#ln4 rec

Max F. blinked. “By saying it?”

“No shit, Sherlock.”Lando scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I mean, like… how do you make them—y’know…”

“Not mad at you?” Oscar offered.

“Yeah. That.”

“You’re asking how to make someone forgive you,” Max Fewtrell clarified from the doorway, his voice knowingly even. “Which is a very different question.”

For a beat, there was silence. Lando glared at his coffee like it had personally betrayed him.

Then, it was Oscar who spoke up first.

“Time machine,” the Aussie offered with a wry smile, clearly proud of his little joke.

It took everything left of Lando’s willpower not to dramatically roll his eyes. 

“Not helpful.”

“Chocolate,” Max Verstappen offered next. “Expensive chocolate. Or wine. Works on everyone.”

“She doesn’t drink,” Lando muttered, clearly exasperated by now.

“Then just send her the chocolate of course,” Max replied, completely unfazed.

“Or,” Oscar said, holding up a spoon like it was a pointer, “you could write her a letter. A real one. Handwritten. Not just a text. It’s very… Jane Austen. Trust me, girls eat that shit up.”

“I tried that,” Lando said. “I don’t think she even looked at it.”

Logan bit into an apple and spoke around it, his mouth very much still full. “You could try showing up at her work with, like, a sad sign. Y’know, something pathetic. Women love pathetic.”

“She’s not the kind of person who’d be impressed by public humiliation,” Lando replied dryly. “Especially when I’m the one she’d want to humiliate.”

Carlos, who had been silent until now, set his coffee down slowly.

“You want her back, si?,” he asked simply, getting straight to the point.

Lando didn’t answer, looking away. Carlos, of course, took that as a yes. It was no secret that Lando Norris was not a man who was used to asking for help, much less for advice. This certainly could not be easy for a man of his… personality.

“Flowers,” The Spaniard announced. “This is what always works for me.”

Oscar snorted, the sound echoing into his mug as he lifted it to his mouth for a sip. “Of course they did,” he muttered under his breath.

“No, listen,” Carlos waved off the young man and his usual remarks, turning instead to Lando. “You cannot get the cheap ones. You have to get the real ones, hermano. Be, uh, thoughtful, eh? Get her favorite ones. Not these ‘I want you back’ flowers. It must be ‘I am sorry I ruined everything’ flowers.”

Lando blinked, too deep into his new action plan to really be offended by Carlos’s bluntness. He’d have to let it go this time – the idiot was actually making sense for once, it seemed.

“Peonies,” he mumbled aloud.

Carlos nodded, giving the British man a concerned once-over. “Then send peonies. And do not write a note. Let the flowers do the talking.”

Lando blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”

Carlos shrugged, unapologetic. “I once ghosted a girl for three weeks and she forgave me after one bouquet. I’m just saying.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “…you’re the reason girls don’t trust men.”

But Lando had already tuned them out.

Always a man of action, Lando was knee-deep in floral websites within minutes. More than happy to let the rest of his men continue whatever it was they occupied their time with, he sauntered off with his phone in his hand, preoccupied with this new opportunity for redemption.

There was a fresh arrangement of flowers on her doorstep by the next morning.

Meticulously planned, Lando made sure that he gave nothing but his best. His best apparently included not just flowers, but arrangements – ridiculous, overdone, hand-delivered bouquets in tissue-wrapped boxes with quiet little cards that never said his name.

The first bouquet arrived with full, perfect peonies in pale pink and cream, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a soft ribbon that matched the color of her favorite sweater.

Of course, there was no note – he didn’t want to write the wrong thing. So he chose to write nothing at all.

He sent one a week later, and then again the next week. Each time, he’d send them in different colors this time in different colors. Some of them had sprigs of lavender tucked inside, others with a bit of eucalyptus. They were always delivered on Mondays.

She’d always said she hated Mondays.

He sent them once a week – always peonies, always without a message. Just to let her know he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Just to make sure something soft was showing up in her life, even if it couldn’t be him.

He knew it wouldn’t fix anything, but truthfully, he didn’t know what else to do.

The first time, she stared at them for a long time before placing them gently behind the counter at the café. Not quite throwing them out. Not quite acknowledging them either.

The second time, she didn’t even look at the delivery guy. Just nodded, took the box, and walked to the back without a word.

They always arrived just often enough to remind her that she was still on his mind. That she hadn’t disappeared from his world, even if he’d vanished from hers.

For a while, she accepted them.

Once, Logan even told him while they were out on a job — that she had smiled when she saw this week's delivery – a stunning bouquet of stark white peonies in the softest lilac wrapping. As they loaded their weapons back in the trunk, Logan turned to him and put his hand on Lando's shoulder, daring to look him in the air in a rare moment of familiarity.

“Hey, she smiled. Even if it’s just a bit, that’s gotta be worth something, right?”

Lando hated how that simple thought was enough to rekindle the tiniest spark of hope in his chest.

Between the bullshit with having to manually throw out Binotto and the faulty shipment Stella delivered, the Reaper’s Circle was already having a pretty shit week.

Binotto wasn’t the only one of their clients who had started to play fast and loose with the rules. Verstappen had to knock sense into at least three different people who had decided to try their luck with asking for “an extension” on their payments, or just for “a little more time.”

What did they look like, a fucking charity? 

So it was Lando who had to take Binotto and make an example of him, had to rough him up a little. It took a few hours of strategically placed cuts and meticulously calculated fractures to ensure that when he walked out of Jimmy’z, he served as an example for anyone else who felt brave enough to be as stupid as him.

