You’d been tethered to this school for a decade before he’d shown up, a loud, vibrant explosion of spirit energy that had crashed onto the fifty yard line in a tangle of limbs and a sickening crack. September 30, 1983. You remembered the screaming. You remembered the silence that followed.

Now, decades later, you sat next to him on the spectral bleachers overlooking the student parking lot, the morning sun doing nothing to warm your translucent skin. His hand, as solid to you as your own, was laced through your fingers. It was a familiar, aching comfort.

“She cut her hair,” he murmured, his voice a low thrum that vibrated right through you.

You followed his gaze. A sensible blue sedan had just pulled up to the curb. The driver, a man with graying temples and a kind face, leaned over to kiss the woman in the passenger seat. Then, a little girl with bouncy pigtails popped up from the back seat to give her mom a hug.

And there she was. Lacy Martin. English teacher. Wife. Mother.

Formerly Lacy Albright. Wally’s Lacy.

Her hair was shorter, a chic bob that framed a face etched with fine lines of laughter and worry. Lines Wally would never get to trace. Lines her husband probably kissed every night.

Your stomach was all in knots.

“It looks good,” Wally continued, oblivious to the acid churning in your gut. “Makes her look.. sophisticated.”

You squeezed his hand. “Wally. Let’s go. Group’s soon.”

“Just a second.”

It was always ‘just a second’. A second that stretched into minutes, into the entire duration of her walking from the car to the front doors of the school. He had to watch every step. He had to watch her husband drive away. He had to watch until the last possible moment, as if memorizing a ghost of his own. The irony was so thick you could have choked on it.

You hated this morning ritual. You hated this woman you’d never spoken to. Wally’s first love had the one thing that you wanted, and it wasn’t her life, her husband, or her daughter. It was Wally.

“For fuck’s sake, Wally,” you finally snapped, pulling your hand away. The loss of contact was an immediate, sharp cold. “She can’t see you. She forgot about you forty years ago. Let’s go.”

He flinched, his brown eyes finally tearing away from the spot where she’d disappeared. The bubbly, energetic boy you knew flickered, replaced by the haunted forever-18 year old, forever trapped in this shitty school. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” you shot back, your voice harsher than you intended. “She has a whole fucking life, Wally! A life that doesn’t have a single goddamn space in it for a ghost in a letterman jacket.”

His hand instinctively went to his stomach, to the pocket of his jacket that held his anchor to this place. Everyone thought Wally Clark’s key, the thing that would let him move on, was a football. He died with it in his grasp, after all. A symbol of his unfinished game, his stolen victory. But you knew better. You knew it wasn’t a football. It was thee small, folded piece of notebook paper. A love letter from Lacy.

He’d shown it to you once, during a thunderstorm that had knocked the power out. The two of you were huddled in the library, the mortal world outside gone dark. He hesitated, then pulled it from his pocket. The paper was ethereal to him. To you, it was just a stupid fucking piece of paper.

“‘My dearest Wally,’” he had read, his voice thick with a phantom nostalgia. “‘Homecoming is tomorrow and my heart is beating out of my chest. Not for the game, but for you. I’ll be the one in the stands screaming the loudest. Win or lose, you’re my hero. After the dance, let’s drive out to the beach. I have something I want to tell you.’ She was gonna tell me she loved me, Y/N, I know it. For the first time.”

He never got to that beach. He never heard her say those three sweet words. He only got the letter. His key.

Now, on the bleachers, that same haunted look was back in his eyes. “She didn’t forget,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “She just– moved on. It’s different.”

“It’s the exact fucking same, and you know it,” you said, standing up. You couldn't sit here anymore. “I’m going to group. Let me know when you’re done with your daily self flagellation.”

You didn’t wait for a reply. You phased through the bleachers and drifted across the manicured school lawn, the anger rolling off you in cold waves.

You despised your jealous eyes and how hard they fell for him. You despised the way your dead heart still managed to ache when he looked at her. But more than that, more than anything, you despised the part of you that understood. The part of you that watched her, too.

You’d made a study of her. You knew she favored cardigans, always in soft, muted colors. You knew she drank her coffee with two sugars from a mug that said ‘World’s Best Mom’. You knew she had a patient, gentle way of speaking to even the most disruptive students, her voice a soothing melody in the cacophony of the school day.

You knew why Wally loved her.

You despised your rotten mind and how much it worshipped her. You spent hours, days, years observing the woman who held Wally’s soul in a cage he refused to leave. You learned her mannerisms, the way she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, the slight crinkle at the corner of her eyes when she smiled a genuine smile. You studied her as if she were a textbook and the final exam was figuring out how to be her. How to be the one he couldn’t let go of.

Later that day, you were in the quiet and dark theater, sitting in the front row, tracing the patterns on the dusty velvet seat. The silence of the empty theater was a balm on your frayed nerves. This was your space. Wally rarely came here. It was too quiet. And too far from the English wing.

But then, he was there. His form coalesced in the seat next to you, a silent apology in the slump of his broad shoulders.

“Hey,” he said softly.

You didn’t look at him. “Done staring for the day?”

“Y/N, come on. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what, Wally? Realistic? Tired? Fucking sick of watching the boy I lo– the boy I care about pine over a life he can never have?” The word love caught in your throat, a bitter, impossible thing.

He sighed, the sound echoing in the vast, empty space. “It’s not like that.”

“Bullshit,” you spat, finally turning to face him. “It is exactly like that. We can’t even go a full day without you needing your fix. A glimpse of Saint Lacy of Split River.”

“Stop calling her that.”

“Why? It’s what she is, isn’t it? The perfect girl, who grew into the perfect woman, who you’ve canonized in your head for forty fuckin’ years!”

His face hardened. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know I’m the one who’s here!” you yelled, your voice cracking. You were on your feet now, pacing in front of him. “I’m the one who holds your hand. I’m the one who listens to you talk about the same fucking football play over and over again. When you get so lost in the past that you start to fade, who’s the one that pulls you back? Who holds you until you feel solid again? It’s me, Wally! It’s always been me!”

