Second to None

17. Levi

CHAPTER 17

Levi

P orto Cervo, Saturday, August 30th

Footsteps, fading.

Then silence.

It pressed in with the weight of a thousand moons, a shipwreck between my ribs. I stood alone in the bedroom, my head filled with the echo of my own voice tossing ugly accusations at him, the soft lilt of his words just an undercurrent. ‘I’m still in love with you.’ As if. He just felt sorry, trying to rewrite our history with apologies and empty declarations.

No take-backs.

Each time I blinked, the walls crept closer—like a crowd surging forward, like being trapped in a car that wouldn’t move, strangers’ hands flat against the windows. Not my life anymore. Still Cass’s, though. World tours and magazine covers, countless voices chanting his name. Incompatible with a kid and a cat and a job that came with a fixed salary at the end of the month.

Done . I’d ripped off the plaster before the wound could fester, like some twisted form of mercy. No tears, not this time—I wasn’t that guy anymore. So. Out of the room and down the hallway, towards the kitchen. I’d grab a coffee like this was normal, keep moving because I had to.

My mum was there.

Somehow, my brain tripped over the laugh lines around her eyes as she measured coffee grounds, the way her reading glasses slipped a little down her nose. Normal . Right. But this morning, it hurt because maybe a small, stubborn part of me had expected the world to sit up and take note. Of course not.

“Mornin’,” I managed, slightly scratchy.

She sent me a smile. “Hi, honey. You’re up early.”

I gave some noncommittal grunt and moved to the counter, half-turned away to evade close scrutiny. Briefly, I thought she might let it go.

Then: “Did I just see Cass walking down the driveway?”

“Yeah.” I pretended an intense interest in the pattern of the tiles. A swirl of teal and cream. Waves, maybe, like the unsteady rise and fall of my thoughts. Hard to grasp at anything in particular. “He, uh. He left.”

Two words— he left . They sounded so simple for something that was distant thunder and rain, a faraway storm through frosted glass. Not quite real as long as the windows stayed closed.

“Already?” Confusion wound through my mum’s tone. “He didn’t even say goodbye.”

I busied myself with checking whether the coffee was ready. Not yet.

“And,” Mum continued after a moment, “he didn’t have his suitcase either.”

My spine prickled. “He’ll sort it out.”

“Honey,” she said slowly, as if feeling her way along the words, “what’s going on?”

I pressed my lips together, tongue against the roof of my mouth, and shrugged. “Like I said, he left.”

“Why?” Her tone was gently puzzled, like it didn’t make sense for him to do that. I kept my shoulders loose, attention on the coffee bubbling up in the moka pot.

“I asked him to.”

“You asked him to leave?” She sounded like someone working on a puzzle that didn’t fit.

“Yeah.” I forced another small shrug, tension curling my muscles tight. “Remember how he promised to keep Emmy out of the spotlight? Well, surprise—there’s a video of us out there. It’s all over the internet. Emmy’s in it, and now people are bringing up Jess, too.”

“Jesus.” Mum inhaled sharply and leaned back against the counter, shock melting into disbelief. “Cass put it out there?”

“Of course not,” I snapped. Too harsh—still defending him, second nature even now. I softened my voice. “No. Some store’s surveillance feed got leaked—that tourist trap where we bought Emmy’s bathing suit. They must’ve sold the footage. Good for business, I guess.”

“So it wasn’t his fault?” She sounded relieved, like it somehow made all the difference.

“It wouldn’t have happened if not for him.” I opened a cabinet just for something to do with my hands, ran my fingertips along cool ceramic. “If he wasn’t, you know—who he is. Famous.”

She took the moka pot off the stove, hands moving with steady purpose. “I get what you’re saying, darling. But is that entirely fair?”

I straightened, eyes narrowing. “Maybe not. But is it fair that I’m gonna have to discuss the security protocol with Emmy’s school?”

It wouldn’t be an entirely new topic—we’d chosen her school partly for its security measures and their experience with kids of Manchester United players. But immediate media interest was a different kind of beast. At least the UK had decent protection in place for children of celebrities.

Fuck. I’d never wanted this for her.

