25. Elle #2
His breath hitches. And for a moment, the tension in him cracks. Then he laughs, but it’s a broken sound. “Then why does it feel like you do hate me?” he whispers, harsh and rough. “Why do I look at you sometimes and feel like I did something unforgivable?”
I reach for him again, because this is Stan. He and I have gone through an impossible situation and made it out alive, with our heads and our hearts intact somehow. But when my fingers touch his, he closes his eyes like it hurts.
He doesn’t blink his eyes open. He doesn’t move a muscle. He barely breathes. Only after a long moment, he speaks, sounding worn out. “I knew you’d come. That you’d convince Sterling somehow that I needed you. And he’d listen, even though he’d do anything to keep you away from trouble. From me.”
I move closer. “Stan… Is everything okay?”
“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ as if he could make light of this situation. “But I didn’t fall in the ravine, so that’s a win, yeah?”
I try to smile when he tries too. “You disappeared…”
“Needed some silence,” he mutters, opening his eyes but not looking my way. “It’s been too fucking loud in my head lately.”
I nod, watching him. His jaw’s clenched. His eyes bloodshot. “It’s the withdrawals,” I say quietly.
He huffs a breath through his nose. “No shit. Feels like my skin’s too tight and my brain’s been rewired.” He takes a deep breath. “But that’s not even the worst part.”
Stan turns to me. His expression is drawn, eyes searching mine.
“Elle,” he says, voice even quieter now. “Was any of it real?”
I blink, knitting my brows. “What?”
“You and me. The way I felt about you. Was that just Kys talking?” He laughs, bitter and sharp. “Or was it just another one of her goddamn tricks?”
I breathe in, choosing my words with care. “If we were under her influence…then maybe it wasn’t all real.”
Stan winces subtly. “So it was fake. Just some fucked-up illusion.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I think what we felt was real. At least for a little while. But Clo twisted it into something else. Something that never really belonged to us by the end of it.”
The silence that follows is thick with grief and clarity tangled together.
“And now,” I add, voice barely a breath, “we can’t go back to the way it was.”
“Right,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fuck… I don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
“You’re real.” I bump my knee gently against his. “The fact that you’re still here, still trying. That’s real.”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. Then, without looking at me, he says, “I hate this.”
“I know.”
Stan’s voice cracks. “I miss you.”
He looks back at me now, spine straightening as we simply stare at each other, with only a small beam of light between us.
“I miss how it felt,” he says, the hurt clear in his voice. “Even if it was fake. Even if it wasn’t right. I miss waking up thinking I meant something to you.”
“You still mean something to me, Stan.”
He laughs a little and looks at me like he doesn’t believe it. “You should know, Elle, that I…” he whispers, heavy. “I’m still your Stan. No matter what. Even if he’s buried under all this shit.”
I reach out, brushing my fingers against his. “I know.”
He breathes out shakily, then takes my hand, bringing it to the center of his chest, close to the still-healing letter tattooed on him. “This was a stupid idea, huh?”
I don’t say anything. But I smile tenderly at him. Then his other hand comes up to cup my cheek, his rough thumb brushing under my eye.
“Elle…” he whispers. And before I can say anything back, he kisses me.
Because this is Stan, I kiss him back, however messy our feelings have become in the aftermath of his mother’s manipulations.
He tastes familiar in a way that sends a chill down my spine. Because this… This isn’t new. It’s Kys. It’s memory. It’s the exact sensation I remember from the cold, sterile room in the mansion. From his bed. From mine.
My heart flutters. But I don’t pull away.
Because I want to know. I want to feel the difference.
And for a second, just a second, I can’t.
It feels the same. The same hunger. The same ache.
The same, devastating sweetness of a hazy high I’d shaken off with Sterling’s help.
And when Stan says against my lips, “I missed having you to myself,” I realize he hasn’t.
He’s still there, somewhere, in the fog.
We part from the kiss, breathless. Lips tingling.
Hearts burning. But the second I open my eyes, I see his pain.
Stan doesn’t say anything at first. He simply breathes heavy and slow, like he’s trying not to come apart.
Then, finally, his voice drops, almost silent.
So unlike him that, if he had silver hair, I might have confused him for Sterling under the dim moonlight.