The air crackled with the force of your raw, spectral emotion. Tears you couldn’t shed burned behind your eyes.

Wally stood up, his tall frame towering over you. He looked devastated. “I know,” he whispered, his voice wrecked. “Y/N, I know. And I– I’m so sorry.”

He reached for you, his hands cupping your face. His touch was cold, but it was real. It was the only reality you had. “You’re everything,” he said, his brown eyes searching for yours. “You really are. You’re the only thing that makes this– this afterlife bearable.”

He leaned in and kissed you. But this one was different. It was desperate, frantic, full of all the things you’d just screamed at him. It was a plea and an apology and a confession all at once. You melted into it, your anger dissolving into a familiar, painful longing. Your hands went to his hair, gripping the thick, brown strands as you kissed him back with everything you had.

This was your thing. These moments where it was just the two of you, two lost spirits clinging to each other in the ruins of their lives. He’d kissed you, he’d held your hand, he’d held you until the simulated exhaustion of a spirit gave way to a restful stillness that was the closest thing either of you had to sleep.

But the only thing that stopped both of you from becoming more, from becoming an us, was her.

He pulled back, resting his forehead against yours. His breath was a cool whisper against your lips. “I do care about you, Y/N. So much. Okay?”

“But you love her,” you stated. It wasn’t a question.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The silence was his confirmation. He still loved the ghost of a seventeen year old Lacy who didn’t exist anymore.

Your stomach twisted itself into another agonizing knot. You pulled away from him, the warmth of his presence immediately replaced by a profound emptiness.

“I can’t do this anymore, Wally,” you said, your voice flat. “I can’t keep being your consolation prize. I can’t keep pretending it’s enough to be the one you turn to when the ghost you’re actually in love with is living her life a hundred feet away.”

“It’s not like that,” he insisted, reaching for you again.

You moved back, putting a row of seats between you. “Yes. It is. And the worst part is, I can’t even fucking hate her. I’ve tried. Shit, I’ve tried. But she’s– nice. She’s a good teacher. She’s a good mom. She’s everything you fuckin’ remember, just older.”

You let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “I watch her and I just see all the reasons you can’t let go. And I hate myself for it. I hate my pathetic, jealous eyes for watching her and for memorizing her. I hate my rotten mind for trying to figure her out, for worshipping at the altar of Lacy Albright because maybe if I can understand why you love her so much, I can finally understand why you’ll never love me.”

He was silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. The weight of his silence was deafening. It confirmed everything.

“So that’s it then?” you asked, your voice barely audible. “We just– keep doing this? You watch her, and I watch you watch her? For the next hundred years? Two hundred? Forever?” 

The truth of it hung in the air between you, ugly and undeniable. Wally looked broken. He just stood there, speechless, as you backed away toward the theater doors.

“I need some space, Wally,” you said, your voice barely audible. “I just– I need to not see you for a while.”

“Y/N, wait—”

You were already gone, dissolving through the heavy oak doors and into the empty hallway, leaving him alone in the silence of your sanctuary. You didn’t have a destination. There was nowhere to go. You were just as trapped as he was.

You drifted aimlessly, ending up, as you always seemed to do, near her classroom. Class was in session. Through the small window in the door, you could see her at the front of the room, reading poetry aloud to a class of bored looking sophomores. Her voice was animated, her hands gesturing as she tried to convey the passion of the words on the page.

She was beautiful. Her eyes were bright and sweet. She was everything. She was the reason your eternity was this specific shade of loneliness.

As you watched her, hidden and lingering, a phantom scent in the hallway, you felt the familiar, ugly twist in your gut. It wasn’t just jealousy anymore. It was a strange, toxic form of devotion. You despised your jealous eyes, and you despised how hard they had fallen. Not just for him. In the most twisted way imaginable, for her, too.

OOOOHHH I CARE I CARE I CARE

Ryan Baker was leaning against a locker, laughing, a rich, deep, infectious sound that vibrated right through the shoddy insulation of the school walls and straight into the hollow space where your common sense should have been lodged. That was the first time you properly saw Ryan– really saw him, was in those bright, fluorescent hallways of Plymouth High, three weeks into your senior year.

You were a conscientious student. You were the girl who got eight hours of sleep, who always turned in the supplementary readings, and who believed in balance. Ryan Baker was everything opposite. He was the kind of handsome that made you stumble over your words and forget your mother’s phone number simultaneously. His eyes were the precise shade of warm whiskey after dark, and when he looked at you, it felt less like being seen and more like being selected.

“He’s a nightmare dressed like a daydream, Y/N,” Jess had warned, dragging you by the arm away from the water fountain where Ryan was holding court, surrounded by sycophants who barely knew him.

You pulled your arm away, already feeling tight with defensive loyalty, even though you and Ryan hadn't shared more than three full conversations yet. “Don’t be such a judgmental bitch, Jess. You don’t even know him.”

Jess, your anchor, your brutally honest conscience, stopped dead in the middle of the crowded corridor, forcing a stream of freshmen to detour around her. Her face was set, the lines around her mouth already tired. “I know his type. You know his type. He’s Ryan Baker. He coasts on charm and cheats on exams. He dated this one girl last year and left her a shell of a person. She didn’t show up to school for three weeks after he broke up with her. She looked like she weighed ninety pounds, Y/N, she was drained.”

You scoffed, a tight, artificial sound. “That’s hyperbole. People break up. You’re just mad because he asked me for my notes and not you.”

“I’m mad because I saw how he looked at your notes,” Jess countered, leaning in close, her voice a low, urgent rasp. “Like they were a tool. Like you were a tool. He sees people as resources, not humans.”

You hated her then. You hated the truth in her eyes. You hated that she was standing between you and the intoxicating, dizzying possibility of Ryan Baker caring about you.