Logan stood in Lando’s office just as this did any other day, more of Sargeant’s weekly updates scattered about the large desk in the form of meticulous photographs. The two of them were going over the surveillance details of the Monte Carlo police, as well as the officers who’s been trying to demand a greater cut over in the Moneghetti district.

“Those bastards aren’t worth half the money we pay them,” Lando snarled. “I mean, what the hell do they even do?”

“Uh, I believe they do… police things, Boss.”

The American winced as he said it, already anticipating the bout of rage he’d just signed himself on to be the target of.

Lando simply glared at him, too preoccupied with angrily pacing the length of the room.

“24 thousand euros, and what do we even pay them for?”

“I can dig up dirt on them, if that helps,” Logan offered eagerly. “There’s actually this new technique with my clip point blade I’ve been meaning to–”

The assassin cut himself off when he noticed he apparently no longer held Lando’s attention. Instead, the leader seemed preoccupied by a slip of paper he was reading, a worn sticky note with distinct scrawl.

Ah, he realized. The pains of young love.

 “She just seems… quieter,” Logan shrugged, clearly hesitant to tell Lando this truth. He offered it in hopes that an update would cheer him up, make him less of… whatever it was he’d been lately. “Like, sure, she’s not really smiling like she used to…” 

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not working!” Logan corrected, quickly realized his mistake. It was honestly a miracle how long he’d survived in this profession. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get? You know, I was tailing this girl one time…”

Logan’s story faded into the background as Lando absentmindedly brushed the pad of his thumb along the familiar grooves of the ink.

“Was she… Was she angry?” Lando interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Logan almost felt bad for the guy.

“No,” he responded just as quietly, his expression sincerely sympathetic. Even he had noticed just how much this girl – this apparent stranger – had worked wonders and brought magic into his boss’s life. Hell, he had front row tickets to the whole damn thing.

“She wasn’t angry,” he told Lando honestly, hoping it would make him feel a bit better. “Just… less happy, is all.”

Instead of breathing easier at this information, Lando’s expression only became more forlorn.

Something behind his ribs shifted. It was worse, somehow. Anger meant she still felt something for him. Sadness just meant the part of her that used to feel safe with him was perhaps… gone.

Lando turned away. There was a strange tugging sensation in his chest, he found, in response to Logan’s words. He shouldn’t have been surprised really – Lando hadn’t really left Y/N with all that much to smile about when he’d wormed his way into her life and earned her trust, all while lying right to her face.

But the problem was that Lando knew that smile. The smile that crinkled her nose and ruined his entire week. He was intimately familiar with the radiance of the smile she used when she was pretending not to be proud of herself. His memories held perfect recreations of the exact curvature of the smile she used when she was happy and didn’t know how to contain it.

Lando could never forget the smile Y/N used around him.

Or at least, used to.

He gave it one final attempt.

Some stupid, human part of him that she’d managed to dig up and make living once again pleaded with him to try one more time, to reach out for her once again despite it all. That part of his heart believed that if all the time they’d shared – from haphazard dinners made in her kitchen and movie night where she always fell asleep first to staying at her university’s library at unholy hours of the night – had been worth anything, that then there was still something worth fighting for.

So he arranged for one more set of flowers to be delivered to her place. These peonies were cream and soft pink — the exact shade of the kind she always watered a little extra at the shop, the ones she showed that little bit more love. They used to make her light up in this stupid way, like the whole world had softened just for her.

These ones he’d hand selected from his own garden, carefully the buds that were still barely in bloom – the kind that unfurled slowly over a few days, like they were shy about being beautiful.

He didn’t know all that much about flowers. For all long as he’d lived in this residence, he’d had a gardener who dutifully took care of all his plants, no matter how boring at times it seemed to Lando. Christian likely knew a lot more about flowers than Lando did, but had gone ahead and tried anyway.

He just chose the ones that reminded him of her.

The delivery man came back to the residence with a familiar bouquet and a less-familiar look of pity on his face.

“Didn’t take ’em,” the man informed Lando with a shrug. “Didn’t even open the door, really. Said she doesn’t want ‘em anymore.”

Lando stood in the middle of the foyer, staring down at the rejected bouquet in silence. The petals were still fresh, still beautiful, and yet somehow already wilting. 

That hurt more than she probably meant it to, not because of the money or the gesture, but because it confirmed what he already knew.

Y/N didn’t want his apologies. She didn’t want him. The truth was that no matter how many flowers he sent, Lando couldn’t fix what he broke – not with peonies, not with silence, not with love.

Not anymore.

She had always loved peonies, and now she couldn’t even look at them without thinking of him. Now she didn’t even want them in the same room. Lando finally understood: there were some things he couldn’t buy, or fix, or drown in beauty.

Some damage was just done, and all the peonies in the world couldn’t bring her back.

He didn’t try again after that.

Because if even peonies hurt now, what chance did he have?

Days blurred. Weeks passed. 

The world went on like it always does when people fall out of love — or maybe, in his case, when someone lets the person who loved them see them for who they really are. 

Lando didn’t keep track in any meaningful way. Life had its own rhythm again: operations resumed, meetings were scheduled, threats were dealt with. No one dared mention her name around him anymore. It had faded from conversation the way most dangerous things do.

But even as the months stretched out like fading shadows, Lando still found her in places he didn’t expect.

