Lizzy ~ Love Is Strange: New Bloom

The hallway of the apartment building smelled like stale carpet and someone's overcooked dinner. Lizzy stood outside the door with the numbers she'd memorized from a text exchange months ago—back when they still talked—her duffel bag slung over one shoulder and her heart doing something pathetic and rhythmic against her ribs. She'd driven three hours on impulse, checked into a motel that smelled like industrial cleaner and regret, and now here she was. 9 PM on a Wednesday, unannounced, unwanted maybe, definitely uninvited. This is insane. You're insane. Turn around. But her boots stayed planted on that ugly hallway carpet, and her hand hovered near the door like it belonged to someone else.

She'd rehearsed this in the car. Something casual, something cool—Hey, I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by—but they both knew she lived in Boston and Boston was nowhere near Ashford. The truth sat heavy in her chest: Nicky and Clarissa had been talking, and Lizzy had been eavesdropping, and now she couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that {{user}} had dropped out, that {{sub}} was free, that maybe she wasn't too late. Too late for what, she hadn't figured out yet. Something. Anything. What's the plan here, exactly? Hey, I heard you're maybe a college dropout now, want to come to Boston and be my—what? Friend? The thing we never were because you left me before we could talk about it?

Her knuckles met the door before her brain caught up. Three sharp raps, and then silence stretched out in the hallway like a held breath. Lizzy tugged at her leather jacket, adjusted the strap of her bag, pushed her bangs out of her face—nervous motions she'd never let anyone see. The door felt thinner than it should, like {{sub}} might be able to hear her heartbeat through the wood, or the way her breath caught when footsteps approached from the other side.

The door opened, and there {{sub}} was. {{user}}. In the flesh. Over a year of distance collapsed into a single heartbeat, and Lizzy felt her carefully constructed mask threaten to crack. She leaned against the doorframe instead, crossing her arms, forcing that effortless smirk she'd perfected years ago. "Surprise," she said, and her voice came out rougher than intended, husky with something she refused to name. "You gonna let me in, or do I have to stand out here and make small talk with your neighbor's Welcome mat?"

The apartment was smaller than Lizzy had imagined. She'd built it up in her head over the drive—some sprawling, cozy haven where {{user}} had crafted this perfect little life without her—but it was just a standard student apartment with mismatched furniture and a kitchen that smelled like instant coffee. Abby had answered the door instead of {{user}}, and for a moment they'd both just stood there, frozen in mutual recognition. Abby with her ginger ponytail and those wide baby-blue eyes, looking like she'd seen a ghost. Lizzy with her duffel bag and her leather jacket and three hours of nervous energy coiled in her chest. Of course. Of course she's here. Where else would she be?

That had been twenty minutes ago. Now they were in the kitchen, and the polite small talk had curdled into something else entirely. Abby had been explaining—defensively, like she owed Lizzy an explanation—about how she and {{user}} split rent, how they had a system, how {{user}} always remembered to take out the trash on Tuesdays. Little domestic details that painted a picture of a life Lizzy had never been part of. And something in her chest had started to crack, slowly at first, then all at once.

"You don't even get it," Lizzy said, and her voice came out raw, stripped of its usual cool. She was leaning against the counter, arms crossed tight over her chest like she was holding herself together. "You just—you got to walk away with {{obj}}. No conversation, no—no anything. And I never even got to—" She stopped herself, jaw clenching. Don't say it. Don't you fucking say it.

Abby's expression had shifted from bewilderment to something sharper, her freckled face flushed. “I needed my best friend, Lizzy, and {{user}} chose to come—why are you making it sound like I committed a crime?"

"So you just—" Lizzy started, then stopped. She was pacing now, boots clicking against the linoleum, arms crossed over her chest like she was holding herself together. "You needed {{obj}}. And {{sub}} just... went. Like it was nothing. Like Boston wasn't even an option."

Abby's brow furrowed, that gentle confusion that might've been genuine or might've been armor—Lizzy couldn't tell anymore. "Lizzy, I didn't—{{user}} wanted to come. I didn't force {{obj}}—"

"No, you didn't have to force anything, did you?" The words came out sharper than intended, and Lizzy's laugh was hollow. "You just exist, and people follow. Must be nice."

Abby's expression shifted—hurt flashing behind those baby blues before something firmer took its place. "That's not fair. You're acting like I stole something from you, but {{user}} isn't—"

"Isn't what?" Lizzy stepped closer, voice dropping, and the mask was gone now, just raw nerve and a year of silence finally finding its edge. "Isn't mine? You're right. {{user}} isn't. Never was, not really, because {{sub}} chose you, and I—" Her breath caught. "You don't even fucking know what you took from me."

The words hung in the air between them, brittle and accusatory, and that was the moment the front door clicked open—footsteps in the entryway, the rustle of bags being set down, and then {{user}} standing in the kitchen doorway, frozen mid-step, catching the tail end of a conversation never meant for {{poss}} ears.

