L U E L L A

THE FEBRUARY AIR is refreshing. The breezy wind blows against my face as I make my way down the street with Alex by my side. Somehow, the kiss we shared seemed to completely erase all weird feelings it left between us. Which was relieving to the both of us since it was unusual for Alex and I to be that raw and open with each other. As much as it seems like it meant something to Alex, I can't handle to even think about it. So, for the rest of the evening, that's exactly what I do.

We haven't really planned where we're going out to eat, but we decided to walk and explore a little until we spotted a cheeky restaurant that served special plates from every culture, a bit all over the place. Gratefully, our time in there wasn't completely awkward at all. Alex filled me in on his father's updates and what he wanted with him.

"I'm honestly tired of being his work assistant, you know? I'm supposed to be his son, not his elf." He complains as he bites into a Mexican chicken finger drench in barbecue sauce.

I nod in understanding as I sip on my cherry cola. "But you are his son, Alex. He trusts you, that's why he needs you specifically to do that stuff for him, right?"

"That's not what it is, though." Alex takes a deep, troubled breath. "He's just shaping me up for when he retires and I get to take his place," He scoffs. "As if."

"What's wrong with that?" I question curiously. It's not at all often that Alex opens up about that side of his life and family. For inviting me into his home, he is a really private person.

"A lot," Alex blinks up at me, chewing down another chicken wing. "It's a lot. A lot of companies, businesses, deals, contracts. A lot of responsibilities, a lot of shit to be held accountable for."

"I get it, yeah," I munch on my sweet potato fries as I raise an eyebrow at him. "Do you have a say in it at least?"

"Not sure," He shrugs. "Don't think so."

I part my lips to say something else but my mouth dries as all the air gets sucked out of my lungs when my eyes land on a certain pair of familiar jades.

H A R R Y

"Here we are!" Olivia chirped enthusiastically as we reached the restaurant she was guiding us to.

"That was not close to our building. At all," I huff jokingly as she shoots me a knowing smile and passes through the restaurant's open doors.

"I thought we could use the walk here," she shrugged as she maneuvered us to a little table with two seats opposite each other. "Surely better than a boring drive in that stuffy car."

"Stuffy-," I raised my eyebrows as we took our seats, myself resting my keys and phone on the table as she does her purse. "Hey, my car is not stuffy. In fact, it's spacious and comfy enough to take on a week-long road trip."

"Wow," Olivia passes her freckled fingers through her voluminous hair. "I'm impressed. Now I want to go on a week-long road trip."

I'm about to say something smart or another sarcastic reply, but the words are taken right out of my mouth and my tongue is tied into a hundred knots because my mind couldn't keep up with my scattered thoughts the instant my eyes caught her. Though always with a mind of their own, I doubt anyone sitting in that restaurant could glance around without lingering a second more on that vibrant hair of hers.

Luella Faith Skye.

"Harry?" Olivia tilted her head that it blocked my sight, but not before Luella's gaze shifted from Olivia to land on me.

I blinked away and attempted to seem unfazed while I steady my racing heart and thoughts, wishing away the part of me screaming in my ears to get the hell out of here. And ignoring the other one criticizing my reaction in mocking snickers.

Out of all places she could be, of all days, hours and minutes...she's here right now. Is it fate or irony? Either way, the world has a funny way of working.

"Yeah?" I reply, holding my gaze on Olivia with all my might.

She chuckles. "Have you ever been?"

"Sorry, where?" I feel guilty by the faltering smile of hers as she fiddles with her fingers.

"A week-long road trip."

"Oh. No," I shake my head. "Never been on a road trip altogether."

"What?" Olivia's mood picks up again and I give her a half-smile with a lift of my shoulder. "I can't believe this. Can I be more disappointed in you?"

I laughed lightly, feeling a pair of eyes on me but brushing off the feeling quickly before I look back. Because I know, I know if I so much as glance her way, that's it. I'm fighting a war against my own self because of her, and I'm not sure I want to test which side is winning.

"My life is basically all road trips. Not week-longs but, you know," Olivia chuckles and I nod along with her as she goes on about her multiple road trips to different cities and her adventures with high school friends. My ears and eyes don't synchronize and I find myself stealing a peak at her again. Her. Those two skies of clear light blue.

They were staring right at me. But not for long, once she realizes I caught her staring. She looks away in a millisecond, concentrating her gaze on someone else sitting with her. My eyebrows knot together as I see him now, attention diverted, Alex Clover. The corners of her lips curl upwards in a smile at something he said and-whether she realizes I'm looking or not-glances at me then away during the same femtosecond.