“No,” Mum said. “Honey?—”

“I’ll handle it,” I cut in. “May need to contact a private security company. Emmy will be fine at school, though. And as for me—not my first rodeo. I know how to plan around this kind of thing.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She said it quietly, handing me a cup of coffee with the kind of smile that made me feel about ten years old, with a scraped knee and a trembling lip.

“I’m fine, Mum.” I ducked my head, gaze sliding away, distant rain still pattering in my ears. “I’m not going to dive headfirst into a pool of booze and self-hate.” Not like last time Cass had walked away from me, when I’d sunk into a pit of bad decisions, so low I barely recognised the taste of morning air.

“I’m not actually worried about that either.” Her fingers skimmed the back of my hand. “Honey, you’re… I’ve always been proud of you. But I’m so, so proud of the person you’ve become.”

“Thank you, Mum.” I swallowed reflexively, tripped up by the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, a few silver strands escaping the hair she’d pulled back. She’d retire next year; my dad had already retired. They wouldn’t be around forever. With my emotions turned thin and fragile from tiptoeing along a mental ledge, the thought felt physical in its immediacy.

“I probably don’t tell you enough, do I?” my mum said softly and continued before I could reply. “But Levi, honey—don’t you think that maybe Cass has done some growing up, too?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her, voice a notch too sharp.

“Doesn’t it?” Her tone was almost philosophical, a hint sad. It didn’t necessitate a response, and so I turned away, chasing the sour taste at the back of my throat with a bitter sip of coffee. The garden gleamed under an early sun, leaves stirring with an unfelt breeze—empty and silent, no trace of Cass. Already on his way to the airport, maybe.

I’d known it would end this way. So what if this time, I’d been first to pull the trigger?

* * *

Emily ventured into the kitchen a good while later, a disgruntled hedgehog in search of sustenance. I got her settled with some cut-up fruit and toast, then watched her jab at an apple slice with a fork, as though the fruit owed her an apology for the fact that mornings were a thing that existed.

Once my parents left to buy groceries for our last day here, Emily seemed to wake up in slow increments. It took about five minutes before she blinked around the kitchen, listened briefly, and then turned sleepy eyes on me. “Where’s Cass?”

I clung to a smile. “He had to go, love. Catch his flight.”

She put down her fork with a soft clank of metal on the wooden tabletop. “But he didn’t say goodbye!”

“He, uh.” My throat hurt. Everything hurt. “Something came up. He was in a bit of a hurry.”

Emily’s lips pursed. She didn’t look sleepy anymore, brows pulling together for a stormy, stubborn look. “But he said he wouldn’t make you sad again.”

When…? Oh. When he’d picked me up for our first dinner date, back in LA. Another broken promise, only it was my fault, too—I never should have handed him that much power over me. I should have known better .

And yet I didn’t want Emily to hate him.

“I don’t think he meant to,” I managed, words forced up from the deepest pit of my stomach. Still. Intentions mean sod all when the result’s the same.

“But he left ,” Emily said, thick with indignation. “Why did he leave?”

“Because I told him to go,” I said, and it dropped like a stone in a quiet pond, sending outwards ripples along its surface. Fuck, I shouldn’t have told her. She was only seven, too young to understand that sometimes, life wasn’t bloody fair.

Except she knew. She’d learned that when Jessica died.

Emily absorbed that, the idea that I’d told Cass to go when I’d wanted—I… It didn’t matter.

“Did you get scared?” she asked slowly, like somewhere in her head, it was an idea that slotted into place and it all made sense. “Cass said he got really scared last time, but now he’s brave.”

Dammit, Cass. When did you say that?

“It’s not about being scared.” Air whistled through the gaping hole in my chest and made it just a little hard to speak. “He made a promise, and he broke it.”

“Oh.” She nodded, nose scrunching. “That’s bad. Promises are important.”

Like the promises I’d made to her mum. I inhaled around the raw ache, and God, I was doing my best. Wasn’t I?

“Yeah,” I said. “They really are.”

“That sucks.” Ah, kid wisdom. Emily picked up a slice of pear and turned it over with a subdued air, clearly still thinking it over. “So because he broke a promise, and that’s bad, you both have to be sad now?”

She made it sound much simpler than it was. I nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

“How do you know, like…” She stopped, a small world of heartbreak in her voice. “Promises are important. But isn’t it also important you’re happy? When Mum—” A catch in her breath, then she continued. “Before Mum left, she said, um...”