“Go fuck yourself, Jess,” you spat, venomous and quick. You regretted it the second the words left your mouth, watching the hurt flare in her eyes, but the defensive rush was too strong. You marched away, leaving her standing alone, moving toward the spot where Ryan was now looking directly at you, that signature smile spreading across his face.

You should have listened. Holy shit, you should have listened to every single syllable that came out of your best friend’s mouth.

Ryan’s exploitation started subtly, so painfully subtly, masked by compliments and desperate vulnerability.

“God, you’re so smart, Y/N. I’m such a mess,” Ryan would whine, leaning his large, warm body entirely too close to you in the library’s suffocating quiet. He’d smell faintly of cheap cologne and the metallic scent of stress, and the proximity alone was enough to make your brain short circuit.

The initial requests were small– covering his shift at the terrible pizza place he worked at because he ‘had a family emergency’ (which turned out to be a party in the next town over). Lending him twenty dollars for gas because his mom was ‘grounding him from his debit card’ (which he spent on beer).

But quickly, the focus shifted to the truly valuable thing you possessed, your intellect, your ruthless dedication, and your time.

Your AP History assignment, the one worth 40% of the midterm grade, was how it first started. You had spent three weeks meticulously researching archival documents for your essay.

“Babe, please, I am completely fucked,” he pleaded one Monday night, parked outside your house, his expression a masterpiece of manufactured panic. He hadn’t started the required 15 page paper. The deadline was 8 AM.

You were exhausted, already running on four hours of sleep due to finishing your own paper and studying for AP Chemistry. “Ryan, I can’t write fifteen pages in six hours. That’s insane.”

“No, no, I just need the research. I just need the structure. I’m great at writing, you know that, I just can’t synthesize the sources. You’re so good at synthesizing. Please, just give me your outline, your notecards, your annotated bibliography. I’ll make sure the phrasing is different, I swear. I just need the bones.”

His hand was on your thigh, warm and insistent. You felt the familiar, disgusting thrill of being needed by him. He made you feel essential, indispensable.

“But Ryan, my whole thesis is on those cards,” you whispered, guilt mixing sickeningly with adrenaline.

“And you’re going to get an A, because you’re brilliant. I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail out of the class, and then I can’t graduate, and then I can’t go to community college, and then my asshole dad is going to cut me off, and I’m going to be completely screwed.” He squeezed your leg, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper of despair. “Just help me. I owe you everything. I’ll pay you back. I’ll do anything. I swear to Christ, I’ll spend the whole weekend with you.”

That was the currency, wasn’t it? Small, promised payments of affection and attention that rarely materialized but were enough to keep you hooked.

You gave him the binder. You stayed up until 4 AM rewriting your own secondary sources, tearing apart your original thesis merely to ensure his paper wouldn’t look like plagiarism. You drove to school the next morning feeling like a zombie had chewed out the back of your skull.

He got a B+. You got an A. He barely acknowledged your sacrifice, merely texting, 

Ryan: Thx

Ryan: U saved my ass

The cycle intensified. Ryan didn't just borrow your notes; he borrowed your life.

Your dedicated study time became mandatory cram sessions where you tutored him while he played on free online games on his laptop, occasionally glancing at the material and saying, “Okay, explain that concept again, but make it less boring.”

Your financial situation became strained. He never paid back the money. When you timidly brought up the seventy five dollars he owed you for the concert tickets, he looked hurt.

“Is that all this is about, Y/N? Money? I thought we were closer than that. I thought we were soulmates. I’m going through a rough patch, and you’re nickel-and-diming me?”

You instantly retreated, feeling like the biggest asshole on earth. “No, no, I’m sorry. Forget I asked. It’s fine.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, pulling you close, the kiss tasting like cheap coffee and victory.

You started missing your own responsibilities. Your volunteer hours dried up because you always had to drive Ryan somewhere or cover for him. You stopped answering Jess’s calls because she kept asking questions you didn’t want to answer.

“We haven’t had a conversation in a month that didn’t revolve around Ryan’s crises,” Jess said during the one time you actually agreed to grab lunch with her, six weeks before graduation.

You pushed your plate away, feeling ill. You hadn't eaten properly in days. The exhaustion was permanent now, a heavy, suffocating blanket. “It’s fine, Jess. We’re busy. He needs me right now.”

“He needs a therapist and a fucking alarm clock, Y/N, not a personal assistant who sacrifices her own mental health for his convenience,” Jess hissed, leaning forward. “Look at you. You look like fuckin’ shit. You’ve lost weight, your eyes are bruised with shadows, and you flinch whenever your phone rings. He’s sucking you dry.”

This time, the anger wasn't defensive. It was raw, self pitying rage. “You don’t know what we have! You don’t understand! He’s sensitive, he’s having a hard time, and he relies on me. I’m the only person who can keep him grounded!”

“You’re responsible for him, which is exactly what he wanted. That’s not love, you stupid fuck. That’s manipulation. You used to be vibrant. Now you’re just tired. He’s taking your energy just to fuel his own useless existence. You look like a ghost!”

You threw a crumpled napkin at her and stood up, pushing back your chair with a grating sound. “Fuck you, Jess. Seriously. You are so jealous and I’m done with your judgemental bullshit. Don’t call me again.”

You stormed out, leaving her sitting there, shaking her head. The silence she left you with was the last peace you would know for months.

At the end of the semester came the peak of the parasitic relationship, wrapped in a prestigious bow.

Ryan had applied to one university, a decent state school, but his application was laughably weak. He needed a massive win to secure the final, competitive scholarship package that would cover tuition and housing— the only way his parents were letting him go.

The scholarship committee required a comprehensive, original community initiative project. Ryan, naturally, had procrastinated until the final month.

“It has to be huge, babe. Something that looks good. Something about.. environmental impact and community outreach,” he dictated, sprawled on your couch while you frantically researched sustainable gardening programs.