He had been searching for one of his IDs when A sticky note, curled and fading, pressed between his phone and the case, tucked behind one of his IDs. Her handwriting spelled out some mundane comment, something stupidly her: drink water, don’t die :) 

Another day, it was the origami stars. The ones she used to make when her fingers were too restless to be still, usually while he was telling some story she pretended not to care about. He had reached into the pocket of his winter coat and felt a small, crinkled shape — the tiny origami she’d taught him how to make, gentler hands placed right over his as he did his best to mimic each of the folds he’d watched her do dozens of times.

Another time he found two of them, pale blue and slightly squished, tucked in the front pocket of a he hadn’t worn since winter. He had never noticed how many she’d left behind. Some days, it made him feel like she’d never left at all.

That was the worst part of grief, he found – the way it hid, the way it waited.

He would find them by accident now, like landmines. Every time he thought he was fine, something else would come along and remind him of her, making it impossible to breathe.

He hated it.

He didn’t mean to think about her.

But that night, when the house was all quiet and there was nothing more to do, he couldn’t help but think of her. Even Lando Norris, the Reaper of Monaco, couldn’t stop the reel of old footage his brain kept playing back. On nights when sleep felt more like punishment than rest — she came back in whole memories.

It was worse on the nights he drank.

Not the reckless kind — not anymore. But the kind that made his head buzz just enough to knock the edges off, to make the memories less sharp and the guilt a little warmer.

He was already a few drinks in — not drunk, just loose around the edges — when it happened. Sinking into the large wingback chair, he let the darkness drape itself around him as he reached under the table to grab a different bottle, seeking something stronger.

If he focused just enough, he could spot her silhouette in the mirage of spotted lights reflected across his glass wall, the distant flecks of color blending together to remind him of the evening at the little Chinese place before Brazil.

Under the hanging lights, her eyes shimmered.

The lighting then had been dim but golden, all soft bulbs and reflections in window glass. He remembered watching her chew the end of her straw like she always did when she was pretending not to smile. Remembered the way she looked across the table at him — chin in her hand, laughter still blooming in her throat — and how the world had felt still for a moment, like it paused just to give him that memory in perfect detail.

She’d been radiant.

He remembered the warmth of it, the way the lights caught in her hair, the soft flush on her cheeks when she laughed at something dumb he’d said. She’d worn that dark green sweater he liked — the one that made her eyes look almost unreal under the amber glow.

God, she’d looked unreal under those lights — hair a little windblown, cheeks warm from the cold, eyes lit up with some joke he didn’t even catch all the way. Later that night, she’d reached across the space between them and took his hand gently, so gently, and asked him to stay still.

“Give me your hand,” she’d asked softly.

He’d frowned but obeyed, watching as she pulled a thin, threaded bracelet from her bag. It wasn’t fancy – nowhere near the caliber of the multimillion euro watches he always wore. It didn’t seem to matter to her — she’d still tied it around his wrist like it meant something sacred.

Now, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever having taken it off. He still wore it, tucked beneath sleeves and suits and the rest of the life he kept moving forward in. He still wore it, even after everything.

He tried then, inspired by the flash of anger that seared through him, to tug the stupid thing off. It was only a couple of stupid threads woven together, after all – how hard could it be?

Hooking his fingers under the braided string, Lando tugged with a mighty grunt. The skin of his face burned hot with shame, with frustration, with something when no matter how hard he tried the damn thing didn’t come off. He tugged and twisted and yanked on it until his fingertips were red and raw from all his failed efforts.

Stupid thing.

He told himself he’d cut it off the second he could get his hands on something sharp enough, but after too many drinks and not enough distance from his own thoughts — he found himself holding that thread between his fingers like it might answer something.

Sometimes love didn’t end in shouting or closure. Sometimes it just lingered like a thread around your wrist – fraying, but still tied.

A few more drinks later he found himself in his personal bedroom, pulling open one of the locked drawers in the back of the too-large walk-in closet. 

He breathed a sigh of relief. The ring was still right where he’d hidden it, wrapped in a receipt and tucked beneath a box of spare cufflinks. Reaching for it, he stumbled to the ground more than he sat down with any amount of grace, the black velvet box smooth under his fingertips.  

He hadn’t bought it for a reason. He hadn’t planned a proposal or imagined some cinematic moment with rose petals and violins. He’d just seen it in a market somewhere in Italy, or maybe Portugal, he can’t even remember. It reminded him of her, simple and delicate. A pale, iridescent stone — quiet and beautiful, just like her. He remembered seeing it and thinking that’s hers – not would be, or should be – just hers.

So he bought it, tucked it away and never told her.

He’d never gotten the chance.

He hadn’t planned on proposing. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even known what the future looked like. But he’d bought it anyway, because he’d wanted to – because he loved her.

He missed her.

Not just the version of her that had loved him — but her. All of her. Her stubbornness, her sarcasm, the way she threw napkins at him when he made a dumb joke. The way she used to hum when she studied. The way she’d fall asleep with her cheek pressed to his shoulder like she didn’t even realize she was safe there.

He missed the life they never got to have.

He turned it over in his fingers now, the weight of it a little heavier than he remembered. It was almost the only proof she was ever real, that he hadn’t dreamt her up. That he was real when he was with her. 

Maybe she’d been a fever dream in the middle of the violence, a soft thing his brain made up to protect him from the rest.

This ring was nearly the only proof he had ever cared about her enough to dare to think that she could someday be his.

