— E L L A —
My breathing was all over the place, soft moan that he could coax out so easily, it sounded like a foreign sound I didn't even know I could be such a mess, I could still smell that spicy cologne on me like a memory that wouldn't go away, like he was still right there with me. The way he lost control was still on my mind. The way his fingers dug into my hair, holding me down and pulling me in like he never wanted to let me go. He didn't hold back his need for me in that kiss, desperate and all-consuming, like I was something he couldn't lose.
When I touched his skin, it was really hot like he had a fever, his ears were red, and that look in his eyes… That look in his eyes…" It was obvious that I had an impact on him, and that made me feel something even I couldn't name.
I pulled away from him. My fingers were still tangled in his shirt, holding on for a bit longer than I should have. I spoke more quietly than I intended to. It almost betrayed me.
"Uh… I'd better go back to the shoot area, break must be almost over…" I barely had taken a step when his hand closed around my wrist, holding me tightly and hauling me back as though he was entitled to. He spun me around with ease. He was close to me again.
"Andiamo a cena, amore."
It was a smooth and teasing tone. His eyes… They had something in them, something that never quite vanished even when he lifted my hand and kissed it slowly. His kiss made my heart miss a beat. My thoughts became disorganized. I nodded, feeling flustered, and got away from him before I got lost in the moment again. "Hu-u?"
He let out a low chuckle, his lips grazing the inner palm of my hand, kissing it, his gaze holding mine.
"Let's go to dinner, love."
I nodded hurriedly, exiting the stairwell in the washroom. I was a mess trying to fix myself up. The rest of the shoot was a blur that I could not remember properly. By the time everything was over, the evening had settled in, quiet and heavy. He was the only thing I saw when I looked in the mirror, the only thing I saw at all, for that matter.
That kiss kept playing over and over again in my mind, clear and revenant. Something new was blossoming inside me, and it was light but overpowering. The rest of the shoot was a blur that I couldn't really remember. My cheeks felt hot as I raised my fingers and ran them against the mirror as if I could ground myself by seeing my reflection.
"Sylus… the man you are…" I whispered to myself, voice barely heard, lost in the stillness of the room. I breathed the words out so quietly I wasn't sure I had spoken at all. I laughed quietly, surprise mingling with something else, something I didn't dare call by name.
"You are going to drive me Crazy. "
I changed quickly, but my hands weren't steady, my thoughts still circling him, the way he looked at me, the way he touched me like I was something he had already claimed. The only thing I could see was a slight smile playing on my lips without my knowledge. I walked out, finally walking in the parking lot, heels clicking in the empty lot, the sound echoing.
My gaze fell on his car, and inside, there he was resting. He was leaning forward in his car, head cocked against the steering wheel as if he'd been waiting longer than he was willing to admit. Like time was longer when I wasn't around. His sleeves were rolled up, and his strong forearms were visible, and the top buttons of his shirt were undone enough to make people avert their gaze. His hair was a bit tousled, as if he'd run his fingers through it.
But it was his eyes. It was his eyes, the way he looked at me.
"As If He needed me like he needed Air."
————————————————————————
— A S H E R —
The music was playing, canceling every noise in my head. The screaming became predictable after a few minutes. The begging followed a familiar pattern. I could have scripted it myself. So, I learned a long time ago to bring something better to fill the silence.
Her playlist.
Our playlist, technically. Fourteen years ago, the two of us crammed into her bedroom with a cheap wired pair of headphones, arguing over which songs were sad and which ones were beautifully sad. As if there was a difference.
As if Ella had ever done anything in her life without turning it into a debate. She had been seventeen and completely unbearable. I had been so taken with her already that I sat there for three hours pretending to care about the distinction.
I still had the playlist playing every time I came down to this hell I created. It felt like company. It felt like the closest thing I had to her in rooms like this, a cold basement, fluorescent lights brightening the room, the smell of copper and iron mixed, and a faint smell of blood. I pulled the headphones tighter over my ears. The song shifted into something slow and aching. I looked at the man in the chair and felt nothing.
He had information I needed. Now I had it. The rest was just logistics. I worked quietly and methodically, the way I did everything, just the clean and efficient language of consequence. He had made choices, and choices had weight. I was simply the gravity.
The song changed again. This one. This was the song she played on repeat the summer we were nineteen. That summer, she cried on my shoulder over some boy whose name I never learned. I sat there, her hair against my jaw, thinking I would never hurt her like that. Thinking, " Just look at me, give me the chance, Ella.."
She didn't.
She never did.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, rolled my sleeves, muscles highlighted under the harsh light, veins visible, and reached for the cloth on the table beside me. I wiped my hands with quiet focus. The man was limp, blood pooling everywhere.
I wiped my hands slowly and carefully, watching the white cloth absorb every drop of crimson blood. I pulled the headphones down around my neck.
I walked up the stairs. I pushed through the door into the cold night air. It hit my face, clean and sharp. I tilted my head back for just a second and let it clear me out. I let it take the basement smell with it. I let it take the weight of the last hour and reduce me down to something simpler.