“Oh, honey.” I was out of my chair and by Emily’s side in a second, pulled her into my arms and held on. She was breathing a little too fast, in small hiccups, and, yeah, wow, it was possible for my heart to break just a little more.

“She said,” Emily started again, stubborn, face pressed against my chest, “that she wants me to be happy. That’s all she wants for me.”

Oh, Jesus. I bit the inside of my cheek, focused on the sting of pain to force back the tears. It wasn’t that we never spoke about Jessica—I’d always wanted Emily to remember just how much her mother had loved her. But usually, Emily went quiet when I brought up a memory, things Jessica had said or done, her laugh, how much she’d loved squirrels, of all things. Emily always listened with rapt attention, eyes big and a little wet, but she was never first to bring up her mum. This was… new.

“I know, honey.” I wrapped my arms just a little tighter around Emily’s small frame. “She made me promise that I’d do everything in my power to make that happen for you.”

It wasn’t the only promise I’d made. But it was the one that mattered the most.

Emily was silent for a long moment, hands fisted in my T-shirt. “So,” she said then, almost inaudibly, “if it’s really important that we’re happy, right? Then isn’t it… You smile lots with Cass. And he’s really nice. So what if he says he’s sorry about the promise? Like really, really sorry? Can he come back then?”

My heart performed a slow, painful turn. “It’s not that easy, sweetheart.”

“Why not?” It was plaintive, not a challenge.

“Because he’s famous.”

“But you’re also famous.”

I shook my head, nudging her back just enough to see her face. “Almost not at all anymore.”

“People want your picture all the time,” she said, like that was the very definition of fame. While ‘all the time’ was quite a stretch, I let it slide. Really not the point.

“See, but Cass is a lot more famous than I am. That’s why everyone watches what he does.” I chose my words with care—yeah, I’d been bruised by experiences you could hardly even explain to someone who hadn’t lived through the same. Trapped in a hotel room because a mob had formed outside the building; people screaming in my face, trying to press in closer; a police escort taking us to the airport. Rumours. So many rumours. But no, this wasn’t like that. “So, the thing is that because of that, he kind of made you a little famous too, even though he promised that wouldn’t happen. So now you and I need to be a bit more careful.”

“Will people ask me for pictures?” She perked up at the idea, and yeah, so much for my attempts to teach her that when I got stopped for a selfie, it didn’t make me cool or special, and that I kept her out of it not in order to hug the spotlight, but to protect her.

“No, sweetie—it’s not really safe if strangers recognise you on the street, you see?” I combed my hand through her tangled hair. “Because some people are mean. Or they’re little idiots, like Joey, who thinks it’s weird that your…” Your dad ? Emily didn’t really call me that, or only in reference to how others saw us. But she was my daughter. “That your dad likes boys, and now they’ll think that it’s not just any boy I like, but a famous boy like Cass. And maybe they’ll have opinions about that, even though it’s none of their business. And then maybe they’ll treat you differently because of that.”

Emily’s forehead wrinkled, the entire concept clearly just a little beyond her. “Different how?”

“They might try to ask you things about Cass and me. Or they might tell you that I’m not good enough for him. Or that he doesn’t actually like boys, that it’s just a mistake.”

“But he does,” she said, very reasonably.

“Yeah, he does.” I smiled slightly and stepped back a little, my hands on her shoulders. The villa was breathing around us, in time with my heartbeat. “Some might try to be your friend, just because you know Cass.”

“But I already have friends.” She hesitated, voice very small all of a sudden. “Are they gonna treat me different?”

“No.” I repeated it for emphasis. “Not your real friends, no. No one who loves you will treat you any differently—not your friends, not me, not your Granny and Grandad. Certainly not Alba.”

“She’s a cat ,” Emily said with great dignity. “She doesn’t understand that Cass is famous.”

“That’s true,” I conceded even if I wasn’t convinced Emily truly grasped it either. Better that way, maybe.

“But, so.” She narrowed her eyes. “If people I love are the same as always—why does it matter what others do? I don’t care!”

“Because…” I didn’t know how to finish. Because I promised Jess I’d take care of you, always. Because you’re my little girl, and I’m gonna want to protect you from the world. Because I don’t want you to pay for who I am. Nothing felt like quite the right response.

