⚢ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆— Actress!Ellie x Actress!Reader
⊹ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — A cracked-mirror apartment, two kids with a dream, and a desperate choice that buys a month of rent and a lifetime of consequences. Years later, one buzzing phone turns memory into combustion—careers teeter, lovers and lies scramble, and a room full of handlers can’t keep the past from walking in. On a wind-stung terrace where smoke curls and old gravity hums, tenderness and fury circle like magnets, and the difference between survival and surrender narrows to a breath.
⊹ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒— LORE PACKED, smut (Ellie x reader), angst, panic/anxiety, internalized homophobia, time jumps/flashbacks, jealousy, alcohol + cigarette use, explicit language, emotional infidelity, tense relationship dynamics (ellie x dina / reader x abby), malicious outing & revenge porn (non-consensual leak), on-camera sex references, PR/media scrutiny, physical altercation, career/brand fallout, multiple POVs, AFAB!reader, modern AU, multi-part series. minors and men DNI.
← 𝑐𝘩𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛𝑒 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 | 𝑐𝘩𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝘩𝑟𝑒𝑒 →
“𝑬𝒓𝒐𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒃𝒔 (𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏) 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒔 𝒎𝒆
𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒏𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒔 𝒊𝒏”
— 𝑺𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒉𝒐, 𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 130
𝐖hen school ended, you and Ellie packed everything you owned into the backseat of Joel’s truck and moved into your first apartment.
Well, apartment is a generous word. It was a crooked box with windows. A third-floor walk-up in a building that looked like it was holding itself together out of spite.
The rent was cheap because the place smelled faintly of mold—as if someone had tried to drown it years ago and it never fully dried. The bathroom mirror had a crack running through it that split your reflection in two, so every morning you had to choose which half of yourself to look at. The tap in the kitchen sink dripped constantly, and there was a stain on the carpet shaped like Argentina that no amount of scrubbing would erase.
But, you didn’t care. You were eighteen and had a single dream split between two hearts: become actors or die trying.
And if that meant learning lines on the floor, or eating dollar ramen while Ellie patched a hole in her Converse with duct tape, so be it. If it meant holding auditions in damp rehearsal rooms that smelled like dust, or memorizing monologues on the subway, so be it.
Both your parents and Joel slipped you money every so often—just enough to keep the lights on, never enough to feel safe. It felt like an unspoken bet they’d all placed on when you’d finally quit. Joel handed Ellie a folded hundred like it was nothing, muttering don’t spend it all on coffee, but there was a flicker in his eyes that said he didn’t believe she’d make it past Christmas.
Your mom mailed you envelopes with fifty-dollar bills tucked between “just checking in” notes, the paper smelling faintly of her sickeningly sweet perfume, but the calls that followed always circled back to when are you coming home? She’d never say it outright, but you could hear it—the weary sigh, the pause before she hung up—like you were the family’s one-way ticket to disappointment.
Joel was dismissive, your mom acted like you were the black sheep, and neither of them had much faith in that dream you and Ellie clung to like it was oxygen.
The biggest problem was, you couldn’t prove them wrong. One entire year trying, and nobody actually called you back. Ellie auditioned for an indie film, got the part, and then found out they could only pay her in “exposure”. The talent scout you’d met had laughed, actually laughed, when you said you wouldn’t do nudity. You landed a part in a commercial for laundry detergent—only to be cut before filming because the director decided you didn’t “look believable as someone who does laundry.”
Some days you ate cereal for dinner because it was all you had. Some nights you lay awake counting how many days you had before your phone bill was due and how long you could go without paying it before they cut you off.
But there was a lot of love.
Love in the way you held onto each other when everything else in the world felt like it was trying to shake you loose.
Love in the way Ellie would scribble dumb little cartoons and bad puns on the margins of your audition sides just to make you laugh when you felt like crying. Love in the way you’d walk her home after late rehearsals, splitting a single umbrella while rain slid down your sleeves, your shoulders pressed together so tight your arms ached.
Love in the way you’d sit on the fire escape every midnight, a blanket draped over both your knees, sharing a single cigarette between you and watching the windows across the street flicker on and off like little stages opening and closing.
Ellie pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds from her hoodie pocket, shaking one loose with that same lazy precision she always had. She handed it to you first, like she always did.
“Ugh,” you muttered, examining it between your fingers. “You bought reds? They taste like ass.”
“They were the only ones they had,” she replied, lifting the lighter to your mouth and flicking the wheel.
“Liar. You bought them because they’re the ones you like.” You scoffed, putting it in between your lips.
“...Yeah. Sorry love,” Her lips quivered as she leaned way closer than necessary, holding eye contact while lighting it for you. “I’ll buy golds next time.”
You rolled your eyes, drawing in a slow lungful despite your complaint. You then exhaled into the cold night, a slow stream of smoke disappearing into the dark before you passed the cigarette to her.
“Think I’d kill it in a comedy,” Ellie said then, the corner of her mouth lifting into that cocky smirk you knew too well as she took a drag—like she could already see her name splashed across a movie poster. “Or, like… some cheesy rom-com where I’m the hot love interest that shows up halfway through and then falls into a pool or whatever.”
You roll your eyes but giggle. “You wanna be Hugh Grant?”
“Exactly,” she grinned, tapping ash. “But gayer.”
“I’d like to play someone dark,” you said, leaning back against the brick wall, “Really dramatic and kind of twisted. Like... Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Or—oh, oh—Charlize in Monster.”
“You’d look really hot killing people.”
You nudged her knee with yours. “Shut up.”
“No, I mean it. You’d be like—” her voice dropped into a faux-trailer rasp, “—‘She’s broken, she’s brilliant, she’s beautiful. This summer... love bleeds.’”
You dissolved into laughter, accepting the cigarette back. “Okay, but I’d also do a romance. Like, a real one. Something soft and tragic like Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”
Ellie just nodded, agreeing.
You were quiet for a second, flicking the filter before taking another drag. Then, “You could be in that one with me.”
She looked over at you. “Yeah?”
You nodded. “We’d be good at yearning.”
Her smile softened in that way it always did when she didn’t want you to notice, before bumping her shoulder against yours, a little too shy to look at you for a second.
“Yeah,” she murmured, “Guess we’d be good at that.”
Months passed and rent was late, the panic eating both of you alive. Ellie came home with a crumpled paycheck from a three-day role in a student film — twenty-five bucks, barely enough for takeout, let alone bills — and you’d just been fired from your waitressing job for telling the manager to go to hell when he suggested “showing you how to make a martini” in the walk-in freezer while his hand found your ass.
That night, the idea didn’t come like some grand, premeditated scheme. It came the way most things did with you and Ellie — tangled up in each other on the couch, bodies loose and warm from cheap white wine, the last of the microwave ramen sitting half-forgotten on the coffee table. You were in her lap, your knees bracketing her hips, your hair falling into her face as she kissed you with the lazy hunger of someone who knew they’d have you as long as they wanted. The TV was still playing some grainy 50’s black-and-white you’d put on for “background noise,”.
Sex was… constant. And not just constant — it was the one thing neither of you had ever managed to mess up. Through every late bill, every petty fight, every panic spiral over rent or rejection letters or your mom calling too much, you’d always been able to find each other that way. It wasn’t just the fire —though God, there was fire— it was the way it made the rest of the world fall away for a while. The way her mouth on yours could pull you out of your own head, the way her hands could wordlessly tell you she loved you more than anything.
She kissed you slow and sloppy, her hands wandering under the hem of your shirt like she didn’t have the energy to keep them still. You could feel the easy heat building between you—that magnetic, familiar pull that had been there for five years and somehow hadn’t dulled a bit.
She broke the kiss suddenly, breathless and grinning in that lopsided reckless way, and mumbled against your mouth,
You huffed a laugh, brushing your nose against hers as you adjusted in her lap, your hands finding the back of her neck. “That’s dangerous.”
“No, seriously,” she said, voice dropping into that low, conspiratorial tone. Her eyes were half-lidded, her cheeks flushed from the wine, her hands gripping your hips.
“Hear me out. We make an account and a few… tapes—” she stole another kiss, this one deep enough to leave you dizzy— “Nobody will know it’s us. And, like… we have great sex, someone would definitely pay to see it.”