You designed the entire project: a plan to convert unused municipal land into shared vegetable plots for low income families. You wrote the grant proposal, drew up the budget, secured two local business sponsors, and spent three weekends coordinating the logistics. You were the sole driving force. Ryan's contribution was showing up for the final photo opportunity, looking handsome in a volunteer vest you bought for him.

“This is perfect, Y/N. You’re my goddamn genius,” he beamed, kissing your forehead the night before the submission deadline. “I’ll put your name down as ‘Project Manager’ under the volunteer section, just to make sure you get some credit.”

“Ryan, I wrote the entire proposal. I deserve co-author credit. That initiative is a huge deal, it’s basically a full time job,” you argued, exhausted and wired.

He laughed, a small, dismissive sound. “Don’t be basic, babe. It’s a scholarship application. It needs a single face. This is going to launch my career in public service. Once I’m in, I’ll make sure they hire you on as my assistant next semester, okay? We’ll be a team.”

He submitted the proposal with his name listed as "Ryan Baker, Lead Creator and Project Director." Your name was nowhere to be found on the main document.

You felt a terrible, cold sickness pool in your stomach, but you were too far gone to fight effectively. You rationalized that his success was your success. You were a unit. You loved him.

Then came the Senior Awards Night, the glorious culmination of four years of high school. Ryan was announced as the recipient of the State Leadership Scholarship, primarily based on the extraordinary merit of his your project. He walked across the stage, shaking hands with the principal, basking in the applause. He gave an impromptu ‘acceptance speech.’

“I want to just thank everyone who supported me,” he said into the microphone, his voice smooth and confident. “Especially my family, and my incredible dedication to making a difference in the community. This project was a difficult challenge, but I put in the hours, and I look forward to leading future initiatives at State.”

He did not mention you. Not a single fucking word.

You were sitting in the fifth row, clutching your plastic water bottle, feeling the blood drain from your face. It wasn’t the lack of credit that broke you, you expected that, deep down— it was the audacious, comfortable lie; the sheer ease with which he claimed ownership of your suffering.

Later, outside in the cooling night air, you found him standing near the trophy case, deep in conversation with a college recruiter. You marched straight up to him, your hands trembling.

“Ryan. We need to talk. Now.”

He shot you a look of irritation, pulling the recruiter aside first. “Give me five minutes, okay? Big things are happening.”

When he finally turned to you, his patience was thin. “What, Y/N? I’m busy.”

“You didn’t mention me. Not even a passing note. I spent two months of my life, every spare second, writing that goddamn proposal, and you acted like you spontaneously invented sustainable agriculture on your own.” Your voice was shaking, but you forced the words out.

He sighed, running a hand through his perpetually perfect hair. “Jesus Christ, are we really doing this here? What did you want, a parade? You got an A in the class, didn’t you? You didn’t need the scholarship.”

“I needed respect! I needed acknowledgment! I gave you my life force for that project, Ryan! I haven't slept, I’ve failed a test, I missed my cousin’s birthday— all for your college application! You lied. You took advantage of me.”

His eyes narrowed. The charming veneer cracked entirely, revealing the cold, hard calculating core beneath.

“Stop being so dramatic. You helped me. That’s what girlfriends do. And frankly, Y/N, you had the time. You’re not exactly busy making waves,” he sneered. “Look, I used your organization skills. So what? You should be happy for me. This is going to make me successful. And when I’m successful, you benefit.”

“Benefit? I’m exhausted! You’ve taken everything from me! My time, my money, my friends— Jess won’t even respond to me anymore because of you! You’re a piece of shit, Ryan!” you screamed, the sound echoing off the brick walls.

He leaned in, his face suddenly menacing, the smile completely gone. His voice was low and deadly calm. “Watch your mouth. I didn’t force you to do anything. You offered. You liked feeling important. You liked having access to me. Let’s be real, without me, you’d just be sitting at home revising calculus, feeling sorry for yourself. You needed me more than I needed you, Y/N. You just don’t admit it.”

He didn't need you. You were interchangeable. You were merely the most readily available and dedicated source of energy at that specific moment.

“I hate you,” you choked out, tears of genuine, agonizing betrayal finally flooding your vision.

“No, you don’t,” he corrected, straightening his jacket. “You hate that you let me use you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual networking to do. Go home, Y/N. Get some rest. You look terrible.”

He walked away, leaving you standing there, utterly hollowed out, feeling lighter than air, because there was nothing left inside to weigh you down. He had taken it all—your ambition, your sleep, your savings, your friendship, your self-respect— and walked off with it, leaving you a shriveled husk.

Two weeks later, text messages arrived from him. That was the final humiliation— not his scholarship, not his casual dismissal of your suffering.

Ryan: Hey babe sorry things were intense

Ryan: My roommate found out I can’t pay the deposit on the apartment unless I get an advance on my summer job

Ryan: Can u spot me $500

Ryan: I’ll pay you back when I get the scholarship money in August

Ryan: Thx

He wasn't even asking for help, he was demanding access to the reserves he assumed you still had. He didn't connect the fact that he was the reason your reserves were empty. He simply assumed the service station was still operational.

You stared at the phone, your breath catching in your throat. You had $530 left in your savings account, earmarked for textbooks. Giving him that money would leave you financially stranded.

But this time, the familiar, sickening pull, the urge to jump and fix his problem, to earn his praise, was gone. There was only exhaustion and cold, sterile fury.

You typed a response, deleted it, typed another, and finally settled on a single word that you immediately blocked him after sending.

y/n: no

He didn't try to call. He didn't try to text from another number. Ryan Baker didn't waste time on resources that had dried up. He moved on to the next source of vitality.

You sat in your room that night, the silence deafening. You looked in the mirror. Jess was right. Jess is right. You looked like hell. Your skin was pale and drawn, your eyes sunken. You were the physical embodiment of emotional anemia. Ryan hadn’t just used you; he had consumed you. He had taken the best parts of your senior year and converted them into his own success, leaving you with nothing but bitter, agonizing debt.

