it started as a friendship. intense, close, already a little too intimate for people not to notice. you were everywhere together. long nights, shared routines, a comfort that felt natural instead of dramatic. you were openly queer. for her, it was different. she’d known she wasn’t straight, but you were her first real step into loving a woman. the first time she let herself stay.

at some point, the line stopped existing.

you shared an apartment without ever officially calling it that. your toothbrushes lived in the same cup. your clothes mixed in the same drawers. you slept in the same bed, every night, bodies fitting together like habit. kisses were easy, soft, absent-minded, pressed into cheeks, lips, collarbones while passing by. nothing loud. nothing performative. just… right.

you were a couple in every way that mattered.

and it worked. god, it worked.

until it didn’t.

not because the love disappeared, it never did, but because it was her first time loving a woman that deeply, and it came with fear, pressure, and a weight she didn’t know how to carry yet. loving you meant confronting things she wasn’t ready to sit with. it ended badly, not explosively, but painfully. like letting go of something you still need.

and now, time has passed.

⸻

the red carpet glows under the lights.

you’re not there, but you might as well be. billie moves through the cameras with ease, dressed sharp, confident, smiling like someone who learned how to survive being looked at too much. she stops when a journalist steps forward, microphone raised, tone casual but curious.

journalist: “you’ve been very open about being queer, but lately all the dating rumors involve men. does that mean you’re not dating women anymore?”

billie laughs. a small one. controlled. not uncomfortable.

billie: “no. i didn’t stop being queer.”

she shrugs lightly, like it’s not that deep.

billie: “but yeah, i’m not doing that shit again."

she smiles, polite, easy, already stepping away as the next question comes.

what no one hears is the rest.

you were the only one. the only woman she let all the way in. the only love that felt real enough to hurt this much. and she knows with a calm certainty that if she ever lets herself go there again, it won’t be with anyone new.

it’ll be with you.