“You wanna make… porn?” You froze for a second, pulling back just enough to search her face. “Ellie, are you serious?”
She only grinned wider, that shit-eating smile spreading. “Not like porn porn. We just make a few videos, rake in some cash, and then delete everything. What could go wrong?”
“What could go wrong?” you echoed, “Famous last words. Also, that was literally the definition of porn."
“Okay, but just think about it. Rent, groceries, no more begging Joel or your mom for cash every week.” She leaned in until her forehead pressed against yours, her voice softening. “You hate that part. I hate that part. This way, it’s ours.”
You raised an eyebrow. “And what about the part where strangers see my ass?”
She smirked, her palms gliding higher under your shirt, fingertips dragging slow against your skin. “They won’t know it’s your ass. We use fake names. Easy.” A beat. “Jason told me he and his girlfriend made, like… twenty grand doing it.”
“That guy I shooted the short film with? the one with…doesn’t matter.”
You blinked, pulling back just enough to search her face for any sign she was joking. But she was dead serious—well, serious in that mischievous, Ellie way, the kind where you couldn’t tell if she was plotting a prank or she actually thought this was the most brilliant thing she’d ever come up with.
You sighed, your palms settling against her chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath your hands. “I don’t know…”
Her thumbs stroked gently at your ribs. “We won’t do anything you don’t want to. Ever. But… c’mon. All we have to do is fuck. And, babe—” she grinned, leaning closer, “we’re already really good at that. We just gotta record it. It’s genius.”
Your lips trembled despite yourself, a reluctant laugh escaping from them… and okay, maybe she had a point. But mostly, it was that saying no to Ellie had always been impossible. You were both so young and so in love that if she told you to jump off a building, you’d do it without hesitation—and then she’d leap right after you, just to land in the same place.
You tilted your head, pretending to think about it before giving in.
“Mmm… fine,” you conceded “I'm in. You’re a genius, baby.”
“Mm. Say it again,” she teased against your mouth.
“You’re a terrifying genius,” you corrected.
And just like that, she was pulling you back down onto the couch cushions, sealing the deal in the way the two of you always had — with a kiss that felt like home, and the kind of love that made everything else seem almost survivable.
You were nineteen. The walls were thin. The future loomed like a storm you couldn’t outrun.
And the first tape came easy.
No lights. No script. No plan. Just the two of you sinking into that sunken thrift-store couch—the one with the busted spring that jabbed your thigh if you sat wrong. Ellie sprawled between your legs, looking up at you with that slow hunger she always got right before she turned a bad idea into the only thing that made sense.
Another video was nothing but the two of you scissoring on the bedroom floor, the camera propped haphazardly on a stack of books. It caught every soft gasp and shaky moan, your knees knocking together, Ellie’s hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. You were both laughing breathlessly between kisses, your hips moving in slow rolls like you wanted to drag the moment out forever, the sound of skin on skin echoing faintly in the small room.
Another was you between her thighs—her hands tangled in your hair, holding you there. The camera caught the way her knuckles flexed, the subtle tremor in her grip, the way her hips shifted as if chasing something she couldn’t stop herself from wanting. Your hair spilled through her fingers in messy strands, her thighs tightening around you like she was afraid you’d pull away, her breath coming in shallow, uneven bursts.
The videos were always the same kind of messy, home made magic. Filmed with a $200 camera she bought secondhand off Craigslist, the lens a little smudged, the sound tinny and intimate. The account’s name was Erosandatthis—a reference that meant nothing, unless you knew the two of you.
There was too much emotion in them to be sold to strangers. Neither of you once looked at the lens. Sometimes you caught glimpses of your faces in the playback—your parted lips, her flushed cheeks, the shadow of a grin when she realized you were close. You edited and cut around them, but sometimes you let them slip, too in love or too reckless to notice.
And people loved them. Comments started trickling in after the first post. Then more. Little typed confessions from strangers who said it felt real, like they were watching something they shouldn’t, something too tender to be shared.
And Ellie somehow bought a strap. “Priorities,” she’d said, tossing it onto your shared mattress like it was a solution to every problem in your lives. You’d been broke enough to split a single croissant the day before, but in some such way, Ellie had money for a harness and a strap in her preferred shade of dark purple. You never asked how, but you sure as hell didn’t argue after the first time she used it on you. Fuck rent.
The first tape that made big numbers was the one of you riding her, your knees digging into the cushions, her hands gripping your ass tight, pushing and pulling you exactly where she wanted you. She never took her eyes off you, not even when you gasped and grabbed her shoulders for balance.
Ellie had always been good at talking during sex, but on camera she was even worse— whispering “God, I love you” in that raspy, characteristic voice of hers so quietly you didn’t hear it until you played the video back.
By the time you had six tapes, the money was real. More than either of you had ever made waiting tables, handing out flyers, or playing extras on shitty films. Enough to cover rent, groceries, and still have a little left over for a bottle of wine or a night out—not that you were going out much anymore. You’d built a world you didn’t want to leave.
Another video—shorter—was in the pale early morning light. The kind that slipped through the crooked blinds and painted lines across bare skin. You were on your back, tangled in the sheets, Ellie above you in that lazy, unhurried way she had when the day hadn’t quite begun yet.
The strap was already inside you, her hips rolling with that half-asleep rhythm that felt more like being loved than fucked. You whimpered into the pillow, your hands coming up to cup her jaw, pulling her down until your noses brushed.
She kissed you between thrusts, open-mouthed and warm, her breath tasting faintly like coffee. Her fingers laced with yours beside your head, her forehead pressed to yours like she couldn’t stand the space between you.
“You’re the love of my life” she murmured against your lips, voice thick and raspy from the night, forgetting the camera and the concept of porn completely.“Fuck, I love you. I love you so much.”
You said it back without hesitation, the words catching on a gasp as her hips sank deeper.
It was barely more than two minutes of footage— cutting off on the kind of passionate kiss that could’ve ended a movie, not a porn video. The last sound the camera caught was your high, breathless whine of “Ah! F-fuck, I’m gonna—!” before the screen went dark.
Somehow, that one was the favorite. It racked up almost one hundred comments, one that stuck in your head for days: i would die to be loved like that.
When the balance hit ten thousand dollars, five months passed, and there were twelve tapes sitting in that private account, you sat side by side on the couch, old laptop balanced between you. The glow of the screen lit Ellie’s face in soft blue, her fingers brushing yours as the cursor hovered over delete account.
“You’re sure this will delete everything? Like… forever?” you asked, your voice quieter than you meant it to be.
Ellie glanced at you, her mouth curling into that certain smile she always wore when she wanted you to trust her.
𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒆, 𝑨𝒕𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, — 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒆! — 𝑨𝒉, 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒈𝒐!
𝑨𝒔 𝑨𝒑𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒆'𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 — 𝑨𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. 𝑨 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆
𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘! 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚 —
— 𝑺𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒉𝒐, 𝑻𝒐 𝑨𝒕𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕
𝐘ou’re still wrapped in that fragile haze between dreams and daylight when the vibration on your nightstand starts buzzing against the wood, steady and insistent. The sound weaves itself into whatever dream you were having until it’s all you hear, rattling the half-empty glass of water you’d left there last night.
The night before had ended quietly after Abby dropped you off at your apartment, leaning over the console to kiss you goodbye. She’d murmured that she couldn’t stay over—early training in the morning—and you’d pretended not to feel the small pinch of disappointment as you stepped out into the hallway. The ride up in the elevator had been slow, the kind of late hour where the city’s noise felt far away.
The last thing you’d done before bed was check your phone. The internet was buzzing about you and Chris at the premiere—side-by-side on the carpet, smiling like you’d been born for it. Your feed was flooded with clips from interviews, people dissecting your dress, your makeup, your laugh. You’d scrolled until your eyes blurred, watching the same ten-second clips on loop. You looked good—better than good—and you let yourself bask in it for once. By the time you put the phone down, a little smile lingered in your lips.
Now, hours later, the vibration pulls you toward consciousness in uneven tugs. Your eyes stay closed, head still heavy against the pillow, as your hand reaches blindly towards the sound. Your fingers brush the smooth edge of your phone before curling around it.
You don’t even bother to check the screen—your thumb slides to answer purely on instinct, voice thick and hoarse with sleep.