He held it between his fingers for a long time and let the metal sit against his palm as he tried to imagine how her hand would’ve looked wearing it. He also tried not to imagine what her hand might be holding now – if it wasn’t his.

Maybe I’ll finally stop thinking of her, he told himself, if I can just see her once.

What Lando wanted to know, deep down, was that she still smiled sometimes. He wanted to be certain that despite his Midas touch, he hadn’t ruined Y/N entirely. He wanted to see with his own eyes that she was okay, that she was safe. He needed her to still be able to smile, to still be building the life he watched her dream about. He didn’t need to talk to her or even approach her – just needed to finally confirm that Y/N had moved on.

Just to see. Just to know. Just to remember what it looked like to love something without touching it.

Perhaps then he would finally be able to let go of this godforsaken guilt festering in his chest.

So on that late Thursday night, Lando propped himself up until he was steady on his two feet, grabbed his coat, and headed out into the night.

The streets were quieter at this hour, the city breathing in its own way — hushed murmurs of distant cars, the occasional flicker of neon signs reflected on the rain-slick pavement. The neighborhood was mostly empty by the time he made it to the block where Brews & Books sat, still gleaming faintly under the warm light of its storefront. The leftover light spilled through the windows, cutting faint patterns into the pavement.

The café was tucked into the corner of the street like always, windows glowing soft and golden against the dark. Brews & Books — the lettering still intact, still the same warm serif she had chosen for the sign herself. 

It looked exactly how he remembered it.

Outside, it wasn’t freezing — just cold enough to cut through his jacket in that way that made everything feel sharper, more real. He welcomed it, letting the wind bite at his hands and cheeks like it was a punishment. Or maybe a penance.

He kept his head down as he walked.

For once, Lando Norris wasn’t dressed nicely. Instead, he wore jeans and a hoodie and that same worn coat with the thread bracelet still tucked under the sleeve. If she saw him, he didn’t want her to think he was trying anything. He just… wanted to see her.

That was all.

He’d timed it carefully — picked a night he was fairly sure she’d be working, when the café usually stayed open late for evening study hours. He’d walked by enough times before to know the rhythm of her schedule. The soft hum of her days.

So when he got there — the familiar corner glowing faintly in the dark, window fogged from the warmth inside — he let himself hope, just a little.

With his gaze locked on the glass storefront, he waited for a glimpse of anything – a silhouette in motion, a flash of her in a messy bun, the curve of her smile as she handed someone a drink. All his attention focuses itself, seeking out the sound of her voice rising faintly through the door. Her laugh — god, her laugh.

He would’ve taken anything, even just her reflection in the glass. So he waited.

One minute. Then two. Then five.

He shifted from foot to foot, tucking his hands deeper into his coat. Then, he kept glancing back at the window like she’d appear any second, but she didn’t.

He didn’t go in, didn’t even get close enough for the security camera to pick up more than his silhouette. He just stood across the street with his hands in his pockets, the ring burning a hole in his coat.

Watching. Waiting.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his fingers brushing the frayed bracelet on his wrist. He just stood there — across the street, in the dark, watching the life that might’ve been his… if he hadn’t ruined it.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. And, finally, the truth started to set in.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t coming.

And the thought hit him harder than he expected: she used to love this place.

She used to light up in here. He remembered that night he showed up soaked from the rain, and she’d dragged him behind the counter just to dry him off with the sleeve of her cardigan. She used to hum while she organized the books. She used to sneak extra whipped cream into his drink and then pretend she hadn’t. She used to live here, in that warm way that he had never really seen her take up space anywhere else.

Now? Even this felt empty.

Did I ruin it for her?

Had he taken the one place that was hers and turned it into something she couldn’t stomach?

His jaw clenched as he looked away from the café window and swallowed hard.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, under his breath. 

He shouldn’t have come out here like an idiot thinking she’d still be where he left her. He should’ve asked Logan before coming here. He should’ve checked if her schedule had changed, should’ve done anything other than walk out here like a complete idiot expecting some kind of… moment.

Because now he just felt stupid.

He stayed a little longer anyway — because some part of him still hadn’t caught up with reality. Some insane, idiotic part of him was still half-convinced she’d come around the corner any second and look at him like she used to. Certainly there had to be a reality where he got to see her one more time, got to witness one more time the way she used to light up when she would realize that it was him who had walked through the door.

But that didn’t happen

Frozen in place by some unknown power, Lando felt the rest of the world go quiet as he let himself miss her, just for a moment. For a moment, he let himself love her, quietly and from a distance. For a moment, he told himself that maybe, from now on, that this was what love had to look like.

So Lando stood alone in the cold a while longer, with a bracelet on his wrist and a ring he couldn’t give to anyone.

It took him longer than it should to realize something’s off.

The lights were on. The sign beside the door was still lit — OPEN in neon, flickering letters. The usual warm glow still poured from the café windows. He hadn’t noticed it at first, too busy watching for her, but now that he was really looking, the whole place was… awake, still thrumming with the faint hum of electricity.

That was the first thing.

The second thing was the music. Something played low, an acoustic track with a familiar rhythm that was barely audible from the street.

Yet no one was inside.

There were no customers, no baristas. In fact, there was no movement at all.

Instead, each booth and table and chair lay empty, devoid of even a single soul. From here, he could still spot a mop bucket abandoned near the center of the floor space. One of the chairs was left pushed back like someone had stood up quickly and never sat back down.

Lando squinted through the window. There was no sign of her – or of anyone else, for that matter.

