The list of things I can’t change feels like it’s growing longer by the day, a heavy ledger I can’t balance. But amongst that, there’s one tiny thing Icanchange.
She’s mentioned wishing she could get coffee delivered a few times lately. Just a throwaway comment on her streams to her followers, a tiny flicker of honesty for the strangers who think they know her. They eat that shit up, like they get to have a piece of her, like she’s theirs to keep.
They don’t know shit. Not really.
But I did. I still do.
So I set up a delivery from her favourite café. Her usual order—three shots, oat milk, cinnamon on top. I schedule it to arrive every morning at the same time, no note, and no message. Just the drink. Like muscle memory. Like I’m still woven into her routine, whether she wants me to be or not.
I know how it looks. I’m not blind to the pathetic shape of it.
And yeah, maybe it’s petty, maybe it’s manipulative, maybe it’s fucked up.
But that's all I have left.
I might not be the name she says out loud anymore, but I can still haunt the quiet corners of her life. I can still remind her that I was the one who noticed everything. Who remembered every small thing.
Let her wonder, let her question who’s behind it, even if deep down she already knows.
I might not have her anymore. And most days, I know I shouldn’t want to.
But there’s still a version of us that lives in my head—warped, stubborn, beautiful. And I don’t know how to kill that version without killing some essential part of myself right along with it.
So I send the coffee.
And I pretend it doesn’t matter that she can never know it’s from me.
Chapter 18
Sunlight slices through the blinds, sharp and accusing, carving stripes across my tangled sheets.
I crack one eye open and instantly wish I hadn’t. My mouth tastes like last night’s tequila and bad decisions. My skull thrums with a sharp, relentless pulse, as if a wasp’s nest is buzzing behind my temples. My body aches in places that shouldn’t ache from dancing alone, a reminder that loneliness can still find ways to bruise you.
I’m still in yesterday’s clothes. My baby tee clings to me, rumpled and stretched, skirt twisted halfway around my hips. My Mary Janes lie discarded at the foot of the bed, silent witnesses to the chaos I carried home. Mascara smudges curvelike crescent moons beneath my eyes, telling stories of the night I can’t quite piece together.
My memory comes in quicksilver flashes—neon lights pulsing like heartbeats, the burn of tequila down my throat, Isabella’s frown creasing deeper the later it got. Jamie’s arm braced around me as we spilled out of the club, my laughter sharp and a little manic.
I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror across the room, and the truth slams into me hard enough to steal my breath. Panic takes root fast—too fast—wrapping around my limbs, sinking into my bones. My reflection stares back, wide-eyed and hollow. I look exactly how I feel—wrecked, but there’s no time for self-pity. My head is pounding, regret cutting me raw from the inside out, but none of that matters.
I’ve never missed a stream. Not once. It’s a rule I keep folded into my bones, one that’s as essential as breathing. In camming, there are only two things you get to sell: your image and your reputation. Miss a stream, and you don’t just lose views, you fracture trust. And once that trust cracks, you become replaceable. Just another girl with a pretty face they’ll forget the second someone new comes on screen.
I’ve fought tooth and nail for nearly four years to claw my way into the top five on Tempt. And I’m not about to let one irritatingly handsome, heartbreak-wrapped-in-a-suit cost me the only power I’ve ever claimed for myself.
Chin up, mask on. It’s showtime.
I swing my legs off the bed and force myself upright, every muscle screaming, every breath a reminder that I’m still fucking here. Some days shine brighter than others, but each one is a silent fuck you to Jen and her sick, twisted games. To Ciaran and his inability to listen to reason. To Jonathan and his gentle butstill cruel way of removing me from the Points. And to Matt, for the soft lies he spun about a future he knew we’d never have, leaving me longing for someone who feels stitched into my skin, even as I keep trying to peel him off.
And the most pathetic part? Half the time, I don’t even want the wanting to stop. It’s like the pain is proof that what we had was real.
That’s why I hate mornings like this, one’s where my guard's down and all the things I try to suppress creep up on me like an unwelcome shadow.
The truth is, I haven’t found anything—not tequila, not cash, not my subscribers’ filthy demands—that fills the Matt-shaped crater in me. But at the same time, I want him to suffer. I want him to feel even a fraction of what I felt when he stood aside and let them cast me out of the only home I’ve ever known.
It’s a toxic mess of a situation and I’m so, sotiredof pretending otherwise.
Because love like ours doesn’t get happy endings. It gets ripped out at the root and buried beneath tradition and expectations and people like Gianna Salvatore, who fit into this world like they were born for it. I wasn’t born for it, I was dragged into it by my mother and her scheming. I was a mistake, a complication, a dirty secret dressed in a schoolgirl skirt and kissed behind locked doors.
Sometimes I imagine the life we could’ve had if we’d run away. Somewhere we could be anonymous. A tiny flat with chipped tiles and a busted heater. Late nights tangled up in cheap sheets, using our body heat to keep warm, and laughing over instant noodles. It wouldn’t have been glamorous, but it would have beenours.