At first, there’s nothing—just a faint, uneven sound of breathing.
“Hey,” Rachel then says, but it’s not her normal voice. It’s soft, hushed, like she’s speaking to someone who’s just been in an accident and she’s afraid they might break if she’s too loud. “Okay, listen to me. Focus on me. Don’t hang up, alright?”
You blink into the light filtering through the curtains, a pale, harmless wash of morning that doesn’t match her tone at all. Your eyebrows furrow. “Rach? What—”
“Don’t—” she cuts in fast, sharp. Too sharp. “Don’t open Twitter. Don’t check any notifications. Don’t look at anything right now. Just… stay with me.”
The bottom drops out of your stomach before you even have time to think. That kind of don’t from Rachel never comes without reason.
Never — not once in all the years you’ve known her, not when she’s pulled you out of red carpet disasters, smoothed over PR nightmares, or whispered damage control into your ear — have you heard her like this.
Her voice isn’t just tight; it’s trembling in places, like every word is balanced on the edge of breaking. The sharp, clipped demands don’t sound like her either. Rachel’s usually the calm in the storm, the only person capable of keeping a smile plastered on her face while the world is burning behind her. But this? This is a crack you’ve never heard before.
You sit up fast, the sheets catching and tangling around your legs, the sleepy high from minutes ago evaporating as steam. Your pulse kicks hard, a steady thump beginning its punishing climb towards panic.
“Please,” she says again, “Just—don’t look. Promise me.”
The room feels smaller suddenly, like the air’s been sucked out.
“Rachel.” You say, firm. “Tell me what’s happening right now.”
There’s a long beat. Too long. Then, in this strange, halting rhythm, she says:
“You… you told me you knew Ellie Williams.”
The name lands low in your chest, already aching. Her, again.
You can’t immediately piece together why Rachel would be calling you about Ellie. Your mind scrambles for possibilities, and it goes to the worst place first—something horrible happened to her. An accident. The kind of bad news you only ever get over the phone.
Your pulse spikes and your stomach feels like it’s sinking straight through the mattress. You reach for levity, but it comes out brittle.
“Uh… y-yeah? Why? Did something happen to her?”
“Not... exactly,” she says, and you can hear it now—the sound of her swallowing hard. “You forgot to tell me a lot of things.”
Your heart twists in on itself. “Like what?”
“Like…” She exhales, and it’s shaky, not even trying to hide the tremor.
“Like whether you two... have ever… made… a sex tape.”
For a second, the words don’t compute. They just hover there in the air, hollow and unreal, and your brain tries to quickly protect itself and imagines you misheard. But then, like a delayed punch, they drop into place and every part of you goes cold. Your fingers stiffen around the phone until the plastic creaks.
The room feels too bright now, the sunlight pouring through your curtains suddenly invasive, spotlighting you, tracing every inch of bare skin. Once, that light had been warm. Now it suddenly sharpened, splintered into fine points, each ray like a needle pressing in, pricking at you until you can’t tell if it’s heat or pain.
And your traitorous mind immediately yanks you backward.
Back to the third-floor walk-up with uneven floors and a bathroom mirror that had a crack running through it. The smell of the sheets when she’d pull you down onto the mattress. The way she’d grin into the camera, her deceiving gaze that made you forget there was a lens at all. How your voice sounded and your body looked in those clips. How her hands always knew exactly where to hold you so you stayed in frame.
You don’t need Rachel to finish. You don’t need to see anything.
The realization crashes over you like a wave of icy water.
The word comes out too sharp, too loud, scraping your throat on its way out.
“Have you?” she asks, quick now, as if she spits it out fast enough it won’t hurt. “I’m not—look, I’m not judging you, I just need to know how—”
“Yes!” you blurt, already throwing the blankets off, your bare feet hitting the floor. You start pacing, fast, like movement might somehow untangle the knot in your chest. “Yes, okay? Why? Why are you asking me that? Rachel, please—please don’t tell me—”
“I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice splintering completely.
Your knees nearly buckle.
“Don’t check, please, Y/N—”
But you’re already taking the phone away from your ear and opening the apps, almost dropping it because your palms are slick. Your own breathing is suddenly loud in your ears, ragged and uneven. The edges of the world narrow—just you, the phone, and the horrible anticipation crawling up your throat.
Rachel is still talking, saying your name over and over, but her words are static. You can’t hear her.
Your X icon is right there, and your thumb moves before you can stop it.
You don’t even need to search. Your name is at the top of the trending list, paired with hers.
Y/N and Ellie Williams leaked.
The letters blur and sharpen again.
The first post has a video attached. The thumbnail is small, fuzzy—but your brain fills in the gaps before your eyes can. That’s your room. That’s your skin. That’s her. That’s you.
A scream rips out of you before you even know you’re making it—raw and jagged, tearing up your throat, something between a sob and an animal howl.
Your vision explodes white at the edges, the room tilting and spinning as your body forgets how to stay upright. You stagger backward until your hip slams into the dresser, the impact rattling the lamp and sending the glass of water on top trembling dangerously close to the edge.
Something in your chest clenches so hard it’s almost pain, a fist curling around your heart and squeezing until it’s nothing but pulp. For a split second, everything inside you goes still. And then your heart kicks back to life in a frenzy—too fast, too hard, rattling your ribs like it’s desperate to escape.
"Y/N—breathe for me. In—breathe in—" Rachel’s voice is frantic, but it’s muffled, warped, as if she’s shouting through ten feet of water.
Your chest is pumping too fast, lungs dragging in air only for it to slide right back out in shallow, broken gasps. Every inhale tastes wrong—metallic, sour. Your hands feel numb. Your knees are weak enough to fold, so you drop onto the edge of the bed, legs trembling, the mattress dipping under your weight like it’s trying to swallow you whole.
The phone slips from your grip and hits the hardwood with a muted thunk. You press the heel of your palm into your eyes until sparks burst across the dark, as if pressure alone could blot it out, could push the world back into some version where this wasn’t happening.
But no amount of force can stop the truth from searing itself into you.
𝐃ina’s warmth is the first thing Ellie registers when she surfaces from sleep.
Ellie is curled around her, her front pressed to Dina’s back, arm hooked tight around her waist. Her palm rests low, fingers curled just under the hem of her t-shirt, skin against skin. She can feel the slow, even rise and fall of her breathing, the faint tickle of curls brushing her chin.
They’d come in late last night, slamming the door behind them with the argument still hot in their throats. Neither had been willing to let it go until the fight burned itself out the way it always did—with them backed into the nearest flat surface, still angry but already kissing hard enough to bruise. It was messy, rushed, a clumsy tangle toward the bedroom that ended the same way most of their fights did: bodies pressed together, trying to outdo the other’s stubbornness with touch.
Now, hours later, the only trace of it is the faint ache in Ellie’s muscles, the lazy hum in her limbs, and the way Dina’s body fits against hers as if they’d never been at odds.
The alarm cuts through the stillness—sharp, mechanical, a jarring intrusion. Dina stirs against her, groaning softly. “Ughh—turn it offff.”
Ellie’s hand gropes blindly across the nightstand until her fingers close around her phone. She silences it with a sleepy swipe, her thumb clumsy from half-consciousness. The thought of going right back under, sinking into that same warmth, is tempting enough to make her eyelids droop again.
But she glances at the screen out of habit—and freezes.
Her notifications are a wall, a solid, endless flood of messages stacked so high she can’t see where they start.
For a second, she blinks at it, her mind sluggishly offering the most logical explanation: The Emmys. It has to be about the Emmys. Her win. Maybe the speech, maybe some photo that went viral.
But something’s wrong, something in her chest doesn’t match that explanation. It’s a pressure she can’t name, but it’s already making her pulse start to tick faster.
She scrolls without meaning to, and the first thing she sees is her publicist’s texts in all caps. Then another. Then another. Everyone from her team. Lawyer. PR manager. Even her stylist. The kind of people who do not text in caps unless the world is on fire.
The warmth drains from her limbs.
Ellie sits up so fast the mattress dips sharply, jostling Dina. Her girlfriend groans again, squinting into the half-dark.
"Ellie, what happened?" her voice is thick with sleep, the words stretching into a yawn as she props herself on one elbow.