Something that missed her. I was already smiling when I pulled my phone out.
"Butterfly."
Her contact photo. She didn't know I'd taken it a candid, her laughing at something just off camera, her head thrown back, completely unguarded. Just looking at it made something flutter warm rise in my chest. After everything. After all of it. This girl still made me feel like I was seventeen and had no clue what I was doing.
I pressed call and lifted the phone to my ear.
It rang.
And rang.
And rang. Voicemail.
"Hey, it's Ella. leave me a message or text me like a normal person." Her voice. Even her voicemail. I stood in the cold wind, brushed past me, blood faintly drying at my cuffs, and listened to her recorded message telling me to text her like a normal person.
I was still walking back to the mansion as I felt a notification pop up. I checked it on the Instagram notification. Her profile lit up with a new post. Yeah, I had specifically turned on her profile notification to keep tabs on her, the one I had notifications turned on for, brightened the screen. I had kept it on for years without telling her. Some things I did for Ella existed entirely outside her awareness, and I made sure she never knew. After all It was for her safety and my peace of mind.
I opened the post without thinking. The way you open something that belongs to someone you love felt automatic. I wanted to see her face, her laugh, whatever small moment she had chosen to share with a world that didn't deserve it. I saw the car first. It had a dark interior and was expensive. The picture was taken from her perspective, angled down, capturing the console, the leather seat, and the low amber glow of city lights spilling through the window.
Her sitting in the dress I bought for her as an apology, fitted, and there was a hand. A large hand resting on her thigh with an ease that signaled ownership. It wasn't a performance. It was just settled, as if it had been there before. It was clear that permission for this touch had been established in some private moment long before this photo.
My thumb moved on the screen before I told it to. I zoomed in but on that hand that was definitely of a man, the ring catching the amber light in a way that made my vision narrow and still at once the ring.
"That Ring."
Sylus. His name hit every nerve in me, dangerous information. It wasn't a shock or a question. I stared at the photo for a long time her legs, his hand, that ring. The city lights looked soft and romantic through the glass, as if the world had decided to be beautiful just to spite me.
The music was still playing through my headphones around my neck, our playlist still running, filled with aching songs about distance and things people didn't say until it was too late. I reached up and slowly pulled off my headphones, holding them in my fist, letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Sylus. Out of all the men in this city, out of all the people she could have met, this one. With his specific ring and his hand resting on her thigh like she was already his, like the question had already been settled, like I hadn't spent fifteen years-"
Fifteen years. I had loved this girl for fifteen years. I had been there through every up and down, being her comfort zone, being a person she could call home.
Every time she looked at me with those eyes, a trusting face, and saw just a friend.
"Always just a friend."
"Just a Godamn F.R.I.E.N.D"
I stood there and smiled, giving her whatever she needed.
"That had been the deal I made with myself. I would rather have her like this than not at all."
Before my mind could catch up, the hit rattled straight through my knuckles, shot up my wrist, and buried itself in my forearm. I hit it again. The first shot wasn't enough. Honestly, nothing was going to do it tonight, standing alone in a parking lot, her playlist long gone silent in my speakers, that photo burning a hole in the back of my phone, like someone had etched it behind my eyelids.
His hand. Her thigh. That ring.
I hit the wall a third time. I felt my skin split open across my knuckle. I could feel the warmth rush of blood dripping from my hand, old and new, mixing into just more proof that I couldn't tell the difference anymore. I pressed my forehead to the rough concrete, knuckles still braced there, and just breathed.
I pushed my tongue hard to the inside of my cheek, right at that spot, it was more like an anchor, a trick I picked up years ago, back when keeping my face steady was a skill, and everything burning inside needed somewhere to go. So I stood there, tongue pressed, vision fading, I realized I was holding my phone. Her name on the screen, I called her.
It rang. Once. Twice. The silence in between was somehow even louder than the rings themselves. I pressed my bleeding knuckles against my jaw, trying to stay sane like you. Told myself that if she didn't pick up, I'd just-
"Hello?" Her voice. Warm and soft, a little breathless, like she'd grabbed the phone at the last possible second. The way that sounded in my chest, I had to close my eyes for it—so strong, so sudden, so out of my hands. There she was....Before I knew, I felt a broken, hurt voice come out of me.
"Hey. Butterfly."
"Asher?" Her voice changed in a heartbeat. All that gentle warmth twisted into hyper-focus. This was Ella she never missed a thing, always ready to help, couldn't ignore someone hurting, even if she tried. "What's wrong? Are you okay-"
"I—" I paused and let it hang. Tried to gather myself. Ran my tongue across my cheek and stared down at my hand, knuckle busted open, blood pooling—real blood, and honestly, a little too convenient. "I got into a fight."
"What?!"
"It 's-I'm okay," I said it that way people do, voice trying to convince itself. I'd spent years faking composure. Although the pain was still piercing through me, I exhaled, sharp and quiet, trying to deal with the pain.