There was a pressure in the air, a certain amount of wrongness that his body recognized before his brain caught up. His stomach tensed, the muscles tightening subconsciously to the unease he now felt creeping through his whole body. The sensation was faint at first, like static on the back of the neck. He hadn’t survived this long by ignoring a gut instinct like that.

That was the third thing — the bad feeling. 

His hand drifted automatically to the inside of his coat. The leather of the concealed holster there was familiar, the weight of it comforting. 

Just in case.

Worst case scenario, he told himself, this’s nothin’ more than a simple misunderstanding. It was more than likely that some barista had stepped out for a smoke break or someone with the closing shift merely forgot the lights on. 

But Y/N wouldn’t do that.

The thought nagged at him.

Immediately, he stepped forward and crossed the street, barely looking on either side of the pathway before making his way over to the familiar entrance. When his hand went to press against the glass door, it gave way immediately. The door wasn’t locked.

That was the fourth thing.

He pushed it open slowly, the bell above it jangling with the same cheer it always had. The sound made his chest ache with something akin to grief for this place he’d somehow developed fondness for. 

He stepped inside, and Lando’s eyes narrowed. His palm instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. his long fingers still curled near the handle of the gun, but with the index finger still pressed up against the safety lock on the side of the barrel. There was no need to draw it yet.

Huh.

Lando’s eyes narrowed. His fingers instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. He didn’t draw it — not yet — but the tension settled across his shoulders like a warning. Years of training and muscle memory kicking in without being asked.

He rounded the side of the first booth, his eyes flicking over everything now. The register appeared to be closed somewhat haphazardly, its security latch visibly loose. On the countertop sat a single transparent cup, likely intended for some drink, only to be abandoned with the now-melting ice cubes as its sole content. He also noted a blueberry muffin on a plate, untouched. From where he stood, Lando could also spot the familiar sight of a note stuck to the side of the shelf, clearly in Y/N’s handwriting: restock oat milk!!

He was just in the middle of attempting to identify what it was about this scene that was so disconcerting when–

The loud, shrill ringing of a phone interrupted his train of thought, nearly startling him in the process. The stillness of the place had lulled him into a sense of ease, one that was disrupted the longer the ringing went on.

Isn’t anyone going to get that?

It rang again and again, going unanswered. Despite the fact that the sound seemed to emanate from behind the swinging door that led to the backroom, Lando could hear it clear as day, even out here. 

Why won’t anyone answer it?

He moved slowly now, eyes scanning, every step heavier than the last. Each step followed the same heel-to-toe rhythm his body had long since memorized, his body working on autopilot as he continued to scan the room in an attempt to figure out what was going on. 

"Hello? Are you there?"

Not paying enough attention to where he placed his steps, Lando’s shoe squealed against the tile. The floor behind the bar must have been slick with something, the rubber of his boot catching on it slightly.

He looked down to see what it was.

A spray of fresh, red blood.

Instantly, his gun was out, his finger hovering over the trigger now. He moved faster now, stepping past the edge of the bar counter and through the swinging door into the workspace. His body moved before his brain could even finish catching up.

And that’s when he looked down. His breath caught, and time slowed.

Crumbled on the tile like the air had been knocked out of her, one of her arms was outstretched, the soft skin of her palm open towards the door. The deep burgundy of blood rapidly stained her abdomen, with even more dribbling out of the side of her mouth. There was enough of the thick liquid for it to just begin pooling beside her, the floor beneath her soaking fast. Her body twitched weakly, like she was still trying to move.

Her eyes met his for the briefest, most agonizing second.

She tried to speak. All that came out was a wet, choking sound — like the air was catching on itself, like her lungs were filled with something thicker than breath.

Blood.

“Y/N!”

The Y/N they knew — the one who used to hum while she brewed espresso, who always snuck an extra cookie to the regulars and let the college kids study past closing — was quieter now, tired in a way concealer couldn’t fix.

“You should go home,” Susie tried gently on her way out one night as she watched Y/N wipe the already-clean counters for the second time. “You’ve been here more than twelve hours.”

“I’m fine,” she waved her off, not looking up. And she was, really.

She wore clean clothes, answered emails, turned in assignments. She smiled when people expected her to.

She certainly functioned.

Yet there was a wall now — thick and soundproof — between her and the girl she used to be. The one who’d looked at him and seen safety instead of danger. The one who’d kissed a man she didn’t know was capable of murder.

That girl was gone. In her place stood someone quieter, someone less trusting. This new version of her flinched every time the front door creaked open at the café and had to see the face before she could breathe again.

He hadn’t come back.

Not yet.

Maybe he wouldn’t.

She didn’t know what she wanted more — for him to stay gone, or to show up and give her a reason to let him back in. What hurt more than the lies, more than the betrayal, more than the night she held a knife in her shaking hand was the part of her that still wished it could go back.

Not to fix it, not to forgive – just to freeze the moment before it all broke, when she still believed the man who held her was just a little strange, but still safe. 

Still hers.

Soon after, Y/N stopped coming home before dark. Started spending longer hours at the café, telling herself there was always something else to do — inventory, supplier calls, mop the floors again even though they were clean. She picked up more shifts than she needed. Said yes when her professor asked if anyone wanted to stay after and help sort research journals.

She told herself she was moving on.

Unfortunately for her, however, everything in her life was still steeped in his memory.