Ellie doesn’t answer. She’s already swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet pressing into the cool floorboards. Her phone is in her hand, her thumb hovering over X like she’s bracing for impact. She’s not breathing right—her inhales are short, clipped, barely making it past her chest.
And the first trending topic, burning up the feed in bold black letters:
The words glare at her from the screen like they’ve been carved there, too sharp to look at, too loud to unsee. And then her eyes drop lower—down to the thumbnail sitting beneath the headline.
The gasp that leaves her is small but sharp, punched straight out of her lungs. It comes with this awful choking hitch, like she’s swallowed glass. She slaps a hand over her mouth, as if that could pull the sound back in, as if she could hide the way her body just betrayed her.
It’s a screenshot, frozen mid-motion. Her face is right there, turned toward the camera, hair sticking damp to her temple, mouth parted like she’s caught between a breath and a sound. And you, unmistakable even in the grain of the image. Skin. Movement. The telltale mess of sheets she knows by muscle memory.
One of the videos. The exact one she’d watched alone two weeks ago, in the quiet dark of her apartment, when it was still hers and no one else’s.
Her mind starts clawing at itself for an explanation and finds nothing but static. Did someone hack her? Did something glitch? Did she slip, leave something in the wrong folder? Did you—? The thoughts sear through her so fast it leaves nothing but white noise in its wake.
Her head fills with questions she can’t pin down long enough to answer, her vision blurring around the edges. It’s like the oxygen has been yanked out of the room. Her throat closes around the air she’s trying to drag in, each inhale catching on itself until she feels like she’s choking.
Her vision blurs before she even realizes she’s crying. The tears spill fast, unannounced, cutting hot tracks down her cheeks. Her chest is tight, rigid, and the world around her feels suddenly too detailed—every shadow, every crease in the sheets, every speck of dust in the air standing out in painful clarity.
"Ellie?" Dina’s voice is sharper now, edging towards alarm. She sits up fully, the sheets falling from her chest. "What happened? What is it?"
Ellie shakes her head once, hard, her hair falling into her face. Her legs move before her brain catches up and then she’s crossing the room in quick, uneven steps, pacing without purpose except to keep from collapsing.
Dina’s still talking, asking, but it’s just sound in the background. White noise against the rush in her ears.
Ellie doesn’t want her to see. Doesn’t want her to ask. Doesn’t want anyone in the room with her. Doesn't want any eyes on her, maybe ever again. The air feels too thin for two people.
She yanks the bedroom door open.
"Stay here," she gets out, voice almost breaking.
She doesn’t wait to see if Dina listens. She’s already gone, feet hitting the hall in a staccato rhythm, the phone burning in her palm.
Ellie doesn’t even remember pressing the call button. Her thumb just moves, finding Erin’s name. The dial tone feels like it stretches forever, each second tightening the knot in her chest.
“Ellie,” Erin answers on the third ring. “I was going to call you.”
“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!?” Ellie’s voice comes out too sharp, too loud. She’s pacing the living room now, feet dragging over the rug, phone pressed hard to her ear.
“I’ve been handling it,” Erin says, a little too smooth, a little too calm. “I didn’t want to tell you yet until I had it under control—”
“Well it’s not under control!” Ellie snaps, the words punching out before she can stop them. “Have you seen fucking twitter? Have you seen the vi—” Her throat catches around the word, as if even saying it would make it more real.
“Of course I’ve seen it,” Erin says, the sigh in her voice almost patronizing. “You think I’m just sitting here with my thumbs up my ass? I’ve been on calls since five a.m. trying to contain it.”
Ellie stops pacing, presses her fingers hard against her temple. “How the actual fuck did someone get that video from?!”
There’s a beat of silence, just long enough for it to feel deliberate.
“That’s what I’m asking you,” Erin says finally. “Because it didn’t exactly come from thin air.”
“We—” She glances toward the bedroom door, where Dina is still in, and lowers her voice. “We dated. Me and her. I had that video on my iCloud.”
“Mhm.” Erin’s tone doesn’t change, but the hum sits heavy, as if she’s already filing this away. “So maybe someone hacked your iCloud.”
"Wait,” Ellie says instantly, words cutting sharp through her teeth. The call with Erin stays on the line as she swipes through settings with quick, jerky movements.
She dives into her account security, heart pounding in the hollow of her throat. The familiar menus flash by—password, devices, login history—and she’s holding her breath like she’s bracing for impact.
Nothing. No alerts, no suspicious sign-ins, no password change notifications. The last “new device” login is from her own phone, weeks ago. Every line looks clean, ordinary, infuriatingly untouched, as if the universe is mocking her.
“There’s nothing,” she says, thumbing back and forth through the log just to be sure. “No password changes, no sign-ins from new devices. I’m checking right now—nothing.”
Erin lets out a short, humorless laugh, the kind that feels more like a slap than amusement. “Ellie, you sound awfully sure for someone whose private porn just went public.”
Ellie’s chest tightens, a retort already building “Erin what the fuck—?!”
But Erin is quicker, always quicker. Her voice cuts in before thoughts can even finish forming, ponty and unyielding.
“No,” she says, fast, almost overlapping Ellie’s words, swatting them out of the air. “I’m asking you: are you telling me the whole truth?”
It’s so abrupt that Ellie’s mind stutters, caught mid-step, the question landing before she can prepare for it. Erin never leaves space for her to think, never lets silence bloom long enough for Ellie to find her footing.
The pause feels like it lasts too long, stretching into incrimination.
“…No,” Ellie says finally, forcing the word out like a confession. “We uploaded them, back then. To this… account. But we deleted it after some months. All of it.”
“Ellie,” Erin says slowly, with that infuriatingly calm cadence of hers, not entirely mean but far away from gentle. “The internet is forever. You don’t just delete something and poof—it’s gone. Someone saves it, screenshots it, archives it. This isn’t magic, this is reality.”
Ellie can't really believe what she's listening, “You’re acting like I should’ve fucking known this would happen!”
“You should have,” Erin says flatly. “And now we have to clean up after it.”
Ellie’s head is pounding. She wants to argue, to tell Erin that no, she couldn’t have predicted someone digging this up years later, but the words feel useless. Erin’s voice just keeps rolling over her, a tidal wave she can’t stop.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Erin continues, tone brisk, managerial. “We’re arranging a meeting between your team and hers. Today. I've already booked the flights. We need alignment, a joint statement, and a strategy for minimizing fallout. I’ll text you the details.”
“I—” Ellie starts, but Erin is already talking again.
“Shower, breathe, and for the love of God, don’t post anything. I’ll handle the rest.”
The line goes dead before Ellie can say another word.
Ellie just stood there in the hallway for a moment, phone hanging loose at her side, pulse still thundering in her ears from Erin’s voice cutting out. The silence felt too loud, pressing in on her temples, so she pushed herself forward—back toward the bedroom.
The door was cracked open. She could see Dina sitting up against the headboard, blanket pooled around her waist, hair mussed from sleep. But it wasn’t the sleepy softness Ellie had left her in. Dina’s shoulders were tense, her jaw tight, her phone clutched in both hands.
When Ellie stepped in, Dina didn’t look at her right away. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, wide and glassy, and it made something in Ellie’s gut sink fast.
“Dina,” Ellie said, voice low, pleading. “Please. Don’t.”
Dina finally looked up, and her face made Ellie want to turn and walk straight out of the apartment. And never come back. It wasn’t just shock—it was betrayal, confusion, hurt sitting right there under the surface. Without a word, she turned the phone in her hands and held it out, the screen catching the dull morning light.
Ellie’s stomach dropped. Her face. Yours. Bodies moving in sync, hands tracing skin like a language only the two of you had spoken. The grainy, dim-lit warmth of a video she knew too well to be proud of.
But the meaning of it is now irreversibly changed, shifting from something cherished to something dreadful. Her pulse spiked, nausea clawing its way up her throat until she thought she might actually be sick.
“What the fuck is this, Ellie?!” Dina’s voice cracked halfway through the question, her eyes already wet.
Ellie’s chest constricted. She shook her head too fast, words tumbling out without air. “Dina, don't watch it—are you fucking kidding me? Don’t—!”
“You never told me anything about this!” Dina shot back, her tone rising to match the sharp edges in the room.