Before I could settle on anything, the doorbell chimed—a crisp note shattering the morning quiet. Fuck, I wasn’t expecting anyone. Had they found us already?

“Stay here,” I told Emily, and something in my tone made her nod quickly, eyes wide.

In the hall, I hit the intercom screen. My pulse dropped, like a reverse rush of blood to the head. Frank—thank God .

Probably here to pick up Cass’s stuff.

The idea tugged something loose in my gut, left me strangely empty and disoriented. Just hadn’t had breakfast yet, no appetite. Hardly surprising.

I buzzed the car in, a second one following just behind—black, tinted windows in the back. More bodyguards? It wasn’t… No. Cass wouldn’t just… I’d told him to fuck off, and so he had.

He wasn’t coming back.

Frank got out of the first car, two men exiting from the second. Private security, all right—it was in the clothes, the posture. After years of being herded places, I’d learned how to spot a professional. I walked out to greet Frank first, hands in my pocket, face carefully neutral.

Turned out the two other guys were here for Emily and me. “Cass insisted,” Frank said. “They’ll stay with you today and tomorrow, until your departure. You’ll go through the VIP terminal. No crowds, no cameras. And I’m coordinating with a security firm in Manchester, make sure you’ll be taken care of there as well.”

Guilt. Just Cass tying up loose ends, trying to mop up his mess. I felt my jaw tighten. “Thanks, but I can handle myself.”

“I’m sure you can.” Frank lowered his voice. “But this way, you won’t be left scrambling to arrange something.”

He wasn’t wrong. I glanced at the two guards, part of me still stubbornly tempted to reject this olive branch. It didn’t fix a thing. I didn’t need Cass’s charity, didn’t want it.

“Please?” Frank said gently, as if this actually mattered to him.

I exhaled. “Yeah, all right.”

* * *

Cass’s guitar was still in the living room.

I noticed it when I came back inside from the pool, splashing about with Emily because I’d cancelled the horse-riding excursion we’d originally planned. Accidentally left behind, perhaps? Maybe Frank had only been tasked with the suitcases and forgotten to sweep the place for scattered remnants of Cass’s presence. Either way, the guitar was leaning against the sofa—so fucking normal, as if Cass had just stepped out to fetch a glass of water when he must be on his way home by now. Back to LA, where he belonged and I no longer did.

I picked it up, careful, as though it might disintegrate in my fingers. It looked no different from when we’d tinkered with that warm, hopeful melody in the garden, but now I noticed the worn edges and slight scuff marks on the headstock. I turned it over—a faded sticker, half-peeled away, its residue clinging to the underside. That guitar.

Sydney, some fancy hotel room with plush carpets and white orchids, the window cracked open to let in warm air and the rise and fall of fans chanting outside the building. I’d walked in after a shower, rubbing a towel over my damp hair, and found Cass sitting on the bed. There was nothing special about it, nothing special about what he was doing—not even playing, just lost in thought, his face soft and unguarded. But I’d stopped on the threshold and said, “I love you, you know?”

He’d snapped back to reality, staring at me for a wide-eyed moment before he sent me the most beautiful smile—not the megawatt one that was all for the cameras, his trademark , but something quiet and real that sat mostly around the eyes. Happy.

‘Cass said he got really scared last time, but now he’s brave.’

I shook away the echo of Emily’s words and sat down, pulling the guitar into my lap. The strings felt alive when I pressed down on them, letting my fingers catch on gentle notes.

Eight years. Eight years, and he still travelled with this guitar instead of getting some extravagant rockstar model custom-made for him. I inhaled, exhaled, and told myself it didn’t mean anything.

Just a guitar.

* * *

I kept busy throughout the day—dealt with some emails, started packing for tomorrow’s departure, had a call with Cosma to discuss the recording schedule of her debut album, and worked out for a bit. But now, with a couple of hours left until dinner, my parents gone for a last swim in the sea, and Emily bundled up with a movie I’d seen a dozen times too many, I was alone with my thoughts.

Like wondering why Cass had chosen to run with a public statement that undid all the groundwork we’d tried to lay: some rubbish about how it was just friends catching up, nothing to see here, please move along. Second thoughts after all? He’d seemed so sure about wanting to come out.