"Harry?" Olivia's soft voice reaches out to me through my chaotic thoughts and I look back at her, releasing my clenched fists and jaw I didn't realize I was clenching hard. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I clear my throat but then I shake my head. "No. Can we..." Leave, I meant to continue. Get out of here before I do something none of us, or the people in this restaurant, would necessarily appreciate, was a pretty good alternative, too.

But as I looked up at Olivia's round heart-shaped face and anxious doe eyes, I backtracked. Selfish was a feeling I repeatedly had lately, whether I like it or not-and cannot get accustomed to it. So the look on Olivia's face doubled ten times over. I can't be selfish again, I can't lose anyone else again. I saw the waiter coming with the menus to order and I sighed.

"Can we put a hold on this conversation for a bit? I just need a wee," I lied. Olivia laughed. I tried to smile.

"Sure," she says, looking up at the waiter who'd just arrived to acknowledge him. "I'll order meanwhile."

Nodding, I grab my phone and keys with me, shoving them into my pockets as I searched my way to the toilet, mind racing a little. When I got there, there was a guy washing his face on the sinks and I had to ease my way into a not-having-a-nervous-breakdown state. So I passed time by washing my face as well, the cold water helping relax my tension and cool me down a bit.

As the guy finished and left, I rested my forearms on the edges of the sink and let my head hang as I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. She is here again, a couple of meters away from me, and with another man. She is here again, reminding me she's not mine anymore, she's somebody else's. She is here again.

And what can I do about it? I might as well get used to seeing her as a stranger. Because that's what we seem to be: just two strangers with a whole lot of memories.

Fuck. Wasn't I convincing myself less than twenty-four hours ago that I'm starting anew? Shouldn't I have moved on by now? Am I unnecessarily having trouble getting over what we had? Because she certainly had none, chucking it behind her back like trash.

Because you'd treated her like trash, my subconscious hit me on the back of my head. And as much as it doesn't help extinguish the burning fire inside my chest, I know it's true. I shouldn't expect any more of her.

She's jumped on that train a long time ago. But here I am, battling with my heart to calm down its harsh beating against my ribcage, my lungs to steady their breathing, my mind to stay the fuck away from her.

I try to recite Ben's words in my head like a mantra. That that part of my life is over, that I fucked up, yes, but I learned from it and I've gotta move on. Like she has.

I breathe out my last thoughts and wash my face again before I dry up and walk out of the bathroom. I think I'm straight up hallucinating her when I find her in the little secluded corridor that separates the men's and ladies' restrooms. I blink, wishing her demons away, but it's not. It's her. My eyebrows knit together as I study her posture. Her arms folded on her chest accusingly, face expression composed with a slight-yet again-accusing raise of her eyebrow.

"Really?" is what she speaks up with. I take a step back, as if she's talking gibberish.

"Excuse me?" I narrow my eyes at her, trying not to stare at the alluring, unfamiliar color of her hair.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, making me even more taken aback. "Why are you still following me?"

"What?" I scoff in pure annoyance.

I can't believe this. She's got to be kidding me. Does she want us to make a scene everywhere we see each other? London is a huge city, and somehow we're brought together to be at the same restaurant with other... acquaintances. And now she wants to translate this however she wants by me following her?

Can you blame her? That snarky voice inside my head chips in and I push it away.

"This is ridiculous," I mutter as I brush past her to walk out the corridor, but I turn back around, facing her again and noting her parted lips-either in surprise or she was about to say something before I cut her off. "You know, not everything is about you."

I don't exactly know whether I said that for her sake or mine. I don't know why I said that at all, but it seems like I can't stop or control it. I try to ignore the baffled-but somehow composed-face she has on and carry on.

"For once, in about two years, not everything is about you." I don't know if my words are harsh and I don't want to know nor care. Luella has put on a blank expression and pursed her lips into a thin line as she listened to what I've got to say. "So just... let me sit at a restaurant and have lunch with somebody that's not-," ...You. I sigh after what seems like a minute of not finding the words to say.

Her response is the parting of her lips and looking away in a blink, her frown deepening the crease between her brows. Then she realizes something that makes her regain her composure and stare hard at me. "Are you really playing victim now?"

"Nobody's-," I halt mid-sentence when somebody walks out of the ladies' room and another walks into the men's and I realize we're in the middle of a restrooms-intersection whatever-they're-called hallway in a fucking restaurant. Only Luella Skye. "Nobody is playing victim here. That's not what I'm saying and you know it."

"Right, well," She gives me a humorless look as she pauses while a confused old lady gives us looks on her way out. Luella hisses, "I sincerely apologize for that, your Highness!"