"I didn't— I don't know. It got out of hand fast and I—"
Another pause, like we both knew I didn't mean it, and maybe she wanted to hear me say it anyway. "Where are you? Ash?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose, felt the drag of exhaustion in my bones, but I couldn't bring myself to hang up. "Really, you don't. You probably busy—" I trailed off, just air in my throat, no conviction behind it.
That kind of soft, half-shaky thing she'd do when trying to stay steady, just barely keeping the lid on, like she was holding back a flood. That sound almost broke me. "Where are you?"
"At my place."
"I'll be there soon." That was it. Nails bitten to the quick, nerves fried to hell, heartbeat tripping over itself in raw relief and regret and all the mess of us. A smile crept up my lips as I cut the call, walking finally reaching my room, calling in my right hand, "Drey!"
He gave me that look he'd perfected over the years a flat stare with a pinch of spiritual discomfort, the one he reserved for my more eccentric requests. I'd seen it a thousand times working together. Lucky me, I understood every shade of it now.
"Sir."
"It's an Order. Hit me."
He let out a sigh, swung in a punch I only stumbled back due to the impact. "I said harder, Drey. I need it to look real."
"It will be real."
"Then we're set." I lifted my chin, offering my jaw like a man waiting for a dental x-ray, nothing heroic—just business as usual. "Left side. Don't pull it."
He didn't.
I'll give him credit for that. The blow snapped my head sideways, and pain erupted in an instant, blinding, racing up into my cheekbone, behind my eye, down into my teeth. The kind of hit that scrambles your vision black just long enough to remind you you're alive.
I pulled myself upright, slowly. Ran my tongue along my cheek. There it was a copper tang. Good. Blood.
Drey watched me, reevaluating all his life decisions but not quite ready to resign. I waved him away and checked the damage in the mirror, as if I were the one issuing a final pass on a finished product. The bruise was starting its lazy crawl beneath the skin, and the slice on my lip stood out pretty obviously, but not dramatically. Convincing, though.
The knuckles passed inspection, too. The makeshift cast had taken four minutes, and one of those emergencies I'd planned for, supplies always on hand. Pillows arranged just so, sheets not exactly neat, lamp on low to cast forgiving shadows that deepened the bruise. The room played its small part in the illusion like a soft golden abyss.
"Honestly? " "I looked spectacular."
Phone in hand, her contact open. I just sat there, watching the clock grind along, waiting. Then I heard heels clicking hard against the marble floor fast, sharp, the sound of someone trying desperately not to sprint, the urgent, almost panicked, hitting the hallway floor like a heartbeat you could follow blindfolded.
The door crashed open.
"Asher!—" She froze there, framed in the doorway, slightly breathless. Same dress from the one I gave back years back, the one I'd spent all night trying not to picture her again. Her gaze zeroed in on me, widened bit speechless.
"Oh my god-" her voice came out raw, worried. She crossed to me faster than I could finish thinking her name. Hands up, trembling, her face wide open and vivid in its worry, every emotion right there, front and center. No filters, no rehearsals. She'd never learned to hide anything.
That's what I'd loved first.
She perched on the edge of the bed, reaching for my face but not quite touching, fingers shaky, gentle, hovering over the bruise, the cut, scared she'd hurt me more.
"Asher." The way she said my name just cracked, just a little. Her eyes shimmered. She always tried to hang on before the tears broke, a full forty seconds of I'm not crying until she absolutely was.
"What happened, what-who did this, are you—" "Hey." I caught her wrists. Soft. "Hey. I'm okay."
"You're not okay, your face-"
"Ella." She stopped. Her gaze, full of worry and questions, was boring into mine. I looked at her sitting in a dress I gifted her, eyes full, hands unsteady, still here because I called, still here because that was the rule she'd never put into words when I call, she comes. Fifteen years and counting, the only constant that mattered.
I pulled her in both arms, closing around her, my face tucked into her neck, her faint smell of sweet vanilla and rose, that warmth only she had. There was no vocabulary for it, just muscle memory, deep as marrow with a scent, a feeling, something sure enough I'd pick it out from the dark.
"Ella," I breathed her name against her skin, letting it hang there just one word carrying the weight of fifteen years I'd never said aloud. She held me. Strong. Head on my shoulder, fingers landing at the back of my neck like a little anchor.
But then a sound from the hallway, footsteps. Calm, unhurried. The measured stride of a man unbothered to panic, holding his composure, standing by the door frame, that dark aura radiating from him looking as if He was there all along, I lifted my gaze only to find him standing there in the doorway leaning way too casually, his dark pair of orbs meet mine.
"Sylus."
The ring caught the light. That ring. His tongue pressed once into his cheek, slow, deliberate, and those dark eyes didn't move from mine. His voice cut through the moment like a knife, deep, clear, almost mocking.
"Don't hit him, mio amore," eyes still locked on me. "He's already injured."