‘But now he’s brave.’

In spite of the movie’s excited chatter, the house felt too quiet. Each moment stretched thin, tension itching under my skin as though my body still expected Cass to walk back in and smile, eyes like candles. ‘Told you, didn’t I? Told you I’m still in love with you. Even if you sent me away.’

Not gonna happen.

I set about making tomato sauce from scratch, the smell of sizzling garlic and onions thick in the kitchen. I usually loved it; now it turned my stomach. When Mason called, I wedged the phone between my cheek and shoulder so I could keep dicing tomatoes—Princess Emily was particular about bigger pieces of tomato skin in her sauce.

“Hey, mate,” I said.

“Shit, man.” His voice sounded a tad scratchy with sleep, and I had no idea what time zone he was in. I remembered when that had been our normal—waking up in hotel rooms or a bunk bed on the bus, unsure whether we were in Denmark, Canada, or Japan. “Just saw. How ya holding up?”

“I’m…” I’m fine . The lie wouldn’t quite form. “I’m handling it.”

Mason puffed out a sigh. “That’s real shit, some asshole selling footage with a kid in it. It’s one thing if it’s us, you know, but Emily? Fuck. I take it Cass set his lawyers on it?”

“Probably.” I focused on what my hands were doing, the movement of the knife. Steady. “I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Mason’s confusion came through clear as day.

“He isn’t here.”

“He’s not with you?” Mason paused. “Did the story hit when he was on his way back already? Whatever he’s got lined up, I’m sure he’ll cancel?—”

“I told him to get the fuck out,” I interrupted, chest tight with something dark and sick. Christ, I loved Mason, but I needed this conversation to be over.

“You what ?” He sounded incredulous. “Levi?—”

“He made a fucking promise, Mason. He broke it.”

“Okay, look, I know this sucks. I get it.” His voice dropped. “But this was beyond his control, wasn’t it?”

“He should have seen the fucking camera.”

“You didn’t see it either.” Mason’s tone was gentle and careful, and yet the words sent something white-hot up my spine, raw and bitter. I wedged the phone tighter against my cheek, knife stilling in my hand.

“Fuck you.”

“Lee, I just think—” He broke off and tried again, quiet now. “I get that you’re scared. I get that the first time really blew, and trust is earned, not given.”

“I’m not scared,” I snapped.

His voice remained gentle. “Aren’t you?”

“Look, I get it. Everyone loves Cass.” My bones felt as brittle as old glass, onions and garlic clogging my senses. I turned off the stove. “Can do no wrong, can he?”

Mason made a small, exasperated sound. “He’s only human. So yeah, he does fuck up. Just like we all do. But it sounds like in this particular case, he didn’t actually do anything wrong.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake .

“He broke his promise,” I repeated, each word lined with meaning.

“It was an impossible promise, and you know it.” Mason’s tone was reasonable in a way that prickled all along my spine. “The moment you two became something again—he’s Cassian Monroe, Lee. You can’t be with him unless you’re willing to be caught in his spotlight at least a little bit.”

“I know he’s Cassian fucking Monroe, thanks.” My words trembled around the edges. I dropped the knife and placed both hands flat on the worktop, just… breathing. Breathing .

Silence.

Then Mason spoke again, all soft and understanding. “And because he’s Cassian fucking Monroe, you still don’t think he’s gonna stay. Meanwhile, he believes he deserves to be yelled at, and that he’s not allowed to fight for a second chance with you.”

“That’s bollocks.”

“Is it?” Still so fucking soft, like Mason knew me better than I did. “Maybe you should ask yourself if there’s anything he could do that would convince you he’s for real. If you ever even gave him a chance.”

Bile rose sharp in my throat. “Fuck off, Mason,” I said, voice shaking. I ended the call with a jab of my finger and sent the phone skittering across the worktop, turned away, my hands gripping the windowsill. The glass was cool against my forehead, fever still crawling under my skin.

Mason was wrong . So really, just… fuck him.

* * *

For most of my time with Neon Circuit, sleep had been a beautiful luxury I’d learned to grab with both hands—in twenty-minute increments, if necessary. Then Cass and I had gone to shit, and insomnia joined the list of all things wrong with me. Therapy had taught me to accept that lying awake wasn’t the end of the world, that I’d rest when I could, that my body would catch up.