It's undeniable how surprised we both are. The nickname she used to tell me when we-well, I-first started our bet and told her what to do. Then I started calling her Majesty and it became our...thing, I suppose I can say. Like we were living in a royal fairytale, one that got us both royally messed up.

The way she said it now, though, wasn't on purpose. It involuntarily slipped her lips and her startled eyes talk all about it. She must have caught on to what was happening faster than I did and shook her head out of it, carrying on like nothing happened at all.

"Must have been two hard fucking years for you, huh?" She mocked bitterly. "All that spying? That following around? You-"

"I," I feel my act crumble, "never said that. What we had was the best time of my fucking life." My words don't seem to rattle her but when we lock eyes, gazes unwavering, unblinking, I could swear we both felt that. Whatever it was-reminisce, pain, heartbreak. And dammit, it tears me apart. "I never denied the fact that I fucked up. In fact, do you need me to say it again? I'm fucking sorry-"

"No, I'm not doing this," she says, shaking her head in finality. She tries to walk past me like I did earlier but-no matter how hard I tried imagining my hand burning in hungry flames-I reach for her wrist to stop her. And just like that, fingertips barely lingering on the soft skin of her wrist, like I've been burnt I retract my hand as quickly as Luella pulls hers away.

There it is again. Tearing me apart.

"Listen to me," I set my jaw, trying my hardest not to let my vulnerability and that shock from our skin touching become transparent through my eyes. "I came to London to move on. I have a job here, I'm finally working on myself again... And if there's a one-in-a-million percent chance we might run into each other, then fine, I'll take that. But it doesn't mean that I'm following you around everywhere, Luella."

"Faith," she quips. "And-"

"No," I shake my head, keeping my jaw and fists clenched. "You don't need to tell me what to call you, because I'm not going to. Does that make you feel less paranoid?"

Luella looked like I've offended her. I run my hand over my face, realizing I'm sounding like an asshole but can't help but do. Anything I say will sound selfish. "I'm not here because of you," could mean, "You mean nothing to me anymore." And, "I'm here because of you," could mean, "You should file a restraining order against me."

I take a step forward, but she takes one backward. She looks to be figuring out what to make of this, but hell if I knew. I'm sputtering words out if my mouth without thinking them through. Or maybe overthinking them. Just like I always am with Luella. No matter how many sleepless nights and lonely afternoons I fantasized about seeing her again. Imagining our encounter, practicing what I was going to say to her. Now that it's happening, I'm too flabbergasted that my mind isn't functioning properly. This moment doesn't even seem real.

"What I mean is," I try again. "It's not like I'm playing victim or whatever, okay? I know it was a mistake, that's not a discussion. It fucking sucks that our start had to be like that, because of me. And I'm sorry for that, Lu-," I stop myself, then plan to speak up again before she cuts me off.

"You know..." She seems to be looking for the right words but I prepare for the blow when it comes, "Now that I'm thinking about it, I brought it onto myself. How could I have been so foolish to believe you every time you said that ironic word-sorry, like it's anything more than it really is, a word. So fucking foolish think you actually..." Loved me, she was about to say. I know it because the moment she was about to say it was the same moment we locked eyes and nostalgia hit really fucking hard.

"Whatever," She breaks out of it after what seems like forever. "It's not like I care anymore. I've wasted enough time as it is."

"You came to accuse me of following you," I raised my hands, as if ridding myself of the responsibility. Though what I was really doing was hiding the burning ache I felt as the knife of her 'not caring anymore' stabbed me in my chest.

"I didn't realize you were over your old habits," she deadpans and all I can do is frown and tear my gaze away like a kid caught stealing candy. "But you're right, we have no business correlating with each other again."

I open my mouth then close it firmly again, studying her before I reply. "Exactly."

She purses her lips, looking away at a point behind my shoulder before she looks back at me again. "Good. Have fun on your date."

My eyebrows raise slightly with a mind of their own but I wipe off the chilly feeling that passed through me when I looked back and realized she was glancing at Olivia. "Thanks," I played along, nudging my head over to where Alex Clover sat, hunched over on his phone. "You, too."

Her eyes traced her way to where I was looking before she looked back at me. And that's all she-we-did for the longest moment. As if we were having a conversation with our eyes, or memorizing each other's faces for one last time. Like this was the goodbye we needed all thirteen months ago, but it's not.

But I knew, whether we had a say in it or not, this was not the last time we were going to see each other.

•••
note:
well... that was intense.
sooo, i need feedback!
do you guys like olivia? what do you make of luella, harry, alex, everyone?
let me know your thoughts!
love, ness .xx