It took three days before you finally gathered the courage to send Jess a lengthy, groveling text.

y/n:  im so sorry. i was blinded, i was stupid. you were right about everything. i am an absolute idiot. he took everything. please, if you can ever forgive me, call me. i miss you.

Her response was delayed, arriving nearly twenty four hours later. It was short, but devastatingly kind.

Jess: I’m glad you finally woke up Y/N. He drained you completely. Call me tomorrow. 

The relief was overwhelming, but the persistent ache of regret overshadowed it. You had sacrificed a loyal, loving friendship— years of history, for the fleeting, destructive attention of a selfish, manipulative predator.

You should have listened to Jess. You should have believed the warnings. You should have trusted your gut. But you didn't. And now, you were left to face the brutal, exhausting task of rebuilding yourself from scratch, knowing that Ryan Baker was sailing into his future on a foundation built entirely out of the stolen, pulverized fragments of your wasted energy. And that, you realized with a soul crushing certainty, was the most painful theft of all. That absolute piece of shit had won. He got his degree, his freedom, his success. And you were left with the crippling, horrifying realization that the only person who truly fucked you over was yourself, for ever believing the lies.

i ❤︎ writing angst

The party was a fucking warzone. The music a relentless bassline that vibrated through the cheap plywood floor and up into your already overloaded skull. You were drunk. Not fun drunk, not tipsy, but aggressively, deeply, fucked up drunk. Tequila, cheap beer, and whatever fluorescent blue jungle juice belonged to the guy whose basement you were currently occupying had done a spectacular job of dismantling your cognitive functions piece by piece.

You were leaning heavily against the kitchen counter, which was slick with some unidentifiable spillage, watching Yulia aggressively debate the merits of a specific brand of sparkling cider with Scuba, who looked like he was regretting every life choice that led him to this conversation. You laughed, a loud, slightly hysterical sound that didn't quite belong to you. Your cheeks felt hot, and the room was spinning slow, like an old carousel running out of energy.

“Y/N, you look like a fuckin’ disaster,” Yulia shouted over the noise, pausing her cider defense to inspect your swaying frame.

“I am a disaster,” you slurred back, throwing a sloppy arm around her neck. “But I’m a happy disaster. A disaster that’s finally forgotten that absolute asshole exists.”

A self-congratulatory high-five with Scuba was interrupted by a noise far quieter than the sonic assault of the party, yet piercingly immediate: your phone, vibrating against your hip like a trapped insect.

You didn't need to look at the screen to know who it was. The specific, heart-stopping terror and instant, idiotic surge of hope told you everything. But you pulled it out anyway, squinting in the dim light filtering from the living room.

Ryan Baker. The sight of his name, cold and white against the dark screen, acted like a physical punch to your gut. All the alcohol in your system seemed to migrate immediately to your limbs, making them heavy, leaving your brain suddenly, terrifyingly, lucid— or maybe just hyper focused on one singular, stupid objective.

It had been three months since the breakup. Three months of agonizing silence, of pretending you were totally fine, of drinking too much and swearing you hated him. Ryan Baker, who was an absolute, certified dickhead, but who had somehow managed to carve out a permanent residency in the fragile infrastructure of your heart.

You stumbled away from Yulia and Scuba, nearly tripping over a stack of empty Solo cups, making your way toward the dank, surprisingly quiet laundry room tucked off the main hallway. You needed silence. You needed to breathe.

You answered on the third ring, your voice coming out tight and raspy.

“Hello?”

“Y/N? Where the hell are you?” His voice was low, and even through the static and the residual thumping in your ears, it sounded uneven. Stressed.

“I’m at.. ‘m at a thing. Why? What’s going on?” You clutched the phone so hard your knuckles were white. The noise of the party suddenly felt far away, irrelevant. Only the sound of his breathing mattered.

“I need to see you,” he said, and the urgency in his tone was like a shot of pure adrenaline, overriding the slow burn of the liquor. “Now. I need to talk to you. I’m at my place.”

Your mouth went dry. ‘Talk to you.’ That specific, loaded phrase. It had to mean something. It had to mean he realized he made a mistake. That he regretted dumping you for the flimsy reasons he’d given three months prior.

“Ryan, ‘m really, really drunk. I can barely stand,” you confessed, the words tasting like copper.

“I don’t care. Get here. Please, Y/N.”

That please. Ryan Baker, the king of aloof indifference, rarely used ‘please.’ This was huge. This was it. This was the moment your miserable, Ryanless existence was about to be rectified.

“Okay, okay. Give me fifteen minutes.”

You hung up before you could second guess yourself, before the logical side of your brain— the side that remembered he was a manipulative asshole— could resurface.

You burst back into the main room, locating Yulia and Scuba.

“Guys, I have to go. Right the fuck now.”

Yulia’s eyes narrowed, instantly detecting the shift in your energy. “What? You just got here, Y/N. You’re fucked, too. Where’re you going?”

“It’s a family thing,” you lied, already turning toward the front door, pulling your cheap, thin jacket tighter around you. The cold reality of the night hit you hard, but the hope was a ferocious furnace inside your chest.

“What kind of family thing? Is your mom okay?” Scuba asked, suddenly serious.

“No, no, mom’s fine. It’s— it’s my cousin. She’s at the ER. She totaled her dad’s car. Massive panic attack, apparently. They called me because I’m the only one who can calm her down.” You hated that you were a good liar, especially when your heart was involved. You threw in minute, specific details to make it stick. “I have to go pick up her up and drive her.. home and stuff. It’s gonna be an all nighter.”

Yulia frowned, stepping closer, smelling the tequila radiating off you. “The hospital? Y/N, you can’t drive. You can barely fuggin’ walk! Don’t be a selfish fucking moron. Get an Uber, then call me and I’ll come with you.”

“No!” The sharpness of your refusal surprised even yourself. “No, I’m fine. I’m just going to walk a little way and clear my head. I’ll call an Uber from there. I just— I need to leave now before they call back frantic. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll text y’guys later. Don’t wait up.”

