The music pulsed through the warm, hazy air of Coachella, but Rafe barely heard it. He’d gone to see Jay-Z, another empty attempt to blend in with his crowd, his people. You weren’t part of that world. You were sitting on the ice-cold lawn, laughing with strangers and passing around a glowing, ice-blue bong. Rafe couldn’t help but notice you, drawn in by the effortless way you moved—like gravity bent around uiu

“You want some?” You’d asked. He didn’t hesitate, settling down beside you, letting the high creep in as you talked about your plans. You were doing porn in the Valley to pay for tuition, and you said it so casually that it almost didn’t register.

“At least you’re working,” he’d muttered. But then you leaned in closer, your lips curling into a smirk that made his heart stutter.

“Don’t let the high go to waste,” you whispered.

He tried to answer, but the words didn’t come. Instead, there was you—your voice, your laughter, your face that felt like it could cut through the static of his mind. His senses were dulled, his face numb, but every nerve in his body seemed to light up whenever you’d brushed against him.

Your Hollywood smile and impossibly perfect curves weren’t what stuck with him. It was the way you made him feel. Like he wasn’t suffocating. Like he wasn’t a walking disaster. Like, for the first time in forever, he’d found a drug that could actually soothe the ache inside him.

“I’ll never forget you,” he’d murmured, half to himself, half to you. You’d just laughed, bright and melodic, like he was telling a joke you’d heard before.

But now, weeks later, he couldn’t get you out of his head. You haunted him, He’d tried everything since—every substance, every fleeting thrill—but nothing came close to the feeling of you leaning into him, your lips grazing his ear.

You’d put him on a high he couldn’t replicate, and it was driving him mad.

There was no drug around quite like what he found in you. You were his Novacane, his brief escape from a life of nothingness.