I was here, and I was sober. My heart was still beating.

I did much better these days, but trying to fall asleep in a bed that Cass and I had shared just a night ago? Fuck. Shadows crowded the space in my mind, his low, hurt voice asking me whether I really thought that fame and the adoration of strangers was all he wanted.

‘Give me a reason, Cass. Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘I’m still in love with you. That’s my reason.‘

Rubbish. He’d just… He’d just said that to feel better about this absolute shitshow. It wasn’t true. Even if he believed it—well, hey. Five years without contact painted a pretty clear picture. And sure, that went both ways, but he was the one who’d walked away.

Slow breaths, deep and steady.

* * *

Porto Cervo, Sunday, August 31st

I must have drifted off at some point because I woke up to the blaring of my phone alarm, eyes gritty with sleep, sunlight slicing straight through to the back of my brain. Right, then. Travel day, which doubled as last-day-before-school day. Up and at ‘em, or whatever.

My parents were already fluttering around the house, bags ready by the door, while the two security guys were sipping coffee in the kitchen. I nodded at them, in no shape for small talk, and went to pour my own.

“All quiet?” I asked eventually, when my will to live had been kicked out of its coma by a double serving of my usual caffeine dose, along with a spoonful of sugar I only added in desperate times.

“Yes.” The leader of the two—Paolo—nodded. “Mr Monroe was spotted arriving in Los Angeles, so we think that will reduce attention here.”

Spotted? It meant that Cass had wanted to be seen, because he’d long since mastered the art of incognito travel. I didn’t try to read into his motivations, just grunted some form of assent and tried to get a handle on my plan for the morning, tiredness blurring the edges of my thoughts. To-do list: start packing, wake Emily, get breakfast ready, wake Emily again, finish packing, and then help her with her bag. Shoes on at half past nine, and not a minute later.

Okay.

By some minor miracle—and my dad pushing everyone along—we did actually finish loading our rental car at a quarter to ten. When I did a final check of the house, Cass’s guitar sat alone in the living room, half-caught by a beam of sunlight. I could just leave it. Maybe I should.

I took it with me into the backseat of the van driven by the security guys, Emily a quiet, grumpy bundle next to me. Yeah, well, me too. Shame I was an adult.

I closed my eyes for the drive, Sardinia’s roads winding through my head, a faint sense of queasiness heavy in my bones. The body of Cass’s guitar pressed against my leg, but I made no attempt to shift it.

Olbia Airport. The VIP terminal was swanky, same as always with these things, a private concierge greeting us to handle our check-in and all travel formalities while we waited in a luxury lounge. Over the years, my ability to be wowed by this kind of stuff had evaporated into thin air—I remembered sleeping on the floor in places like this, curled around some throw pillow I’d grabbed off an armchair, remembered someone shaking me awake and I had no clue where I was, or what the hell I was doing this for.

My parents were rather more impressed. While my mum took Emily to inspect a range of smoothie options, my dad was drooling over a wide selection of newspapers and magazines, returning with a stack that should last him until, oh, approximately next year. “Quite something, isn’t it?” he said.

I nodded, glancing at what he’d fanned out on the sofa table before us. The local paper led with a picture of Cass and me on the cover—taken at the restaurant, the focus on him. ‘Fuga romantica in Sardegna?’ it asked. My gut cramped, and I looked away.

“You don’t even speak Italian,” I told my dad.

He swayed his head. “Eh, I’ll get the gist of it. There are apps to translate these things, you know?”

Why do you care? I didn’t ask, just shrugged and pulled out my phone.

“Listen, son,” Dad said after a brief stretch of silence. Restrained lounge music wove around us, no other travellers nearby. “About Cass.”

I looked up, wary. My dad wasn’t the type to offer frequent life advice or emotional counselling, and whatever this was, I’d had enough input to last me for a good long while. “Dad?—”

“Have you listened to his second and third albums?” he asked before I could stop him. “Because I have. And maybe you should too before you make up your mind.”

“What difference does it make?” It came out rather too harshly, but my dad didn’t seem to take offense.

“Maybe none at all,” he said, voice a little gruff. “Or maybe it does. I’d like to think we raised you to be curious and open-minded, to gather all the information before you jump to conclusions.”