Ellie took a step closer, her hands half-raised like she could calm this down by sheer proximity. “Because it’s not—it’s not something I thought would ever—”
“Oh, really?!” Dina’s laugh was short and hollow. “Because it looks pretty fucking current to me. Like, I don’t know, two people who clearly—clearly—” She stopped herself, lips pressing tight, eyes flicking away like she didn’t even want to finish.
“We dated,” she said finally, the words heavy as lead.
Dina’s head snapped toward her. “What?”
Ellie’s breathing was uneven now, hands curling into fists at her sides, not in anger but in the way you do when you’re barely holding yourself together. “It was before you, way before. I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter anymore—”
“It didn’t matter?! You’re literally calling her the love of your life!’” Dina’s voice cracked loud enough to bounce off the walls. “And now I’m finding out because her face and your face are all over the internet in some fucking sex tape!”
Ellie winced at the words, as if they were made of glass and she’d just stepped on them barefoot. “Dina, I didn’t—fuck—I didn’t think this would ever see the light of day. We deleted it. We deleted the whole account. It was gone—”
“Clearly not gone enough,” Dina bit out, tone sharp with disbelief. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, but the tears kept building.
Ellie started pacing, fast, the way she always did when her brain was firing too fast for her mouth. “I don’t even know how it happened. I don’t—Erin’s saying someone downloaded it, but nothing adds up, and now you’re here looking at me like—” She broke off, shaking her head, voice straining. “Like I planned this or something!”
Dina’s voice dropped, quieter but not softer. “You didn’t plan it, but you sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth either.”
Ellie stopped moving, her breathing ragged, eyes darting anywhere but Dina’s. Her fingers dragged through her hair, tugging hard.
“Because I didn’t want to lose you over something that happened years ago, okay? Because I didn’t want to have this fight, and now it’s happening anyway and—” She cut herself off with a choked sound, her shoulders curling inward.
Dina stared at her for a long moment, eyes searching, but the space between them felt like it was getting wider with every second.
“You should have told me,” she said finally, voice low and uneven. “Before the whole fucking world did.”
Ellie’s jaw clenched, her chest heaving as she fought to keep her voice from breaking.
“I know.” she said, barely more than a whisper.
𝐓he locker room was humid with the after-sweat of practice, the low hiss of the showers somewhere in the back. Abby was at her locker, peeling off her shirt and grabbing a towel, when she noticed the two forwards from her team huddled together a few feet down, their heads bent over one phone like they were plotting a heist.
They weren’t even pretending to change—just standing there in their sports bras, eyes glued to whatever was playing. Every few seconds one of them would gasp, or let out a muffled laugh, then lean in as if the phone was telling them a secret.
“Oh my god,” Andy breathed, her hand clapping over her mouth. “Rewind it, rewind it—”
“I’m not rewinding it, it’s already on a loop,” Nora muttered, grinning. “Holy fuck. Look at the way she—”
“God, I’d kill to be them right now,” Andy cut in, half-laughing, half-serious. “They’re so into it.”
Abby smirked and wandered over, rolling her shoulders loose.
“What’s got you two so glued to the phone?” Her voice was light, teasing—locker room banter without thinking—but her eyes flicked between them, curious.
Andy glanced up, cheeks flushed like she’d been caught. “Oh, you’d never believe this.”
Nora bit her lip, eyes still darting down to the screen. “No, seriously, this is—like—huge. Insane.”
Abby cocked her head, leaning on the locker next to them. “Now I’m curious. Spill.”
Andy grinned. “Okay, so—you know that actress? The hot one—”
“That narrows it down to, like, fifty.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “The hot one. The one from When We Fell. The one people are obsessed with. Y/N.”
Your name hit Abby like a slap she didn’t see coming. Her shoulders tensed before she could stop it, something coiling low in her gut. Her grip on the towel tightened just slightly, but she forced a scoff, making her voice lazy.
“…Sure. What about her?” she finally said, making her tone casual even though the entire situation sent shivers skittering up her spine. Still, she played it cool, smirking faintly.
Andy bit back a smirk of her own. “She has a sex tape.”
Abby’s brows shot up, the laugh that came out more like disbelief than humor. “Nah. You’re lying.” She was already bracing herself for the punchline, waiting for them to admit they were messing with her.
“With Ellie. fucking. Williams,” Nora cut in, voice pitching up like she could barely believe it herself.
Abby’s brain tripped over the name. For a beat, she felt like she’d misheard it — like there was no way that’s what she’d just said. “The one from Backstage? Short hair, tattoos, never smiles?” Her laugh came sharper this time, riding the fantasy of incredulity. “Nah, no way. You’re fucking kidding.”
But Andy was shaking her head, looking giddy to be the one delivering the news. “Nope. And it’s everywhere. Blowing up.” She grinned wider. “Ten seconds in and they already look like they’re about to eat each other alive. Full-on eye contact. You can feel it.”
Something icy was starting to spread through Abby’s chest, wrapping around her lungs. She kept her arms folded, kept her face flat, but every nerve in her body was on high alert.
Nora smirked, eyes still locked at the phone, as if it was just impossible to stop watching it. “And they both have huge relationships, like, serious ones. Isn’t Y/N super straight and dating Chris Parker? This is… honestly? Historic.”
The name hit Abby again, this time harder. The casual way Nora said Chris Parker made her stomach twist — the public version of you, the one everyone thought they knew. Not her version.
Andy laughed under her breath. “Historic’s one word for it. Fucking insane is another. I mean—Williams’s got her hands everywhere. And Y/N? She’s…” She trailed off with a low whistle. “Let’s just say she’s not shy. You can see everything.”
The words felt like grit under Abby’s teeth. Her jaw locked so tight it ached. She didn’t want to picture it — you, like that, with someone else’s hands on you — but the images were already there, uninvited and ugly.
Nora leaned in closer to the screen, biting back a grin. “She’s gorgeous, though. Like—even better than I thought she’d look naked. And the noises—holy shit.”
That was it. The heat under Abby’s skin turned darker, meaner. She couldn’t stand the way they were looking at the screen like you were just another piece of gossip to pass around. Her heartbeat was hammering in her ears, but her voice stayed level.
“Alright,” she said, stepping forward, “let me see the fucking tape.”
Before she could finish, Abby’s hand shot out and snatched the phone clean from her grip. Andy’s startled hey! barely registered as Abby tilted the screen toward herself.
It hit her instantly—you.
So familiar it made her stomach drop; so utterly, irrevocably you that it was impossible to imagine it could be anyone else. But your body younger, your face and skin unstripped, unarmored. A version of you she had never met.
Then came the sound—Ellie's, low and intimate, threading through the static: “Fuck, I love you. I love you so much.”
And then your voice. Soft, but sure in a way she never heard before, saying it back.
Something in her chest cinched tight, a wire pulled until it snapped. Every muscle locked, breath wouldn’t come. The white-hot rage was instant, irrational, and blinding—a betrayal she had no claim to, but surged up and flooded her all the same.
Before her brain could catch up, before thought could intervene, her hand moved on instinct.
The phone flew, hitting the cinderblock wall with a sharp crack. The spiderweb of shattered glass froze over the image of you and Ellie, the sound cutting dead.
Silence. Nora and Andy stared like she’d just swung at them instead of the phone.
Abby’s breath stayed even, but it was an effort. Her jaw was clenched so hard it hurt, and she could feel the pulse in her temples.
Without a word, she turned, towel slung over her shoulder, and walked straight out — not trusting herself to speak, because if she did, the whole locker room would hear exactly what she wasn’t supposed to say.
𝐓he conference room smells like too-strong coffee and fresh paper, the kind of sterile, overlit space where nothing good has ever happened. The table is long enough that the person at the other end could vanish if you wanted them to — which you surely do.
Rachel is beside you, her palm covering yours under the table. Her grip is firm, steady, as if she knows you’re one breath away from falling apart.
You’ve been here for twenty minutes already. Your team is scattered along your side, murmuring into phones, shuffling papers, pretending not to glance at you like you’re a bomb they’re trying to keep from going off. You haven’t moved. The dark clothes you're wearing swallow the light, not a single inch of skin exposed. You sunglasses help—they’re the only thing hiding how your eyes are irreparably swollen, raw from hours of crying you couldn’t control.