“So this morning, I woke up in bed with you two…” He laughs bitterly. “Felt like a fucking punch.”
I blink. “Stan—”
“You were on top of him,” he goes on, smiling without joy. “And he was holding you. And I…” He scoffs softly. “I felt like a ghost. Some guest who overstayed his welcome, in the bed the three of us shared.”
My throat tightens, but he doesn’t stop.
“I know you’ve been trying to make space for me. Letting me in.” His sad smile widens. “You’re good at that, Elle. So good you make people feel like they matter.”
He looks at me now, and my eyes instantly sting. Tears gather. They blur my vision of him.
“But I see it, even if you don’t,” he whispers, pained. “You’ve already made your choice.”
It feels like I’m suffocating. I shake my head at his words. I’m not ready to hear him say this.
“It’s Sterling,” he says, the most beautiful name fractured in his voice. “It was always only going to be him.”
He sighs, long and labored. I look down and let the tears fall as I frown, knowing it’s true. It’s been true, but I didn’t mean to hurt Stan in the process.
“I saw it the second you looked at him.” Stan sounds happy for me. I can’t handle it. “It was like you finally found your home.”
“Stan…” I whisper. His hand wipes my tears away.
“I’m not mad. Or—fuck, maybe I am—but not at you. I’m mad at myself. For not getting to you sooner. For letting her—” He swallows hard. “For letting her twist us into whatever the hell that was.”
He cradles my face and turns me. After he sweeps the rest of my tears away, he pulls back with an achingly warm smile that twists my heart.
Slowly, he strips his shirt off. Then carefully, he brings my hands to his chest. The tattoo’s still fresh, still healing. A single letter inked over his heart in sweeping cursive.
E for me. When it shouldn’t be. When his words and his eyes are baring his soul and heart to me. When I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I’m ashamed to wring such pain out of those gray eyes that usually smile so effortlessly that it lights up even the coldest spaces.
“I got this before I even knew who I was without shit in my system,” he says, staring at me. “Before I knew what was real. Before I knew if you really wanted me, or if I just wanted you so bad I made myself believe you did.”
Everything hurts from hearing his heart break right in front of me. When I don’t want it to. I never wanted it to. If I could keep holding him together, I would.
“I branded myself with this letter,” he says, full of ache, “because even if it was all fake, I still felt it. I still fucking feel it, Elle.”
My free hand reaches to cup his cheek, but he jerks his head away, shaking it.
“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, breath shuddering like it hurts to speak. “I didn’t pull you out. I let you stay in that awful place with me ‘cause I was too afraid of what she’d do to me. To you. And I don’t get to keep you after that.”
“Stan—”
“I love you,” he says, sudden and raw. “I love you so goddamn much I would’ve stayed her loyal, drugged-up dog if it meant keeping you. I would’ve lived in that lie forever just to see you point your smile at me.”
More tears spill down my cold cheeks, and I can’t stop them.
“I know we were drugged out of our minds,” he says, nodding with a grimace. “I know that. But it doesn’t make this any easier.”
He breathes raggedly. I can’t speak when I’m crying this much, hurting this much with him.
“I don’t regret loving you,” he says. “But I regret that you’ll never be mine to love the way he gets to.”
He laughs, weak and bitter. It doesn’t sound like him. It doesn’t sound right.
“Guess that makes me the idiot who tattooed a love letter to a girl who was never mine.”
I reach out again, cupping his face with determination this time, despite my hands trembling so badly that I can’t control them anymore. “You’re not an idiot,” I say with all of my heart.
He leans into my palms, eyes fluttering closed. “I just needed to say it out loud to you, Elle. So I could stop pretending.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Don’t be.”
“I would never want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” A small, sad smile stretches across his lips. “I’ll be okay, babe.”
“You don’t have to be okay right now,” I whisper.
He huffs softly, trying to laugh through the mess of it. “Don’t tell Sterling I cried. I’ll deny the whole damn thing.”
That makes me laugh a little, even through the tears.
He leans forward, resting his forehead on mine. “I just needed you to know,” he whispers. “That I love you enough to let you go.”
My throat tightens. “Stan…”
“I know.” His smile falters. “It’s not goodbye, I promise. How can I ever stay away from you for too long, Elle? I just needed to air all of that out here. Needed you to know what’s going on in my noggin’.”