Oh, hell. Lay on the parental persuasion, huh? I’d read all about motivational prompting when I’d mainlined parenting books some two years ago, responsibility weighing heavy on me.

And somehow, it still fucking worked .

“I’ll listen to them,” I told my dad, sharp to signal the end of this conversation.

He patted my shoulder in that way he had, a little awkward yet heartfelt. “Good. That’s very good, son.”

I inhaled and ducked my head, exhaustion casting a charcoal blanket over my thoughts.

* * *

Between Sardinia and England, Sunday, August 31st

Blue sky and cotton-wool clouds. Emily was curled against my side with her headphones on, watching some cartoon, while my parents sat a row ahead, murmuring in voices that didn’t make it over the white-noise hum of the engines.

I unlocked my phone for the third time. The cover of Cass’s second album, downloaded at the airport along with his third, stared back at me—or rather Cass did, an intense black-and-white shot from the chest up, bare shoulders catching gentle light, eyes a dark grey. Inexplicable fear left a sour taste in my mouth.

No one forced me to listen. Maybe it was safer if I stayed away, stopped poking at old wounds.

I put in my earbuds and hit play.

The first track I already knew, a groovy summer tune that had played in every damn pub and supermarket some two years ago, right around the time Jessica’s diagnosis had ripped our world apart. I skipped it, heart lodged somewhere behind my collarbones.

The second track was different: lush instrumentation, warm guitar, Cass’s slightly rough voice sliding between notes like he’d always done. There was a depth the first song had lacked—subtle lyrics tucked between layers of melody. A ghostly shadow on my empty walls. Your lonely key left in the kitchen, a house but not a home.

I hit pause once the track faded, breath shallow. Recycled air refused to truly fill my lungs, too much fucking space behind my closed eyelids. It took no effort to remember the gate remote I’d dropped on the kitchen island, just before I’d walked out of our house one final time, my things already gone.

Maybe I’d heard enough. I knew Cass regretted our end; he’d apologised plenty. This wasn’t new.

It felt new.

I pressed play again.

Some songs flowed by without leaving much of a trace. Others, though? Others hooked lyrics like tiny claws into me, pinprick points of pain while Emily shifted against me, giggling now and then at her cartoon. Normal. It was only my world that had tilted a little on its side.

The ground felt too steady where I stood. My guitar tuned to the absence of your voice. A backstage hallway curved like a secret. I drew a map of all the places we won’t go.

He’d been reaching out all along—I just hadn’t been listening.

A constellation where your hands no longer bruise. The pattern inked into his hip, how he’d told me it wasn’t closure but a reminder.

‘I’m still in love with you.’

Delayed impact, like a slow-motion train crash. I pressed a hand against my stomach and curled it into a fist, knuckles digging in. Not even sure why—just needed something solid, something to ground me when it felt like I was spiralling. Not like the first time, no tar-black pit of despair, seeking bitter oblivion, but just as vast, blinding disorientation pulling me in all directions.

He loved me. He’d loved me all along. And it was only now that I finally saw it—that I really, truly forgave him for how terrified he’d been, how young, tangled in contracts and camera flashes.

Now—after I’d fucked up.

The plane hit mild turbulence and steadied again, so bloody symbolic I almost laughed. Going crazy. Still sitting here with my earbuds in, Cass’s voice melted into silence minutes ago. God. My own words scraping against the back of my throat, sharp like the fresh splinter of glass. ‘You’re a good lay, but that’s it.’

I hadn’t learned from our history—no, I’d recycled it. An eye for an eye, a lie for a lie. Fear of flying.

A subtle shift as the plane began its descent, the captain’s voice crackling about local weather and on-time arrival. None of it made sense. When we dipped below the clouds, England’s patchwork fields were a story I had yet to read. I barely recognised this world.

‘I’m still in love with you.’

A gentle landing. My phone searched for a signal before I was allowed, notifications popping up that I ignored. I pulled up Cass’s name and lost my courage, my hands shaking, Emily rubbing her eyes.

Mason. I opened our chat, stared at the log note about how he’d called me yesterday. He’d been right—of course he’d been right.

I inhaled, sharp and heavy, and typed, ‘I think I fucked up.’

Sent it.