You pushed past them, ignoring Yulia’s increasingly frantic protests and Scuba’s mumbled, concerning agreement that your cousin was indeed prone to panic attacks. You didn't stop until you were out the front door and sprinting across the damp lawn, your sneakers slipping slightly in the dewy grass.

The cold air hit your face like a slap, sobering you up just enough to maintain a direction, but not enough to think critically. The journey to Ryan’s house, only about ten blocks, felt simultaneously endless and too fast.

Every step you took was a confirmation of your desperation. You had left a legitimately fun party, friends who genuinely cared about your well-being, and genuine, mindless fun, for the siren call of a selfish boy who had crushed you.

You knew it was a bad idea. A horrible one. Dipping on your friends to see your fucked up ex?

You should probably turn around. But the sweet fantasy of Ryan Baker whispering an apology and an ‘I love you’? Probably not.

Fuck it, it’s fine!

He needs me. That was the central, intoxicating thought powering your very drunk legs. He realized he can’t live without me. He’s going to say he loves me. We're going to fix this shit.

You practiced the conversation in your head. You would be restrained. Mature. You wouldn't throw the drunk, sloppy arm around him that you desperately wanted to. You would listen, let him apologize, and then, only then, would you let him kiss you.

You arrived at his driveway, pausing only to swipe awkwardly at your hair, which was probably sticking out at various drunk angles. His car was parked in the usual spot, light spilling faintly from the upstairs bedroom window.

Your heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to punch its way out of your ribcage. You took a deep, shaky breath, attempting to look like an adult who hadn't just consumed three hundred dollars worth of liquor and run ten blocks in the dark.

You knocked, a soft, nervous series of taps.

The door opened almost immediately.

Ryan stood there, and your carefully constructed composure evaporated. He was wearing an old, faded grey hoodie, the one you loved, and sweats. His hair was messy, and he looked relaxed. Not panicked. Not distraught.

He didn't look like a person who had just suffered a massive emotional epiphany and needed to confess eternal love.

He looked bored.

“Took you long enough,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, a small, irritating smirk playing on his lips.

The air rushed out of your lungs. The cold reality, far colder than the night air, hit you instantly, slamming into the wall of false hope you had meticulously built.

“What?” you whispered. “What the hell, Ryan? You sounded like someone died. I told my– I told my friends my cousin was in the hospital. I ran here.”

He pushed the front door shut with his foot, looking past you down the street. “Relax, Y/N. Nothing died.” He finally focused those familiar, infuriating blue eyes on you, and a flicker not regret, but assessment— crossed his face. “Jesus, you’re trashed. Did you drink the whole party?”

The anger, the pure, searing heat of betrayal, rose in your chest, instantly incinerating the remnants of hope and the haze of alcohol.

“Don’t change the subject, you piece of shit,” you spat, your voice shaking. “You called me. You told me you needed to talk to me. What the hell is so urgent, Ryan? Did you finally grow a conscience? Did you miss me?”

He chuckled, a short, dismissive burst of air, and stepped closer, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His touch used to make you melt. Now, it just felt like oil on fire.

“Hey, come on. Don’t get dramatic. Look, I was just bored, okay?” He lowered his voice, dropping the casual annoyance and replacing it with the smooth, seductive tone he knew always worked on you. “I was watching a movie, realized I had no one to chill with. I thought about you. We always had fun, right?”

He reached for your hand, pulling you gently toward the house.

“And you know I love when you’re a little drunk. You’re way less annoying.”

You snatched your hand back as if he’d burned you. The coldness that had hit you earlier turned into a deep, painful chill that settled in your bones. Bored. He was bored. He didn't need to talk. He just needed a convenient, drunk body to pass the time with. Yours.

“Bored?” You laughed, a sound that was half-sob, half-snarl. “You dragged me away from my friends who actually care about me, by the way, in the middle of the night, knowing I was wasted, because you were bored?”

“Hey! Chill the fuck out, Y/N. Don’t make it a thing.” He sighed, rolling his eyes, already annoyed that you weren't immediately falling into his arms. “Look, I know this is sudden, but come on. We were good together. We both know that. I'm lonely tonight. You’re lonely tonight. Let’s just skip the drama and go upstairs. You can crash here.”

He didn't even use the word 'sex.' He used clinical, detached euphemisms, chill, crash, be good together. Because to him, that’s all you were; a temporary fixture, a comfort object when the actual comfort wasn't available.

The pain was overwhelming, sharp and suffocating. It felt worse than the initial breakup, because back then, at least you could hold onto the fantasy that he was hurting too, that maybe circumstances had separated you. But this? This was him serving you the raw, undeniable truth that you were convenient.

“Fuck. You.” you whispered, the adrenaline now draining away, leaving you shaky and nauseous.

“Oh, here we go,” Ryan muttered, crossing his arms. “Look, if you’re going to be a psycho about it, just leave.”

“A psycho?” The word snapped you out of the quiet despair. You screamed it, the sound echoing harshly in the otherwise silent residential street. “I thought you cared! I thought you wanted to fix things! I thought, for one stupid, pathetic moment, that you realized you missed me! The actual, whole me!”

You jabbed a finger hard into your own chest. “But no. You just wanted a late night booty call because your other options probably ghosted you. You are eighteen years old, Ryan, and you’re still functioning on the emotional level of a selfish, horny middle-schooler!”

He remained infuriatingly calm, simply raising an eyebrow. “Is this really necessary? You’re making a scene.”

“I don’t give a shit if I make a scene!” Tears, hot and stinging, finally broke free, washing streaks through the grime and sweat on your face. This wasn't about him anymore; this was about the crushing realization of how stupid you had allowed yourself to be. The shame of the lie, the frantic run, the desperate hope.

“I left my friends! I broke my promise to myself! I came running the second you clicked your fucking fingers!” You were sobbing hysterically now, grabbing at your jacket, needing to get away before you physically attacked him. “I thought you were going to tell me you loved me! Like a brain dead idiot, I let myself believe that the worst decision I ever made— dating you— was about to be fixed. And you just wanted to get laid! What the hell is wrong with you, Ryan? Why are you such a fuckin’ dick?”