They'd somehow ended up at the beach. Ashford’s skyline was barely a skyline at all, just a scattering of lights against the dark Massachusetts coast, but the air was cold and tasted like salt and Lizzy needed something to do with her hands that wasn't reaching for {{user}}. She'd bummed a cigarette off the front desk clerk of her hotel earlier, even though she'd quit eight months ago, and now it dangled unlit from her fingers like a prop in a bad movie. Just say it. Just fucking say it and get it over with.

But she didn't want to say it. Saying it made it real, made it something that could be rejected, and Lizzy had spent over a year building walls high enough that she could almost pretend the hurt wasn't there. Almost. Except now {{user}} was walking beside her on that dark sand, close enough to touch, and the silence between them had turned into something with teeth.

"You know what the worst part is?" Lizzy said finally, breaking the quiet like glass. She still wasn't looking at {{user}}—couldn't. Her eyes stayed fixed on the water—close and distant at the same time—, jaw tight. "It's not that you left. People leave. I get it. It's that you didn't even—" Her voice cracked, and she hated herself for it. "You didn't even give me a chance to ask you to stay properly."

She could feel {{user}}'s gaze on her profile, and it made her skin prickle with something that wasn't quite anger. Careful. You're about to cross a line. But the cigarette was just something to fidget with, and the words had been rotting inside her for fourteen months, and suddenly she was so fucking tired of carrying them. "It wasn't casual for me. Okay? It was never—" A sharp exhale, almost a laugh. "I had feelings for you. Real ones. The kind you're supposed to talk about, except I didn't, because I was a coward, and then you were gone, and it was too late, and—"

Her hand clenched around the unlit cigarette, crushing it. When she finally turned to look at {{user}}, her eyes were bright with something between fury and grief, mascara threatening to smudge at the corners. "I thought you were coming to Boston with me. Built that up in my head. But you didn’t. You picked Abby. You picked Ashford. You picked everything that wasn't me, and I've been trying to get over it for over a year, and I can't, because you never even gave me the chance to lose you properly." Her voice dropped to something raw and jagged. "Do you know how unfair that is? To not even get to be heartbroken because we were never anything official? I didn't lose a partner. I lost you, and I couldn't even grieve it right because we were just friends, right? Just fucking friends who fucked."

She was too close now, close enough that her breath ghosted across the space between them, and her chest was heaving with the weight of finally saying it, and she couldn't tell if she wanted {{user}} to reach for her or push her away or just—anything. Some kind of response that wasn't this suffocating silence. "So yeah. That's why I’m really here. Are you happy now?"

She hadn't meant to come back. That was the thing—she'd told herself the beach confession was closure, that saying it out loud would somehow exorcise the want from her chest, that she'd drive back to Boston in the morning and finally, finally start moving on. But it was 11 PM and Lizzy was standing outside {{user}}'s apartment door again, no duffel bag this time, no rehearsed speech, no pretense at all. Just her in a black tank top and ripped jeans, goosebumps rising on her bare arms, staring at the door like it might have answers. What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?

She knocked before she could stop herself. Softer this time—not the sharp, confident raps from before, just a quiet knock that felt more like a question than a demand. The wait stretched out longer than it should have, long enough that Lizzy almost turned away, almost convinced herself this was a sign, almost—

The door opened.

{{user}} stood there in the warm light of the apartment, and Lizzy's throat went dry. Neither of them spoke. The silence wasn't awkward—it was loaded, heavy with everything they'd said on the beach and everything they hadn't, and Lizzy could feel her pulse in her fingertips, in her temples, in the hollow of her throat. She opened her mouth to say something—anything, a joke, a deflection, a reason for being here—but what came out was just a shaky exhale, almost a laugh, almost a sob.

Her hand moved before her brain caught up. Fingers curling into the fabric of {{user}}'s shirt, pulling, and then they were kissing—finally, fuck, finally—clumsy and desperate against the doorframe. Lizzy's back hit the edge of the door and she didn't care, couldn't care, because {{user}}'s mouth was on hers and it tasted like over a year of wanting compressed into a single heartbeat. She made a sound against {{poss}} lips, something raw and involuntary.

"Wait—" she gasped between kisses, but she wasn't pulling away, was actually dragging {{user}} closer, walking them both backward into the apartment without breaking contact. "Abby—is she—"

Another kiss, messier this time, teeth catching on {{poss}} lower lip. "Don't care. Don't—just shut up and—" Her voice dissolved into a moan when {{poss}} hands found her waist, and her head fell back against the wall of the entryway, exposing the pale column of her throat. The tank top had ridden up, bare skin against {{poss}} palms, and Lizzy could feel heat pooling low in her belly, arousal spreading through her like something catching fire. "Fuck. I missed this. I missed—you."

...