There was the mug he’d dubbed as his own still in her cupboard, their throw blanket bunched on the couch where they’d up napping one way or another. There was still the half-read book on the nightstand that he’d teased her about, still dog-eared on page 214. She couldn’t be certain if his fingerprints remained embedded anywhere in her apartment, but somehow, she could feel them. 

Y/N could’ve sworn they were still there.

She didn’t delete his number. She didn’t throw away the hoodie he left or scrub the memory of his laughter from her walls. 

That would’ve meant acknowledging what happened. 

And when she finally did come home — late, exhausted, too numb to think — she kept the lights low, brushed her teeth in silence, and crawled into bed without looking at the spot beside her.

The spot where he once slept.

He had taken something good — something pure — and twisted it with lies.

And now she was left sorting through the pieces of something she couldn’t fix, because she didn’t know what was true anymore. What memories were hers to keep, and what had been built on deception from the beginning.

It had felt real. And that’s what made it unforgivable.

At first, it was just a notification – one missed call from a familiar name lighting up her screen like a wound.

Frozen in some sort of trance, she simply stared at it until it stopped ringing.

Then came the texts.

liam!: Please. liam!: Just tell me your okay? liam!: I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just need to know your safe. Read 12:55 AM

liam!: Y/N. liam!: I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. liam!: You don’t have to respond. But I’ll still always be sorry. Read Yesterday

She didn’t block him. She told herself it was so he’d know she was alive, so he’d stop worrying, so he wouldn’t show up.

But as fate would have it, he didn’t stop.

liam!: I shouldn’t of lied liam!: I don’t really know how to be who you needed. I just wanted to be near you liam!: You made me feel like I was more then the worst thing I’ve done liam!: Please let me explain. Please can I talk to you liam!: I can’t sleep. Can’t think strait liam!: I miss you Read 11:57 PM

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t block him. She couldn’t. She told herself it was because she wanted proof — a paper trail in case she needed to file something, explain something. But the truth was simpler.

She wasn’t ready to let go.

So she watched as the texts came in. One after the other.

liam! : Please talk to me

liam! : I didn’t know how to tell you. I never wanted you to find out like that.

liam! : I'm sorry

liam! : I miss you

liam! : Please. Just tell me youre ok

She didn’t answer. Not once.

But against her better judgement, she read every word.

She held her phone in her hand some nights, thumb hovering over the keyboard like maybe, just maybe, this time she’d respond. Maybe just one message. Just to say stop. Or I’m alive.

But she never did.

She’d walk into the café and feel her phone vibrate against her thigh and know it was him. Her thumb hovered over his name more times than she’d ever admit — but she never replied.

It only took a certain amount of concentration, she found, to not focus on the barrage of texts she knew awaited her the moment she would unlock her phone. So really, if she just focused on trying new recipes for the cafe or starting books she’d been meaning to read or walking Kika’s dog while she was out of town, then she wouldn’t have to even acknowledge the existence of those texts until she put her stupid phone on charging each night.

It was simple enough – stay busy, and she could go on pretending Lando never even existed.

Perfect.

The first call came two days after she told him to leave.

She didn’t answer it.

The screen lit up with his name — liam!, the way she’d saved it back when she still believed that’s who he was — and her hand hovered above the phone for just a second too long before she let it go dark.

He called again the next night.

And the night after that.

Eventually, he stopped leaving voicemails. Maybe he realized she wasn’t listening to them. Or maybe he couldn’t stand hearing his own voice echo into a void.

So he continued texting instead. AT least those, he knew, she read.

At first, they were long. Apologetic. Rambling things she never read fully. Things like “Please just let me explain,” and “I never meant for you to find out like that,” and “I swear, I didn’t plan any of it. Not with you.” He told her he missed her. That he couldn’t sleep. That the bed didn’t feel right without her.

She didn’t reply.

The messages kept coming anyway.

Over time, they got shorter. Less coherent. Frustrated.

liam!: I know you’re reading these. liam!: Please. liam!: Say something. liam!: Anything. liam!: I don’t care if you scream at me. liam!: I just need to hear your voice. Read Sunday

Eventually, she stopped looking at them at all.

But still — her phone buzzed at night. Sometimes just once. Sometimes over and over, until she had to silence it and shove it in a drawer just to breathe.

She never blocked him.

She told herself it was because she wanted evidence, just in case. Because cutting him off completely would’ve been stupid, unsafe.

But the truth was much crueler: perhaps some part of her wanted to know he was still trying.

The first time, she thought she was imagining the soft, hesitant knock at the door of her apartment at 11:47 PM. In the middle of getting ready for bed (or at least trying to), she just froze in place. She just stood there in the hallway, staring at the door like it might open itself.

Then it came again – softer this time, like he was worried about waking her, even now.

“Y/N?” His voice was low, broken. “I just… I wanted to say this in person.”

She backed away slowly, hand covering her mouth, breath caught in her throat.

Please, go. Just leave me alone. 

How much more are you going to hurt me?

“I know ’m the last person you want to see. I know I don’t deserve anythin’ from you. But I meant every word I said. Every morning. Every night. Every, like, stupid inside joke. That– that wasn’t fake. That was me. Fuck, I swear to god– It’s me. 

‘S the only real part I’ve got left.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I don’t regret meeting you,” he whispered, almost like these words were meant more for himself than for her. 

“I regret what I did to you. What I hid. But never you.”

Please, she begged. Please just go.

He did, eventually. Hours passed before she heard the sound of his footsteps retreating, before she finally felt like she could breathe again.