To make it worse, Abby isn't responding to any of your texts. Not the first, not the eight that followed, not the two missed calls or the voice message where your voice cracked so badly you had to hang up. You tried to explain, tried to get something — anything — back from her side, but there’s been nothing. Just silence. And that’s how you know she saw it.
The air in the room shatters, goes solid and dense all at once. Erin walks in first, her black stilettos biting into the carpet, her ginger hair perfectly styled, her blue eyes sharp and hostile. Behind her follows the rest of Ellie’s team.
But it’s all a blur in your periphery because then you look up, and time doesn’t just slow, it disintegrates.
She stops in the doorway like she’s been hit. Black on black, the fabric swallowing her whole, sleeves down to her wrists, even her collarbones hidden from view. Auburn hair pulled back in a bun though a few strands have rebelled, curling against her temple. Sunglasses that hide half her face, but not the exhaustion dragging at her posture.
The room falls away. The murmured phone calls, the shuffle of papers, the tension coiling between your team and hers, none of it exists.
It’s just her and you now, trapped in this horrible, suspended moment where nothing moves except the pounding in your chests.
Neither of you lower your glasses. They’re the only shield you have left, the only thing between you and the ruin of letting her see what’s underneath.
She’s always known the weight of your silences, and you’ve always known the way hers press into the air. Right now, those silences are screaming. She knows how you feel, even now, even after everything. You know how she feels, even with every wall she’s tried to keep.
You can’t hide from each other. You never could.
Your eyes burn under the tinted lenses, tears pressing hot against the edges. You remember her laugh without meaning to— the way it used to split open a room, how it used to hit you like the sun catching on glass. Tons of memories appear and disappear so suddenly that your throat closes around them.
Ellie’s mind is already trying to walk somewhere else as she forces herself to take the next step inside. But the numbness she’s been clinging to all day falters the second she’s close enough to see the shape of you in the chair.
You both want to do everything at once—vomit, scream, run, jump from the window, kiss, hug, fight, bolt to an island where no one knows your names, where nothing like this could have ever happened. Where nothing at all had ever happened. Where the concept time ceased to exist. Where she’s still yours and you’re still hers, and the rest of the world rots, far, far away.
But you don't do anything.
She sits across from you, slow and deliberate, as if she’s afraid of waking something volatile. Between you, unspoken and blinding, is the same truth that’s always been there: no matter how much you try to hide, there’s something in each other you can’t unsee.
It’s ridiculous. The two of you dressed like matching shadows, both concealing yourselves behind darkened glass from strangers at a table that know too much and eyes around the globe that you can't see, yet still can’t hide from each other.
Your nails find your covered thigh under the table. You pinch hard. Then harder. A small, sharp pain over and over, trying to prove you can wake up if you try hard enough.
You keep doing it, waiting for the snap, the jolt that’ll pull you out of this. But the bruise is already there, deepening under your skin, and the fluorescent lights are still buzzing, and Ellie is still sitting across from you.
Not a dream. A nightmare made reality.
“Fine,” Mary—your publicist—is the first one to talk, her voice like ice cutting through the room. “Before we even talk about how to clean this up—” she glances from you to Ellie like she can’t decide which of you to strangle first—
“explain why there’s a sex tape of you both.”
The silence after that is suffocating.
Your pulse thrums in your ears, loud enough that you almost miss the scrape of Mary’s chair as she leans back. Your sunglasses feel suddenly too heavy, pressing into the bridge of your nose. You feel Rachel’s thumb move in a slow, grounding stroke, and it’s the only thing that keeps you from bolting out the door.
You clear your throat, but the words still come out in a shaky whisper. “We… we dated. When we were teenagers.”
Across from you, Ellie’s head snaps up. Even with the sunglasses hiding her eyes, you can feel the way they lock onto you, how her skin prickles when she hears your voice.
“Yeah,” Mary says, her voice low but not gentle in the slightest. “That part’s pretty obvious. But why the fuck does a sex tape exist?”
The directness of it makes your chest burn. You look down at your lap like a guilty kid, at your thighs covered by black pants.
Across from you, Ellie exhales, forcing herself not to snap. “Because we were nineteen and broke,” she says. Her voice doesn’t shake. “We didn’t have any money. We were… stupid. Desperate. And in love.”
The sound of her voice jolts through you. You look up without meaning to, and there’s something in the way she says it — as if handing you back a piece of your shared history you’ve been pretending wasn’t still yours. Your eyes sting, and you have to look away again before the tears push through.
“So you… what?” Mary asks slowly from Ellie’s side. “You filmed yourselves?”
“We made an account,” Ellie says before you can. “Back when no one knew who we were.”
“And we made sure to keep it private,” you add quietly, your voice breaking on the edges. “We deleted the videos and the account together.”
Mary’s brows lift, her voice rising with it. “Videos? Plural? So there's more? Are you two fucking kidding me?!”
You flinch. Rachel’s grip on your hand tightens. Ellie’s jaw clenches, the muscle twitching like she’s physically holding herself back from saying something worse.
“I don’t know how it resurfaced,” you say quickly, trying to inject some kind of calm into your voice, some kind of damage control. “Maybe—maybe someone hacked the site, or—”
“Or maybe someone downloaded it back then and waited for the perfect time to leak it,” Ellie says, cutting in.
Mary lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Perfect time? There’s no perfect time for this.” She slams her palms down on the table, startling half the room. “Do you even understand what this is? This isn’t bad press — this is a PR nuclear bomb. I’ve been on the phone with every studio exec from LA to London, trying to keep them from pulling contracts.”
Rachel’s voice cuts through, sharp as glass. “Mary.”
But Mary’s already wheeling toward her. “No, Rachel, don’t even start. I’ve spent the last twelve hours trying to figure out if this is a deepfake or a fucking career death sentence, and now I find out it’s real?”
“I said don’t start,” Rachel snaps. “They were kids. They didn’t leak it for a publicity stunt, they made a few private videos and took them down years ago. You want to crucify them for that?”
Mary scrubs a hand over her face, pacing a tight circle, then looking at you. “I don’t care what or who they were then, I care about what and who they are now. Your brands are in flames. You want to know what the top comment was on Variety’s post? ‘Imagine being the director trying to make her cry on cue when the internet’s already seen her come on camera.’”
The words slam into you like a punch. Your throat tightens; your nails bite into your thigh under the table.
Ellie’s voice spikes, sharp with heat. “You don’t need to throw that shit in her face.”
Mary turns to her, eyes narrowing. “Then help me understand. Help me fix this. Because right now, both your names are being dragged through the dirt, and people are already speculating that you leaked it yourselves. If there’s anything else you’re not telling me—”
“There isn’t!” And then you snap, your voice cracks, but you don’t care. “You fucking think I wanted the entire world to see me naked?!”
Ellie’s head tilts at your tone, hearing the edge in it, the exhaustion beneath the anger. Her hands are clasped together so tightly in her lap you can see the tendons straining.
The silence fractures when Erin leans forward, palms flat on the table, her voice brisk, professional, and merciless.
“Alright, stop. Here’s what we’re going to do.” She looks to Mary. “We coordinate public statements, both of them separate but aligned, and we do it today. Within an hour.”
Her gaze cuts to one of the assistants at her side. “Start drafting. I want language ready in the next thirty minutes.”
Mary doesn’t even look at you when she adds, “We also have to initiate takedowns immediately. Scrape every copy, every repost, every screencap we can from the internet. DMCA, cease-and-desist, whatever we need. I don’t care if we have to call in favors from every fucking tech lawyer in the state, I want that video gone yesterday.”
The room comes alive all at once — chairs scraping, phones being pulled from pockets, assistants murmuring into headsets, the low drone of legal jargon bouncing between corners. Erin is already on a call before she’s even done speaking, pacing tight circles like a predator that smells blood.
They’re talking about you. About Ellie. About the thing that has both of your lives in flames. And they’re talking like you aren’t here at all.
Mary slides a yellow legal pad in front of her, clicking her pen. “The statement from your side—” she looks at you for only a second before flicking her eyes back down — “will say you and Ellie dated briefly, years ago. That the video was private and you were hacked. No mention of any account, no mention of how many videos there were. We control the narrative, we don’t owe the public a play-by-play.”
