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chapter six
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There's a knock at Vox's door.

He sits up from his bed running a hand through his matted jet-black hair and over the scar carved deeply into his skin. Rolling his eyes, he pushes himself off the mattress—waving his hand groggily at the persistent person at the door who keeps ringing the bell.

"Coming! Jesus Christ..." Vox would groan.

His eyes were red and puffy from crying himself to sleep the previous night. So much had raked his mind, and it was barely something he was able to harness himself on. From (Y/N) seeing another man to Sarah upsetting (Y/N)—it was too much for him to wrap his head around. A sense of nostalgia had crashed upon his already beaten-down washing machine heart.

Vox's hand lazily swings open the door, and he nearly stumbles from the shock to see none other than the girl he had thought of last night standing on his porch.

(Y/N) took one look at Vox and spotted the dried-out tears crusted onto his cheeks, the reddened glassy eyes, and the disheveled appearance. She almost felt smug to notice that the girl he had previously spent last night's dinner with wasn't in the house with him. She feels like letting out a breath of relief. It couldn't be anything too serious, then.

"Little (Y/N)..." Vox breathes, leaning against the door frame. "Not so little anymore." Though he had spotted her earlier last night, he couldn't help but be hit with a wave of nostalgia to see her bright (E/C) eyes, still as beautiful and full of life as ever. Undoubtedly, she was beautiful.

"Why are you here?"

The girl tilts her head. "It's...your birthday," she remarked.

He pales. "I...yeah."

She smiles. "Good. I thought so." With that, she held out a large envelope she had kept behind her back, handing it to him excitedly.

Vox quirks an eyebrow. "What's this?"

"You'll find out."

Vox ducks his head down, tearing open the envelope with his teeth to reveal a series of drawings. At first, he was confused. But as Vox went on to inspect them carefully, he began to notice that they weren't just curious sketches.

"Are these—logos?"

(Y/N) beams. "For your company! I know that since you're so rich and successful nowadays, you might want to make things more official with marketing—"

"Get out."

"I—what?"

"Get. Out."

(Y/N)'s eyebrows furrow, her mouth agape to say something which is cut off by the abrupt slam of Vox's door nearly catching onto the tip of her nose. Hurt, (Y/N)'s lips curl into a defeated frown, her posture like a wilted rose as she drags her feet out of her old lover's property.

Vox's nails claw into the door as he watches his former friend sulk away—ignoring the pang of guilt that hits him in the head like a bad migraine. His eyes catch onto the logos she gave him. They weren't just logos, as he'd seen.

No—beneath all of the intricate designs she had crafted up was a minuscule photo album of the two of them.

In a pure rage, Vox shoves the small booklet into his sock drawer, tossing the designs mindlessly onto his desk before flopping down face-first into his bed.

"Why did you do that?" an elderly voice says from the doorframe.

Vox jumps. "Dorian! Jesus... When did you get in?"

Dorian rolls his eyes. "When you were drunk last night and sobbing like a baby. You nearly woke up all the neighbors."

The night Vox's dad was murdered, his mother and he fled to a different side of New York. A more calm, collected side. Away from...her.

After Vox's mom had passed of breast cancer not long after, Vox's neighbor, Dorian, had taken it upon himself to raise the boy under his loving hand.

Dorian was both the wise grandfather and father figure Vox had never had.

When Vox had finally reached the ripe age of twenty, he decided to drop out of college and start his own small business a few minutes away from Dorian's house. There, Vox had moved into the house next to Dorian's.

Neither of them acknowledged this—but both knew the true reason he had kept so close to Dorian was despite Vox's boyish fear. Which, never truly went away after years of hiding.

"What's wrong, my boy?" the old man's murky eyes soften, the wrinkles of his face slightly drooping as his expression softens into concern for his friend. "Why did you let (Y/N) leave like that? You've only been running that mouth of yours for as long as I can remember."

Vox stiffens. "She's not mine anymore."

"Nonsense," Dorian waves him off, hobbling over to Vox's sock drawer with his cane.

"What are you doing?" he sighs, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Dorian digs his bony fingers through the piled-up socks, tossing each one mindlessly behind him, knowing damn well Vox wouldn't make an eighty-nine-year-old man clean them up for him.

"Aha!" Dorian holds up a small picture frame of (Y/N) and Vox as teenagers. "Is this where you keep all memories of her?" his bones shake with the little chuckle he lets out, gently setting the picture down on Vox's nightstand. Dorian licks his lips. "Ah...she's a beauty, boy. Nice too. I bet she's beyond everything you've ever told me about her." His eyes flicker with a lovesick gleam.

"I used to love my Gloria that way," he sighs dreamily. "(Y/N) is a lucky gal."

Vox's eyes are narrow. "I don't love her."

Dorian scrunches up his face. "Bullshit. I've seen it a thousand times before, boy. And it's not the way you would love your mom or that girl you saw last night, or even me!" he takes a breath, looking deeply into Vox's eyes. "It's the way you love (Y/N). Tell her the truth."

"Tell her the truth?" Vox replies mockingly. "Tell her the truth so that she will forever watch the stars through tears instead of following the one bright star that is her destiny? No, Dorian. Let her believe the lies; that I never loved her. That I do not see her in every beautiful thing. That the memory of her smile is not the one thing that keeps me at peace. That the memories of her and I that I hold don't even come close to being forever captivated in my heart."

Dorian stares at Vox blankly, his expression unreadable as he allows the deafening silence to fill the room.

"I raised no fool, Vox. Do not be blinded by greed. Do not be blinded by money, or success. They do not invoke happiness. It is less painful, my dear boy, to be blinded by love."

With his final words, Dorian creaks open the front door to tend to his garden plants.