Only for him to be back the next night.

Some nights he just knocked and called her name softly, on to leave after he got no response in return. Other nights, he sat outside her door for over an hour, saying nothing. She could hear the way he shifted, the soft sound of his back resting against the wall. If she listened closely enough, she could even hear  the occasional crack in his breathing like maybe he was crying again and trying not to.

It took everything in her not to open the door.

There were a few nights where her willpower waned, her hand hovering over the handle. Sitting there, directly opposite to where he sat on the other side of the door, her body would ache with the memory of him — the once-familiar weight of his arm around her, the warmth of his breath on her neck, the way he used to say her name like it mattered. 

Like she mattered.

It became a pattern after that – not every night, certainly not enough to be predictable. But it happened often enough that she started to expect it.

Sometimes he talked. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he sat there for five minutes, like just being near her was enough.

Once, she found him curled up against the door the next morning, fast asleep, as if the last thing he said had knocked the breath out of him and he hadn’t found the strength to leave.

She didn’t open it.

But she slid down to the floor on the other side and cried quietly into her sleeve. She cried herself sick, her own body torn between being repulsed by his betrayal and needing to be in his arms again like it was oxygen.

She could only cry harder when she remembered the way he kissed her shoulder when she fell asleep on the couch. The way he brewed her favorite tea before she asked. The way he laughed like he didn’t belong to a world so dark, even though he did.

She wanted to believe he could still be that person, but the truth was that he hadn’t lied about loving her. He’d lied about everything else. 

And no amount of heartbreak could make that okay.

On Thursday, she came home late, like always. The hallway smelled like floor cleaner and whatever her neighbors must have cooked dinner, and the lights above her door flickered like they always did.

Y/N stepped forward to open her door, looking down to reach for her keys when–

Lando?

There he was, slumped on the floor just outside her apartment, that familiar mop of curls resting against the doorframe, his arms limp at his sides.

He stood as soon as he heard her.

“Y/N—”

Her keys trembled in her hand. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she only gave him one long look – whether it was out of hatred or heartbreak, he couldn’t quite tell. 

A moment later, she just turned around, and walked back down the stairs, needing to be anywhere but there.

When she returned, Lando was no longer there. Unsure of what she felt was relief or disappointment, she’d nearly missed the small, brightly coloured sticky not stuck to her door.

But she wasn’t so fortunate. Memories of studying late at night, passing note back and forth with him on sticky notes much like this one to help pass the time. Reminders like i’ll take out the trash when i come by tonight or can we get the yogurt covered berries again? stuck to her refrigerator door, evidence of the way their lives had begun to overlap.

It made her angry. It made her furious, in fact, and for no real reason other than the fact that it was yet another reminder of him.

Y/N didn’t hesitate to ignore it in favor of pushing her door open and letting herself in, leaving the note to fall gracefully on her doorstep, unread.

It was nice seeing you today.

Sometimes when he showed up outside her door he’d talk — softly, like he thought she might be listening. Sometimes he told her stories about the café, little things he remembered, like the time she burned a whole batch of scones and tried to pass them off as “toasted." Other times he talked about his past, things she never knew. The kind of confessions that sounded like he was bleeding them out. That maybe no one else had ever heard.

And sometimes, he just sat there in silence.

One night, she heard a quiet thud and opened the peephole to see him curled up beside her door.

Asleep.

His body had gone lax like it’d given up out of sheer desperation, merely succumbing to the exhaustion of some invisible weight on his shoulders. In fact, he didn’t look relaxed at all, if the dark circles under his eyes were any indication. He’s frame had also gotten scrawnier, as if maybe he hadn’t been eating well.

For a moment, a faint memory of warm food delivered at her doorstep flashed in her mind, but it went away just as quickly as it had appeared.

It’s not like that. He’s probably eating just fine. Don’t be stupid.

As she stood on the other side of that door, she tried quite desperately to convince herself of all sorts of perfectly reasonable things – that she should open the door to kick him out again, that she should shout at him, that she call the cops like she’d threatened to and tell them that he was harassing her. 

With her thumb hovering over the call button, the tear that slipped down her cheek and dripped onto her phone screen only confirmed the same cursed truth she’d been doing everything in her power to hide from.

That she simply couldn’t.

Because every night she came home and saw him there — wrecked, waiting — it took everything in her not to fold and forgive him, right then and there. It took everything in her not to remember the way he used to hold her like the world didn’t exist beyond the two of them.

Despite the twisting sensation in her chest, she still didn’t open the door — all because remembering what they were was easier than facing what he was.

It was overcast when she went.

Not raining, but the kind of heavy gray that made the whole world feel muted — like even the sky had the decency to keep its voice down. The cemetery was quiet. Clean. Rows of headstones lined up like a frozen library of stories no one would ever finish reading.

Y/N didn’t come here often.

Not because she didn’t miss Margot. But because every time she stepped between those stones, it reminded her that Margot was really, truly gone. There was no text waiting. No sarcastic note on the café register. No spare bobby pins or blister Band-Aids tucked into Y/N’s apron pocket without asking.

Just a name carved into cold stone.

And now she needed her more than she had in months.

Y/N didn’t bring flowers. Margot would’ve hated that. She wasn’t the type to coo over daisies or pretend roses fixed anything. She would’ve rolled her eyes and said, “If you’re gonna visit me, at least bring gossip.”

So Y/N brought a coffee instead. – hot and with no cream, just the way Margot used to drink it.