You open your mouth to speak, but she barrels on. “And—” her tone sharpens — “because of Chris, your statement will include that you are in a happy, stable relationship, and that this leak is a gross violation of your privacy.”
One lie, one truth, you think.
Across the table, Erin is nodding. “Same with you, Ellie. Your statement will say this was a long time ago, something private you never thought would resurface. Keep it short, keep it cold, no details for the vultures to chew on.”
Ellie hasn’t moved. Her sunglasses are still on, her jaw tight, and you can’t tell if she’s agreeing or if she’s imagining throwing a chair across the room.
Mary looks at Rachel, tone clipped. “The agency’s already on the edge because of Chris. We can’t have him blindsided in the press. And if he walks out from the relationship, you know exactly what happens to half the contracts in your queue.”
Rachel’s lips part like she’s going to fight, but she closes them again, leaning back with her arms crossed. Her eyes cut to you — not pitying, but calculating, already searching for a way to keep you from breaking in the middle of the conference table.
On Erin’s end, one of her assistants murmurs something about “media cycle” and “timing drops,” and Ellie’s head turns slightly, as if she’s hearing her own life reduced to bullet points.
Then twenty minutes pass, or maybe it’s been two hours. It’s impossible to tell when time has stopped meaning anything except the space between your heartbeat and hers. The room still hums with the drone of voices — Erin, Mary, Rachel, and a half-dozen others trading strategies, deadlines, soundbites. They’ve forgotten you’re there, or maybe they’ve decided you’re furniture now.
Your chest feels too tight to sit still.
You murmur something about needing air —not loud enough to really ask for permission, not soft enough to be mistaken for anything else— and stand. You just leave, the scrape of your chair swallowed by the low static of the meeting.
Ellie sits there, eyes tracking you in the dark tint of her lenses. She watches the way you push the door open, the flash of daylight across your hair, the quick set of your shoulders. She swallows, turns her head toward Erin’s voice, then back to the door.
Five minutes later, she rises slow, careful, as if standing too fast might make the whole table look at her. She leaves her sunglasses on the table before stepping out into the corridor, letting the heavy conference room door click shut behind her.
A sweep of glass and steel stretches into the skyline, the air still warm from the sun that’s already dipping toward the horizon. The city sprawls below, impatient and loud. You’re leaning back against the low wall, head tilted, looking at nothing in particular. Maybe the sky, maybe the reflection of the clouds in the hotel windows across the street. Your sunglasses are in your hand now, the skin around your eyes raw from salt and hours of rubbing.
From the doorway, Ellie stops.
She sees you in a way she hasn’t in six years—no screens, no photographs, no subway ads. You. Here. Now. In front of her.
Her chest constricts, a painful, beautiful squeeze that feels like it could split her apart. She pinches the inside of her arm once, hard, just to make sure this isn’t another dream she’ll wake from with wet eyes and clenched teeth. It hurts, and you’re still there.
It’s not dramatic, no startle, no gasp. Just a slow turn of your head, as if you knew she’d come eventually. Her sunglasses hide nothing now, her gaze bare in the open air and the open wounds.
And in that unflinching moment, you both feel it—almost sick at how beautiful yet different the other looks. Your gazes are tired, worn at the edges, your features sharper, carved by the years apart. And still, somewhere in the lines and shadows, you each catch a glimpse of the younger selves you once knew, flickering through like ghosts. Your stomachs twist in unison.
Ellie walks towards you, each step like the space between you is a little alive thing she’s trying not to scare off. She stops beside you, close enough that the air shifts with her warmth, her cologne threaded with faint cigarette smoke.
Neither of you speak until she pulls a pack of Marlboro Reds from her jacket, tapping the bottom so two filter tips peek out.
You didn’t even mean to talk, but your mouth acts faster than you, as if speaking into a memory.
“Yeah,” she replies, eyes still on you, offering one between two fingers. “Do you?”
You shake your head. “No.” Then, after a breath that tastes like the past, “But sure as hell I need one right now.”
When you take it from her, your fingers brush. It’s barely a touch, skin on skin for less than a heartbeat, but it’s enough to feel the shock of recognition under your ribs, a spark that lights every part of you that’s been dormant since the last time you touched each other.
Ellie then quickly lights hers, the flare of the match catching the hollow of her cheek, her auburn hair, those locks you used to thread your fingers trough. She turns toward you automatically, lifting the lighter—the same motion she made a hundred times before, on sidewalks and fire escapes and the edges of your shared bed. Muscle memory, betraying her.
You take the lighter from her hand before she can close the distance, knowing by heart what she was about to do. Your palm slides against hers for an extra second you can’t help but steal. You hold her gaze as you flick the wheel yourself, the tiny flame catching the cigarette between your lips.
“You still hate the taste?” she mutters, her eyes locked on yours, entranced.
“Of these?” you ask, holding yours up slightly. “Yeah.”
You take another drag anyway.
Smoke curls up into the dusk between you, and for a moment, it’s almost like the years never happened.
Her mouth curves, not quite a smile, more like recognition. “Some things don’t change.”
“Some do.” Your voice is softer now, and she catches it.
“Yeah,” She hums under her breath, “Some do.”
Your eyes then fix somewhere over her shoulder, the edge of the sky where it blurs into the city, so you don’t have to watch her face twist when your murmur,
“I can’t believe this is how we see each other again.”
Ellie exhales smoke in a practiced stream, the red tip flaring once before dimming.
“Yeah,” she says, voice quieter than you expected. “Real full-circle shit.”
Her jaw works, the muscles there tight, and she flicks ash to the pavement with a sharp little snap, as if the gesture could keep her hands from shaking. She leans her hip against the low wall beside you, close enough that you can feel the ghost of her movement but not so close that it would look like leaning.
“Could’ve been worse,” she adds after a beat, tilting her cigarette between her fingers as if weighing its truth. “Could’ve been a commercial.”
That earns her the smallest huff from you, not quite a laugh, not even close to humor—just a sound with edges.
“Could’ve been not at all.”
You risk a glance at her then, brief. She’s watching you already, one hand in her pocket, the other curling loosely around the cigarette. She looks like she’s carrying something too heavy to set down, and the sight of it makes your chest ache so sharply you have to look away again.
The lighter is still in your hand — you realize you’ve been gripping it since you took it, thumb pressed hard enough into the metal to leave a faint dent in your skin.
“I don’t know if that would’ve been better or worse,” she says, finally.
You glance at her, “Not at all?”
Ellie’s mouth twists, as if chewing something bitter.
“Not seeing you for six years was bad enough. This? Feels like it’s trying to kill me.”
You look back at the skyline because it’s easier than looking at her.
“It is,” you admit quietly. "It's trying to kill us both."
Ellie tilts her cigarette between her fingers, watching the ember flare when she drags from it. Silence creeps back in, but it’s not the same as before. It’s heavier, loaded with the words you’re both dodging.
“It’s horrible,” she says finally. And there’s no bite to it, no sarcasm, just the naked truth laid between you. “All of this is horrible.”
“I know.” Your voice breaks on the last syllable, the sound so quiet it almost dissolves into the noise of traffic below. “I wish—”
You stop yourself before you can finish, clenching the lighter in your palm until it digs into your skin.
She runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek, inhales slow, eyes locked on you like she’s trying to memorize you and forget you at the same time. Her knuckles flex around the cigarette before she drops it, grinding the ember out under her boot with the edge of her sole.
You drag in smoke and let it out in one slow, trembling exhale, then drop it to the ground too. You try not to think about how easy it would be to close the distance, to put your head on her shoulder the way you always did on nights when the world was too loud, when nothing existed except the warmth of her skin and the sound of her heartbeat in your ear.
Ellie’s fingers tap against her thigh, restless, like she's having the same thoughts as you. Her gaze flicks from your profile to your hand clutching the lighter, back to your red, watery eyes.
Neither of you move. Neither of you say what you actually mean. But the silence between you is so heavy you can feel it pressing into your skin.
The street noise is sharper, impatient. And beside you, Ellie feels less like someone you’d conjured from memory and more like someone dragged out of a dream you aren’t nearly ready to have again.
“You’re quiet,” she says at last, almost conversational.