He stepped back again, finally showing a slight frustration, but mostly just irritation at the noise.

“Get your shit together, Y/N. Stop crying. I called you because I know you always come. It’s not my fault you made up some elaborate romantic delusion in your head. That’s your problem, not mine.”

That sentence; so cold, so perfectly dismissive, was the definitive end.

“You’re right,” you choked out, wiping your nose messily with the back of your hand. The tequila was now truly turning on you, making your stomach churn violently. “It’s my problem. And my problem is that I cared about you. But that ends tonight. Look at me, Ryan. Really look at me. I am never, ever coming back. Don’t fuckin’ call me again. If I see you in the hallways, I will pretend you don’t exist.”

You turned abruptly, stumbling slightly down the driveway, not waiting for a reply, not even waiting for him to shut the door.

You walked, or maybe staggered, back toward town. The party seemed miles away. The adrenaline had completely gone, leaving behind only the sickening truth and the heavy nausea of the alcohol. Each step felt like walking through thick mud.

You pulled out your phone, finding Yulia’s contact. It was almost 2 AM.

You couldn't call Yulia and tell her the truth, that you had run away from her genuine friendship for a pathetic chance at getting back a boy who saw you as nothing more than a temporary inconvenience.

You messaged her instead, keeping the lie going, tasting the bitterness of it in your mouth.

y/n: cousins stable

y/n: headed home now

y/n: so sorry i dipped on you guys will explain tomorrow

yulia: are you okay????

yulia: you sounded awful

yulia: text me when you get home

You knew you had to face the reality tomorrow; the shame, the headache, the apologies to your friends, the crushing reality that you were not over Ryan, and that Ryan was indeed still, irrevocably, an absolute, self-centered dickhead.

You finally collapsed onto a bus bench near the main road, burying your face in your hands. You smelled like cheap perfume, sweat, and whatever it was you drank that night. You had thrown away a good night for a terrible fantasy.

The camera lights, the roar of the crowd after a successful premiere, the collaborative magic of a quiet soundstage at 3 AM, that was the good part. You loved sinking into a character, the sheer joy of living a life that wasn't yours, if only for a few months. 

You remembered the first time you stepped onto a set, not as an extra, but with lines, a character, and a story to tell. The lights, the cameras, the organized chaos, it had all felt like pure magic. This was it, you thought. This was what you were born to do. Being an actor, embodying someone new, exploring different lives, different emotions– that was pure, unadulterated fun. You loved acting.

That was the fun part.

But then, the other shoe dropped. Being famous. That was a different beast entirely, one that gnawed at your sanity, picked apart your soul, and left you feeling like a hollowed-out version of the person you once were. The media, a relentless hydra, always demanding more, more, more, always judging, and always, always twisting. Public scrutiny, a thousand invisible eyes dissecting your every fucking little move, every smile, and every outfit. The paparazzi, lurking in shadows, springing out with blinding flashes, stealing moments that were never meant for public consumption.

And the tabloids. Oh, the tabloids. You weren’t even aware they were still even being made. Still, they were the worst. Ink stained vultures, preying on your vulnerabilities, fabricating narratives, turning your life into a grotesque soap opera for mass consumption. All of it, every single bit, drove you crazy.

You remembered thinking, just last Tuesday, that you had finally done it. You had navigated the treacherous waters of public opinion and somehow, miraculously, managed to please the impossible trifecta: the studio, your incredibly demanding manager, and the legions of critics dictating what constituted the "perfect all-American woman."

You had traded your vintage band tees you actually adored for a “more designer” closet the PR team deemed "tastefully mature." You stopped posting those witless, unedited selfies that made you laugh, replacing them with carefully filtered, sun-drenched images showing you drinking green juice while reading a classic novel. Every breath you took had been strategically placed, and every word polished until it shone with manufactured grace. You felt like a carefully constructed porcelain doll, flawless and fragile, but you told yourself the sacrifice was worth it.

You were curled up on the oversized velvet sofa in your Los Angeles apartment. Outside, the city shimmered with a deceptive calm. Inside, the quiet was fractured only by the low hum of the air conditioning and the rhythmic crunching of your Milo attacking a bowl of popcorn.

Milo. He was exactly everything the public adored. Effortlessly charming, endlessly spirited, and utterly unaffected by the anxiety that was currently eroding your molars.

You had just finished a tense, hour long video conference with your manager, where she had praised your recent press tour as "perfectly calibrated," a phrase that tasted like ash in your mouth. You felt exhausted, but victorious. You had done it. You had fit the mold.

"Did you hear it?" Milo asked, leaning over the back of the sofa, his dark hair bouncing. He nudged your shoulder with a powerful, playful tap. "The theme song from *New-Disney-Movie* 3? I swear they just reused the percussion loop from the second one. Lazy."

"Milo, please," you sighed, pushing his arm away gently, focusing instead on the latest metrics report on your phone. "I just need five minutes of quiet. My manager was on one today."

"Ah, the manager. Let me guess– you need to be more 'authentically relatable' while simultaneously maintaining 'an aura of inaccessible Hollywood grace'?" He mimicked your managers clipped, stern voice perfectly.

You offered a weak smile. "Something like that. Apparently, the fact that I dyed my roots three weeks late made the entire Women’s Health campaign look 'sloppy.'"

"Sloppy? Y/N, you’re gorgeous," Milo scoffed, waving a buttery hand dismissively. He genuinely meant it, and that was the problem. His reality didn’t intersect with yours. He could shrug off the scrutiny; you absorbed it like a sponge.

"It’s not about being gorgeous, Milo. It's about being marketable. It's about being the image they designed." You scrolled, checking Twitter mentions one last time before sealing the phone for the night. You should have known better. You always knew better.

