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A voice cuts in from the side.

“What is going on here?”

Hayzel. She’s already approaching, already reading the scene in one glance. She looks at him. Then at me. Then at her. And she understands enough.

She grabs Bennett’s arm from the side, pulling him out of my grip. “I’ve got him,” she says flatly. “You’re done here.”

“Wait—what? No, I didn’t do anything⁠—”

“Yes, you did,” she cuts him off. She pulls him away from the wall before it escalates further and as she passes, she looks at me once. Then she says, calmly, “I’m taking him inside.” And she disappears with him into the bar.

Silence drops instantly. Now it’s just me and her. She’s staring at me like she’s trying to understand what version of me she’s looking at.

If I’m angry at her too. And fuck I am. I’m mad, sick to see her destroy herself with people who don’t deserve to see her like that. Sad and begging for anything to stop whatever is hurting her inside. And I’m even angrier that she tried to push me away.

“He just wanted to say sorry, the bag was not mine,” she starts, confused between relief and anger. “You just pushed him,” she says, voice tight. “In front of everyone.” I let go of my hand fully, and slowly, resetting something in myself. “You’re my professor,” she says. “Do you realize how this looks?”

I finally look at her fully. “I know exactly how it looks.” A beat. “And I don’t fucking care.”

“Nothing happened, why are you so angry?” She asks, already putting distance between us. “Why are you even here?”

“Oh so the fucking bag was a hallucination?” I spit out, meaner than I wanted to. “What the fuck do you think he’s doing? You think he wants to help by poisoning you?”

Cold. It’s cold again. Why is it cold ? Why am I scared ?

She takes a small step back. “Leave, now. Leave me the fuck ALONE!”

Leaving her alone?

I can’t do that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that.

99

Mireya

Play - What About Us by Pink

Ultraviolence

Why is he always here?

Why is his presence suffocating when I was trying so hard not to fall again. Not to fucking relapse in it…

Why is he always fucking here?

I hate the way it feels. I hate that my heart reacted to the way he tried to push Ethan away because he knew I was trying my best not to fall back on this again.

He wanted to apologize, offering me the exact thing that he hates about me. And I almost accepted it. Because Ethan is the same fucking stupid young boy I met when I needed to lose myself.

But I hate even more the way Damien is looking at me right now, with exhaustion in his eyes. Exhaustion from seeing me like this. Because it’s not something I can give him.

I can’t give him a better version of myself.

Broken people don’t unbreak to be loved properly. They don’t even believe they can, even if that’s all they want. It hurts even more when someone stays and still looks like they’re already losing you. And hell, I wish I could disappear slowly enough that it wouldn’t have to hurt him every time he sees me.

Even after his lies, he never let me down, and it breaks my heart to not be able to hate him enough to push him away.

His voice snaps through the air and space between us.