“Didn’t realize I was supposed to make this pleasant.” you reply, meaner than you intend, the mess of contradicting feelings creeping up in your head and tone.
“Wasn’t asking for pleasant,” she says, voice lower. “I just—look. You don’t have to worry. This… won’t tank your career.”
“Maybe not yours. But mine? It already is." The words slid under your skin and a bitter laugh slips out before you can stop it, resentment winning over love. "You already have prestige. This isn’t gonna ruin you the way it will ruin me.”
Her jaw tightens, a flicker of something crossing her face—impatience, maybe, or the crack of a dam she’d been holding for too long. All the feelings she's been bottling up for years.
When she spoke again, it was too fast, the kind of blow you throw before you can think about how deep it’ll land. There was no calculation, no measured cruelty, no clever timing. Just the snap of the first nerve.
“Worried they finally figured out who you really are?”
Your head snaps towards her.
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t think I haven’t seen the interviews.” Her shrug was a little too casual, the kind that masks anger. “You talk like it never happened. Like we never happened.”
Your pulse kicks. “Still obsessed? Thought your little model girlfriend would keep you busy.”
“That’s not your business,” she adds, edged like a warning.
“Oh, but mine is yours?” Your voice rises, the control you’d promised yourself you’d keep slipping. “Guess what, Ellie—my life, my career, the person I am now? None of it belongs to you anymore.”
She doesn’t wonder. “No. But I know what was real. And no red carpet, no magazine spread, and no little boyfriend will ever touch that.”
“You have no fucking idea of what your talking about. Don’t act like I’m the one who forgot.”
Ellie’s gaze snaps up to yours, as if she’d been waiting for the opening.
“I didn’t forget.” You almost tell her to stop, you almost turn around. But then her voice softens — just enough to make it worse. “It meant everything to me.”
Your throat aches, but you don’t answer.
“The only one who acts like it didn’t,” she added, voice breaking on the edges, her face coming closer to yours, “is you.”
“Fuck you,” you say, because anything else would have been too dangerous.
“Already did. Three million views, apparently.”
You blink once, hard, your eyes stinging at her careless words. “You’ve changed.”
“Yeah?” she shots back. “So have you.”
The words didn’t sound like hers—not the hers you remembered, not the one who used to look at you like you were the only thing worth being gentle for. No, these belonged to the Ellie who had been festering in the dark for years, feeding herself on resentment and restless nights, on half-truths and grainy interviews she’d watched through gritted teeth.
You step toward the door quickly, the cool metal handle biting your palm. “Congrats on the Emmy.”
“Thanks,” she said, the syllable too light, too casual for the weight between you. And then—like she’d been holding it in her cheek, letting it dissolve until it was sharp enough to cut—
“Congrats on your boyfriend. He’s now got a full-length tutorial on how to make you come.”
You froze. Your hand locked on the door handle, the metal digging into your palm, grounding you just enough for the rage to hit like an undertow. There was no time to think, no tidy arrangement of words to choose from—just the white-hot instinct to hurt back.
The slap landed before you even knew you’d moved. Skin against skin, the sound loud enough to startle you, the recoil of her cheek beneath your palm jarring through your arm.
Your own breath betrayed you, hitching hard. Heat flooded your face, anger burning so fast it left you dizzy. The tears were instant, cutting down your cheeks in thin, scalding lines.
“You don’t even realize how fucking horrible this is! You have your Emmy, your status, your own name, everything i don't!” Your voice cracked and rang in the air like a dropped glass. "My career, my life—everything I’ve worked for can be gone tomorrow, the entire world is watching us at our most vulnerable, and you’re here being petty? You’re still so fucking childish!”
She didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt. Just stared, wide-eyed, as if she was watching you from miles away—as if she’d been waiting years for you to finally hate her out loud. And then, slowly, as if it took her by surprise, her own eyes began to gloss over.
“You don't know me anymore,” you threw at her, voice unsteady under the weight of your own heartbeat. "And I sure as hell don't know you anymore!"
Something in her face broke at that. A faint wince. And then she moved—hesitant steps, like she expected you to vanish if she got too close. You barely registered her closing the gap before her arms were around you.
“Don’t—!” you shoved at her shoulders, the coarse cotton of her shirt rough under your palms. “What are you—let go—!”
“No.” Her voice was a raw, splintered thing. One hand cradled the back of your head, fingers sliding into your hair like she was holding the only lifeline she’d been given. Her forehead dropped to your shoulder, and then she buckled—silent at first, her body trembling against yours, her breath wet and uneven as her tears bled into your shirt.
You stood rigid, every instinct screaming to keep the walls up. But then came the sound—her breath catching, low and guttural, pulled from a place you remembered too well—and your resolve faltered. Her thumb was tracing slow, desperate circles at the base of your skull, grounding you in a way that made your anger harder to keep hold of.
“I’m sorry—” her voice cracked so hard the word almost broke in two. “I didn’t mean it. I swear to God, I didn’t. I just—fuck—I can’t stand that I haven’t seen you in so long, and now you’re right here, and everything’s so different. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the years. At all the shit we didn’t get to say.”
You hated that you could feel it in your own chest—the truth in her voice, the wreckage she was trying to hand you like an offering. You hated that the scent of her—smoke and shampoo and the faint trace of the old cologne you’d once chosen for her—was enough to make your body lean in even as your mind screamed to pull away.
Her chest pressed to yours, her fingers tangled in your hair, her heartbeat thudding erratically against your ribs as if it trying to remember a rhythm you’d both forgotten. And somewhere between the silence and the breath, the fight stopped being about careers or status or your relationships or the mess you're both in. It stopped being about winning at all.
And you finally broke. The dam inside you cracked with an audible ache, and you were moving before you even realized—arms circling her, pulling her in, burying your face in the slope of her shoulder like it might be the only safe place left in the world. She stiffened for half a second, as if she couldn’t believe you’d surrendered, and then she was holding you back tighter, almost bruising, her body starving for the weight of you.
It hit you all at once: that feeling you hadn’t let yourself touch since the last time you saw her. You inhaled deep, greedy—her perfume, the faint salt of her skin, the heat radiating through her shirt—and it was surreal, almost frightening in how instantly it pulled you back to when she was yours. You weren’t sure if your body knew it was the present, or if it thought you’d slipped through some impossible tear in time. It felt surreal.
I missed you so much, you mumble into her shoulder, so quiet you aren’t sure if the words were even sound or just breath.
She doesn’t hear it, or maybe just convinced herself she imagined it.
You pull back only slightly after what feels like hours, just enough to breathe, but not enough to break the pull between you. The air feels thick here, in this fraction of space, a small, suspended world where nothing exists beyond the two of you. Your eyes lock, and for a moment it’s like staring into a mirror warped by time—everything familiar, but older, heavier, steeped in years of absence and things unsaid.
Then her gaze moves, subtle but devastating, slipping down for the briefest, dangerous second to your lips. The motion is so small you almost doubt it happened at all but the shift in the air is undeniable, charged.
You're close enough that she can count the lashes on your cheek when you blink. Her pupils are blown wide, and when her eyes flick back up to yours, it’s with the barely restrained force of someone standing on the edge of something they’re not sure they’re allowed to want.
And then the door flew open.
“Babe, are you okay? You gotta help us with—”
Rachel’s voice cut through the moment like glass shattering, sharp and jarring, slicing the air between you before either of you could make sense of what might have happened next.
You both flinched—an instinctive, almost physical recoil. The spell broke so violently it left you unsteady, the ground beneath you suddenly too real, too solid after the strange, suspended weightlessness of being close.
You stepped back first, a motion that felt like ripping velcro, every inch of separation tugging against the stubborn need for her touch. Your fingers rose automatically to your cheeks, brushing away the tear tracks with the kind of speed that comes from practice. You could feel her eyes on you, heavy and unblinking, the way they used to follow you through a room.
Not even five seconds later, you turn to Rachel, your sunglasses already halfway up your face. The hinge clicked softly as you slid them into place, and with them, the rest of you followed—a practiced composure snapping into place over exposed edges.
“Yeah,” you said, voice stripped of warmth, its cool steadiness a weapon and a shield in one. “Let’s go.”
You don’t look back at Ellie.
࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ love you all endlessly—thank you so, so much for reading 💌
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