The headline was not on Twitter. It was a massive, garish pop-up ad that splashed across the screen, demanding attention. It featured a candid, horribly unflattering photo of you from last month, taken outside a local ice cream shop, where you had been wearing those "childish sneakers" and eating an icecream.

An icecream.

And your sneakers were hardly “childish”; they just had the slightest bit of color.

The text was a punch to the gut, rendered in aggressive bold

Y/N DOESN’T ACT HER AGE! IS AMERICA'S SWEETHEART ACTUALLY A HOLLYWOOD PROBLEM CHILD?

Your breath seized. The fragile victory you had just claimed shattered. You hadn't failed; you hadn't even reached the finish line. The goalpost had simply been moved again, just as you thought you were touching it. The shame was instant, hot, and overwhelming.

The phone slipped from your numb fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a sharp, sickening crack.

"Whoa, easy there, butterfingers," Milo said, instantly shifting from carefree to concerned. He straightened up, his height suddenly dominating the room. "Did it break? We can—"

He saw the glowing screen face-up on the floor, the big, bold headline burning into the ceiling.

"Oh," Milo whispered, his voice losing its usual octave boost. He crouched down, picking up the phone with immense care, as if the toxic words might rub off on his fingers. He read the sub-text, which was worse: 

Sources claim the actress’s recent 'childish' behavior, including 'inappropriate wardrobe choices' and 'public displays of juvenile consumption,' suggest a mounting pressure to conform to Hollywood’s rigid standards.

You didn’t hear the rest. You didn't need to. You were already sinking. The engineered calm you had maintained all week vanished, replaced by a violent, buzzing despair that felt like white noise in your skull. Every single meeting, every strategic outfit change, every forced smile—all for nothing. You were still too much, or not enough. Too old for juvenile consumption, too young for Hollywood grace.

"It’s just– it’s a silly article, Y/N," Milo started, straightening up, trying to offer comfort, but his inherent pep was working against him. "Nobody takes that brand seriously. They called me a ‘giant theatre kid’ last week! It's their job to stir the pot, baby. You look cute. And you look happy."

"Cute?" you choked out, pulling away slightly, your voice hoarse. "Happy? Milo, they're saying I'm unprofessional. That I'm not mature enough for my roles. My manager’s gonna start spiraling. She’ll want me to issue an apology for... for eating!"

“An apology for laughing? That's insane!" he exclaimed, genuinely bewildered. "No, Y/N, don't do that. You don't owe them anything. It's just noise, baby. Ignore it."

You stood up so quickly the blood rushed from your head, making the room tilt. "No– Milo, you don't get it! They take it seriously when my manager takes it seriously! This undoes everything! I spent three hours yesterday talking about my 'mature approach to fashion,' and now they're calling me a problem child for eating a fuckin’ ice cream cone!"

You paced away, scrubbing a frantic hand over your face, feeling the meticulous makeup crack. "I am so tired of walking on this razor’s edge! I have to be beautiful, but not too distracting. Successful, but not arrogant. Relatable, but completely unattainable. I spent two years cultivating the persona of this ‘perfect All-American woman,’ and it’s a lie! It’s a performance outside of the performance!"

Milo, bless his heart, tried to tackle the problem with logic and sheer, overwhelming positivity, the two tools he relied on most.

"Okay, okay, deep breaths," he coached, walking toward you slowly. "Let’s reframe this. This is actually good! Because it means they’re noticing you! You’ve got buzz! Remember what that one director said? Any press is—"

"Don’t you fucking dare tell me any press is good press, Milo!" you snapped, your voice cracking with a sudden, painful intensity. You backed away before he could touch you. You desperately needed distance from his cheerful, towering presence. "This isn't buzz. This is surveillance! This is a public execution of everything I try to hide. They’re calling me out for being human! I just want to walk down the street and exist without my team messaging me five minutes later asking why I wore that coat or why I seemed 'bitchy' in the security footage!"

Tears of pure, frustrated exhaustion burned your eyes. "And honestly, Milo, sometimes I don’t think you can understand. You're the energetic golden boy who charms everyone. They call you loud and funny, and it’s endearing. They call me a problem child, and suddenly my next role is on the line. I’m the woman who has to fight twice as hard to be taken seriously, and the minute I slip— the minute I wear a pair of casual fucking shoes— I’m back to square one!"

You stood there, vibrating with anger and overwhelming defeat. The perfect actress, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect professional—she had just melted under the pressure of a cheap online headline.

Milo’s characteristic energy finally deflated. His large frame seemed to slump slightly. He realized, too late, that his bubbly, "it's fine!" approach wasn't what you needed. He had tried to put a band-aid on a gaping wound.

He looked genuinely hurt by your dismissal, but he finally understood the gravity of the situation was far beyond a standard bad review. He took a hesitant step closer, dropping the tablet onto the sofa cushion this time.

"Y/N, I– I know it’s different for you," he said softly, his voice low and serious for once. "And I know I don't deal with the same garbage. But I see how hard you work. I see how much effort you put into being… them." 

He reached out slowly this time, anticipating your reaction, and rested his huge hands lightly on your shaking shoulders. "Don’t let them win. Okay? Don’t let them take away the fun part— the acting— by making you hate the rest of it. You’re Y/N. Not that perfect woman they invented. You’re the one who eats icecream cones and wears ugly sneakers, and that’s the person I love."

His words, meant to soothe, only made the dam break completely. You wrenched away from his grip, the desperate need for solitude overriding everything else.

"But that Y/N loses, Milo! That Y/N costs us money! That Y/N gets blacklisted!" you cried out, your voice a ragged whisper now. "And I can't afford to lose!"

You fled the room, heading toward the sanctuary of the bedroom, leaving Milo standing alone by the sofa, staring down at the glowing screen with the cruel, bold headline. He watched you crash, and he knew, with a sickening certainty, that his sweet words and logical attempts at comfort had done nothing but bounce off the fortress of your crushing anxiety.

first fic of the marathon 🥹🥹🥹🥹