I grabbed her arm, and she pulled back immediately. I gripped harder and practically dragged her out of the house, slamming the door behind us with a loud thud. Once we were outside, Ivy wrenched herself free and stumbled back from me.
"What the fuck, Evan!"
"What the fuck?" I repeated, stepping toward her. "No, you what the fuck, Ivy? Why did you take drugs?"
"Because I wanted to have fun!"
"No, that is not the reason, Ivy," I snapped. "e on. Tell me the truth."
"It is a fucking party! What else was I supposed to do?"
"Ivy!"
She looked at me with that same angry, defensive face, but I did not stop this time.
"You do this every time something gets too heavy," I said. "You drink, you numb yourself, you grab whatever stupid thing is in front of you and pretend it fixes everything. That is not fun. That is you running."
"Shut up."
"No, I am serious," I said, my voice louder now. "You are not escaping anything by getting wasted or taking random shrooms at some idiot’s party."
"I said shut up!"
"You cannot keep pretending your problems stop existing just because you are trying to get through one night."
Her face tightened.
"You think I don’t know that?" she snapped. "You think I don’t know my life is a mess?"
"Then stop making it worse."
"My life is already worse."
"That is exactly my point."
She looked like she wanted to yell again, but the words did not e out immediately. Instead, she stared at me with her jaw trembling, and I could tell I had hit something real.
"My ex was a deranged therapist," she said suddenly, her voice breaking on the last word. "Do you understand how bad, how... how fucking idiotic that sounds? My own mother and I can barely stay on the same page, and every time I think I might actually have something good, it falls apart. So yeah, maybe I wanted to have fun for one night, Evan. Maybe I wanted to stop thinking for a minute."
Her voice cracked harder at the end, and the tears came right after.
She tried to keep it together for a second, but then she was crying, standing there outside the house while the music thumped faintly from inside. She wiped at her face once and failed, then covered her mouth with her hand as the crying got worse.
"I just wanted to escape it all," she said through the tears. "That’s all..."
I went quiet.
For all the yelling, all the anger, all the crap I had just thrown at her, that was the truth underneath it. She wasn’t being rebellious for the sake of it. She was just trying, in the worst way possible, to stop the noise in her own head for a little while.
And now she was crying in front of me because I had forced it all out into the open.
"e on," I exhaled, voice low. "We’ll go somewhere else."
"What?"
"e on." I repeated. "To the car."
"O... okay."
⟁ ⟁ ⟁
I stopped the car and turned toward her. Ivy was sitting in the passenger seat. We had to take a break twice on the way over since she needed to vomit, purging the beer and that stupid drug out of her system; stuff her body definitely wasn’t used to. Thankfully, she seemed much more sober now. Calmer, too. Thank fuck for that.
"Here we are," I smiled, cutting the engine. "Remember this place?"
"My god... I knew you were driving here. The roads looked familiar."
We were parked on the high outskirts of the city, at a secluded, scenic overlook. Just behind us stood the dark, hollowed-out silhouette of an abandoned building, its concrete walls reclaimed by overgrown vines and shadows. In front of us, the edge of the cliff was marked by a single, weathered wooden bench. The spot felt incredibly cozy, tucked away from the rest of the world under the cover of the night, while the distant, vibrant sprawl of the city grid glowed like a sea of neon below.
I got out of the car with Ivy, the cool night air instantly refreshing after the stuffy drive. We walked up to the bench, staring out at the sparkling skyline. I turned my head to look at her, then playfully nudged her arm.
"I was right here. Sitting. Smoking," I said, taking a seat on the damp wood. "Then someone snuck up behind me, on a night just like this one, and asked me where Liewith Street was."
She exhaled a soft laugh, then sat down right next to me. "Ugh."
"It was at the plete opposite end of the city."
"I know, I know," she chuckled, her voice thick with nostalgic embarrassment. "I didn’t know the city back then!"
"And you were all the way up here, with your maps open on your phone," I teased.
"The stupid app didn’t show that the mall behind me had gone to ruins in the earthquake, so I was pletely lost," she countered, shaking her head. "Oh, god. What a stupid girl I was."
"And beautiful," I said, locking my eyes onto her.
That sudden pliment instantly earned me four points from the system, but I didn’t care. I quickly dismissed the floating UI text mentally, keeping my gaze firmly fixed on her. She went quiet in a heartbeat, a subtle, flustered blush creeping up her cheeks. Fuck, she looked so sexy in that dress, and the vulnerable, flustered way she was acting right now was incredibly cute.
"Just like the first day I saw you, you’re still as beautiful as ever, Ivy."
"J-jeez, Evan. Stop it."
"I won’t," I murmured, scooting closer until our thighs were brushing, refusing to break eye contact. "Ivy, I don’t think I want to stop anymore."
"N-no. I... my breath stinks of alcohol. I mean, sure, those mints helped, but..."
Without letting her finish her sentence, I leaned in and captured her lips. Ivy froze instantly, her body going rigid as she let me kiss her. Both of our eyes stayed wide open, the flashing neon lights of the city skyline reflecting in our vision. The moment lasted maybe five seconds, but in my head, it felt like a whole year passing by.
She finally pulled back, quickly covering her mouth with her hand, pletely embarrassed. I stayed seated, perfectly still, waiting to see what her next move would be. Fuck... was I actually doing the right thing here?
Nah. Of course I was. Maybe I had buried my real feelings about her in the past, but from the very first moment I laid eyes on Ivy years ago, I had wanted her. We had bee close friends, so I had forced those desires deep down. But now? Now wasn’t the time to hide a single damn thing.
"Y-you... you have Nala, you idiot," she whispered, shaking her head as a wave of insecurity hit her. "I’m not... you can’t even pare me to her. She’s a CEO, for fuck’s sake..."
"Don’t pare yourself to others."
I caught her firmly by the arm and pulled her onto me, lifting her light frame up onto my lap. Ivy let out a soft gasp as she adjusted, sitting sideways across my thighs with her knees still resting against the bench, her hands instinctively gripping my shoulders for balance.
"Right now, there’s only me, you, and the city," I told her softly. "No one else to pare. No one else to bother."
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