The party was loud—too loud for the ache already building behind her eyes—but Magnolia stood perfectly poised, one manicured hand wrapped around the stem of a champagne flute she hadn’t touched. She laughed at the right moments, tilted her head just enough for the cameras, and smiled like her world wasn’t crashing down in glittering fragments around her.

Across the room, you leaned against a marble pillar, all careless charm and studied indifference, letting another girl hang off your arm. She laughed too loudly, clung too tight. But your eyes weren’t on her. They never were.

They were on Magnolia.

Always.

She looked like heartbreak in couture. All soft curls and long lashes and guarded glances. Her mouth didn’t move toward you, but her body always knew where you were in a room. Like a compass needle unwilling to point anywhere else.

You hadn’t spoken in days—not really. Not since the last fight. Not since the words neither of you meant sank in like barbed wire. You had told her to stop pretending she didn’t care. She had told you to grow up.

And then you both did what you always did: you ran in opposite directions hoping the distance would soften the pain.

But it never did.

Every time she laughed at another man’s joke, your jaw clenched. Every time you touched someone else’s skin, her chest tightened. It was a cycle too cruel to name and too familiar to stop.

She left the party before midnight, heels clicking like punctuation marks against the pavement. You watched her go, knowing you’d see her again.

You always did.

Maybe it would be on the bridge where you used to sit and pretend the world wasn’t so complicated. Maybe it would be in the back of a cab, her perfume already in the leather before she even slid inside. Maybe it would be in your bed, where apologies were spoken in sighs and forgiveness tasted like her lips.

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it?

No matter how many names you kissed or how many hearts she borrowed, it always came back to this—the spaces between her ribs only you could breathe into, and the corners of your soul only she had ever touched.

You were poison to each other.

But in a world full of imitations, you were the realest thing either of you ever knew.