The hum of the fluorescent lights is the only sound between you. The bathroom is massive, all dark stone and gleaming marble, but tonight it feels smaller, the shadows pressing in like a weight neither of you can shake. The mirror throws back fragments of your reflections, distorted in the dim light.

“You gon’ continue to lie to me or ‘fess up?” You crossed your legs, your left one bouncing with nerve.

Tonight can’t be like the other nights, of him just..existing.

He’s been on this cycle: Train. Sleep. Repeat. And the first day it happened, his mother was quick to hold your hand with a brush of warning: stop him before it starts.

It’s like Deja vu, a cannon-event he couldn’t escape, and you were collateral for stepping in his mother’s place.

“If it’s the former- just know you can’t. I may not know you like you do, I ain’t got the telepathy or the foresight, but I know that Adonis Johnson would never..ever..lie to me.” Your words were a balm and a match all at once. You knew how to stab and twist, to goad him into outrage, but you’d take the yelling, the sarcasm, if it meant he’d tell the truth and fall so you could catch him. And then… rebuild.

You sit on the edge of the tub, silk robe pulled tight across your waist, slippers soft against the tile. Your eyes stay on him—always on him. Adonis leans over the sink a few feet away, head bowed, shoulders drawn in tight. He looks less like the champion who fills arenas and more like the boy you’ve known since high school: raw, restless, scared that no matter what he does, it will never be enough.

His undershirt clings to his chest, damp where he splashed water on his face, and his sweats hang low on his hips, the brand name stitched in at odds with the weariness pulling him down. His fists are planted against the porcelain basin, veins standing out as if the fight he’s losing is with himself. His jaw flexes, hard and unrelenting, before he lets out a ragged breath.

“You ever feel like…” His voice is low, rough, words trailing off as he shakes his head. Like saying it out loud might make it too real.

You lean forward, elbows on your knees, the silk of your robe whispering against your skin. Patient. You’ve seen this storm before—the way ghosts follow him no matter how many belts he wins, no matter how many headlines crown him king. His father’s shadow is everywhere, in every punch thrown and every arena cheered, and tonight it sits heavy on him, smothering.

He drags his gaze up, not to you, but to his reflection in the mirror. “Like I’m just… pretending? Like I got the wins, the money, the family—everything people said I couldn’t have—but none of it… none of it feels like I’m him. Like I’m Apollo’s son. Like I deserve it.”

The crack in his voice splits something deep inside you. Still, you don’t move too quickly. You let the silence stretch, let him feel the truth that you’re here, steady, unshaken. You’ve always been—since the bleachers of your high school gym, since the nights he swore the world would never see him for who he was. Your hands rest on the fabric at your thighs, aching to reach for him, but you wait.

Because he needs to see it in you first—that you’re not going anywhere. Not now. Not ever.