She found the grave — small, simple, covered with pebbles and a few crumpled flowers from someone else who remembered. She sat cross-legged in the grass across from the headstone, carefully setting the coffee beside it.

She looked down at the grass, chewing the inside of her cheek until it hurt.

“Hey,” she whispered, voice raw from disuse. “Sorry it’s been a while.”

The breeze stirred the dead leaves behind her. The silence filled the space between heartbeats.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and sat beside the grave.

“I miss you.”

The words came out cracked. Smaller than she meant them to.

“I know that’s not news or anything, but…” She shrugged. “It’s getting harder. Not easier. You always said heartbreak’s just grief that’s still breathing, and I didn’t get it until now. Except this time I don’t even know if I’m grieving the person or the lie.”

Y/N let out a long, shaky breath as she looked down at her hands.

“I don’t know who else to talk to about this.”

She swallowed hard.

“I found out Liam’s not Liam,” she said, quietly. “His name’s Lando.”

Her voice wavered, but she didn’t try to stop it. The words some to spill out now, bubbling over into the silence that finally held enough space to hold what she’d been keeping in for so long. The emotions poured out, hitting her like a wave, winding her with their realized intensity.

“Can you believe it? I fell in love with a liar. With a… with a fucking killer, Marg. A- A mob boss. The mob boss. The one they talk about on the fuckin’ news! 

The one who was there the night you died.”

Her throat clenched so hard she had to stop and force herself to breathe.

“I told him to get out. I meant it. I still do.”

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against her clasped hands. Angry tears escaped from the corners of her eyes, warm as the rolled down the cold skin of her cheeks. Hastily, she tried to wipe them away, like doing so would somehow wipe away this deep, burning frustration she felt.

It did no such thing.

The heat of her anger spread through her chest, heating up her flesh until she could feel it. What bothered her even more was how, deep down, she knew this anger wasnt directed at him.

It was directed at herself.

“I meant it, but… I fell for him. I fell so hard. Like, I keep thinking about how he used to stay on the phone with me until I fell asleep, remember? When the insomnia was really bad. Or– Or that time I had a panic attack before the final and he just- he sat outside my class building for three hours, like he didn’t have anything else to do until he knew I was okay.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. 

“And he’d help me study. He’d bring me snacks, too. He’d even let me nap on him when I was too wired to lie down alone. It was like- Like he made it feel easy to breathe, even when everything else felt too loud, y’know?”

Only silence answered in return. A bird chirped somewhere nearby, small and defiant.

Y/N drew in a breath, steadying herself.

“I keep thinking about what you’d say. If you were here, what would you tell me to do? Would you tell me to forget him? To hate him? Because every time I think his name, it hurts. Like, it actually physically hurts.” Her hand pressed lightly to her chest. “Because  every time I see him… my brain doesn’t think, like, mob boss or liar or- or murderer.”

Her throat tightened, but she forced the words out anyway.

“It just thinks him. The man who held my hand when my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The man who stayed up with me when I couldn’t sleep. The one who helped me color-code my exam notes even though he couldn’t care less about tort reform. The one who—” Her voice cracked. “The one who believed I could actually make it into law school.”

Tears welled up again, but she didn’t fight them this time. After all, maybe this grief would be all she ever had left of him.

“He had this crazy dream that I could do it. That I’d make it. Even when I didn’t believe it myself. He’d sit next to me on the couch and highlight things he didn’t understand just so I wouldn’t feel alone.”

She looked at the headstone.

“I think he really loved me, Margot,” she dared to whisper, the confession fracturing something in her.

She swallowed.

“And I think that’s what’s killing me the most.”

She leaned her head against her knees, curling into herself as the cold seeped deeper into her skin. The grass was damp beneath her boots. Her hands were shaking.

“I don’t know what to do.”

The wind stirred gently through the trees, soft and slow.

“I don’t know how to stop missing him.”

Y/N wiped her face roughly, smearing an ugly mix of tears across her face. It made her feel worse, and that only made her want to cry more.

“I hate him for that, you know? For being the one who believed in me most. For making me want things I didn’t even know I was allowed to want.”

She looked down at the headstone.

“If you were here… what would you say? Would you tell me to push him away?”

She reached out and traced Margot’s name with trembling fingers. The wind picked up again, rustling the trees behind her like applause in reverse. Y/N sat there a while longer, eyes closed, forehead bowed.

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“But I don’t think you would.”

She blinked fast. Her throat burned.

“I think you’d say you get it. That you’d tell me I’m not crazy for still loving him even when everything in me is screaming not to.”

She swallowed, her jaw trembling.

“Because I do. Love him, I mean. I wish I didn’t, but I do. And it hurts, Margot. It hurts because all I see is what he did. All I feel is that betrayal, sitting in my chest like it’s going to split me open.”

Her fingers curled into the dirt beside her. Anchoring herself.

“But when I see him... when I hear his voice, or think about the way he used to look at me — like I was his safe place — I can’t un-feel it. I can’t un-know how much I loved him. How much I still do.”

She wiped at her eyes roughly, like she could scrub the ache away.

“And I hate that, Margot. I hate that he still owns that part of me. Because I don’t know how to forgive it. I don’t know if I can.”

Silence followed. There was only the wind, gentle enough to not knock over the now-cold cup of coffee that remained her only company as she let herself finally feel it all. 

Hours seemed to pass as Y/N sat there, letting herself miss them both, and wondering which ghost hurt more to love.