Music Recommendation: Watch by Billie Eilish.
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Rielle moved to the drawer and pulled out an old photograph. The photograph was faded at the edges, creased where she'd folded it too many times. It was a photograph of a girl with soft eyes and a boy with a crooked grin. A different lifetime.
Jace.
She hated how that name still knew her. Still cracked her open like a secret she couldn't seal shut.
What he did destroyed her, but if she could waltz back into those rekindling flames, she would.
He looked at her differently now. Like she was something holy and terrifying all at once. Like he finally saw what she became and maybe, just maybe, regretted letting her go.
But regret didn't rebuild people. And apologies came too late. Also, if he knew she was originally Lina, he would be disgusted standing beside her.
Rielle set the photo down like it might burn her. Once upon a time, he told her she was the love of his life. Not once, not twice but about a million times.
Remembering how his impressionist painting of heaven turned out to be fake, and how he took her to hell too, the photo burned her.
Everything about him still burned. His voice. His silence. The way he hesitated just a second too long around her now. The way he said her new name like it had edges.
Maybe he knew. Maybe he saw it. She wished deep down he did. If he could know her in one glimpse, it would be legendary. It would show that perhaps, he didn't bury her quickly as she thought. Why couldn't he recognize her?
Perhaps he mourned what he couldn't fix. She hated how she kept recalling how they almost had it all before Beck. She felt second hand embarrassed for feeling this way for something that was counterfeit.
She didn't want to be fixed. She wanted to be remembered. The toward claimed he was a lion when they were together. Yet he didn't bleed when their field of dream got engulfed in fire.
Sigging softly, she clapped softly. The clap belonged to her. For surviving. For building something so brutal and beautiful it made the ones who buried her choke on their own dust.
The clock blinked at 3:04 a.m. She should've slept. She should've turned off the lights. She should've done something soft.
But Rielle hadn't been soft in a long time. She hated how the image still made her chest ache.
She was tempted to set the picture on fire, but for months now, she couldn't. Yes, she was that pathetic, even as a new person.
Rielle didn't hear the door open. She felt it. A shift in the weight of the world. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was. She knew.
Xander.
He never knocked. He never asked if she wanted to be seen like this. If she wanted to see like a mess unraveling at the seams, with memories pressed to her chest like a wound.
"You have a key now?" she said, her voice dry as ash.
He didn't answer. He never rushed to fill the silence. That was what killed her the most.
She didn't look at him. Not yet. She stared at the photograph instead, then slowly slid it back into the drawer like burying a body.
"I was having a funeral," she murmured. "For the version of me who thought he loved her."
Still nothing from him, but the air tightened. Like she said something wrong. Good. If saying the wrong things could bring an emotion out of him, she'd say more.
When she turned to face him, the sight of him hit like a blow. Leaning against the doorframe, his eyes were carved from storm clouds and night. He didn't move. Just watched her. Like he'd been watching her unravel from the start.
"You always come when I'm most unholy," she said, her laugh hollow. "Is that your thing? Collecting the ruin?"
His jaw shifted. Just barely.
She took a step toward him, glassy-eyed and tired. "Say something, Xander. You made it all the way here." She smiled sadly. "You didn't make it here to keep shut, did you?"
Holy hell! He was handsome. In fact, beyond handsome.
Not the kind of beauty you found in magazines or movie screens. No. Xander's was the kind that made you forget your name for a second. Sharp jaw, cheekbones like they were chiseled by old gods, eyes made from every cold night she'd ever survived.
And tall. Unfairly tall. The kind that made ceilings seem too low and made every room feel like it bent to him.
Even leaning back against the doorframe, he looked like a storm biding its time. She hated how small she felt next to him. Not in a weak way, but in a way that made her want to square her shoulders just to be seen. The type that made her imagine how safe it would feel in his hug.
Hug? She scoffed inwardly. Xander would never hug anyone. Even Aiden have never received a hug from him.
His expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. Brief. Dangerous.
That stirred her. Infuriatingly so.
He studied her, not like she was broken, but like she was dangerous and beautiful all at once. His chest rose slowly.
Then he said it. "Lina." His brows squinted like he was waiting for a reaction from her.
Rielle didn't flinch. Not on the outside.
But something in his voice… It wasn't cold. It wasn't hard. It was soft in the way a wound is when it finally stops bleeding.
"I thought maybe he would recognize me," she said. "If anyone could know me at a glance... it would've been Jace, right?"
A muscle jumped in Xander's jaw.
"He didn't," she said. "He didn't even blink in recognition."
She turned away, her arms crossed tightly. "You know what's worse? Part of me still wanted him to. I'm pathetic like that."
"You're not," Xander said, his voice low. Rough.
She froze. It was unlike Jim to care what she thought of herself.
It was so rare, hearing him speak. It felt like the earth cracked open for it. But it wasn't the words. It was how he said them.
Like she mattered.
Rielle faced him again. "Then what am I to you?"