His lips land on my cheek, kissing my tears. I can’t help but smile, feeling warmed by him, even as the passing breeze cools us.
He leans back and wipes his face with the back of his hand, muttering, “Fucking moss in the air.”
I stay seated beside him, our shoulders touching. Our hands find each other in the near-dark, like they did when we were trapped in the haze. But we’re no longer there. We got out of it. And even if it drags us back, we’ll keep getting out. We’ll be okay.
***
The stars are out by the time we’ve stopped crying. The sky stretches wide above us, a blanket of constellations scattered like twinkling ash. Everything feels quiet and calm.
We’re still sitting at the edge of the ravine.
Stan hasn’t looked at me in a while. He’s watching the stars, eyes glassy, reflecting the light like they’ve swallowed the sky whole.
But I watch him. His profile is sharper under the moonlight, all shadows and bruises, the line of his jaw tight like he’s holding something back.
“I used to daydream,” he says. “That we’d get away from it all. You and me. Someplace no one knew us. Somewhere quiet.”
I don’t speak. I let him go on.
“But that’s the thing about dreaming, right?” He glances over, his smile sad again. “You wake up to reality eventually.”
My chest aches all over again from the devastating truth of his words. He stares back up at the sky, hands clasped between his knees, holding himself tightly.
“You know what I’d do, if I was smarter?” he asks, voice frayed.
“What’s that?”
“I’d get up right now, say a dumb line like ‘see you around,’ and walk away before I make things worse.”
“You’re not making anything worse.”
He lets out a dry sound. It’s almost a laugh. “Tell that to the part of me that still wants you to lie. To look at me like you used to. Like I’m the one you chose.”
The silence around us holds still. I don’t know what to say. So I reach for him in the dark. I want to show him that I’m listening. I always will when it comes to him.
“Let me be that idiot,” he whispers, “even if it’s only for one more moment.”
I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s the stars. Or the way his voice breaks. Or the tattoo still healing beneath his shirt, over his heart. But I turn my body toward his, and when his wide, wounded eyes meet mine, I lean in.
It’s meant to be a tender kiss. But it hurts anyway.
He freezes for half a second as if he doesn’t believe it’s real. But then he kisses me back. His hand finds my face, shaking slightly as his thumb presses into my damp cheek.
The kiss deepens, becoming more aching and longing. It feels like he’s trying to brand me into his mouth before the moment’s gone.
Maybe that’s why it tastes so much like heartbreak over what’s ending. Grief of what could’ve been between us. Hope of what the future could possibly hold.
When I pull back, I don’t open my eyes. I merely breathe him in—his smoke and sweetness—with our mouths still close enough to feel the ghost of what just passed between us.
“God, Elle,” he whispers. “I’d kill for a kiss like that.”
I blink slowly, the ache catching in my throat. “You didn’t have to.”
He leans back, looking at me, his expression half-lit by moonlight, bruised and smiling like he’s been through hell to have this simple moment in time. To be merely here with me under the unforgiving night sky.
We’re in a world that won’t turn back time. A world that treats heartbreak as a trivial thing, despite it clearly wrecking us.
“Yeah, I didn’t have to kill for it,” he says, grinning ruefully. “But it sure as hell feels like I did.”
And then his arms brace behind him, his head tipped toward the stars.
“Thanks for letting me dream, Elle,” he says.
“I haven’t in so long that I almost forgot how it felt.
But since I met you, I feel like I can dream up a better life now, even if I have to watch you be with someone else.
It’s strange. It’s fucked up. But honestly, I’m seriously happy for you and Sterling. I know he’ll always watch over you.”
I look up too, staring at the same sky. Neither of us says anything else.
And beneath a blanket of blinking stars, with a stolen kiss still burning on our lips and goodbyes woven into silence, we let the moment linger one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more ache we’ll carry quietly.
At least, there’s hope threaded into the future that awaits us.
Then there’s a sudden sound somewhere far from us, but it’s completely out of place. My heart thunders at its startling familiarity.
In the distance, an engine roars, drawing closer.
Stan’s already up and alert. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” He groans, helping me up with an outstretched hand. “Can’t a guy have some heartbreak in peace?”