Stella's POV
New York was just as I had left it. Everything was loud and constantly moving and people were rude and subway rats elicited small screams from the tourists... although when I snuck out of the bus at fucking 6:30 in the morning so there actually weren't many tourists, just commuters and all the rats were asleep but that's beside the point. The point is, New York felt the way it always did. Like the most wondrous city in the entire world. I had never really felt like I belonged here, but I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Just onstage performing, a recent discovery of mine. Part of me wanted to get lost in this city, do whatever it is I have always done. But the thing about it was, what I've always done is hang out with Ava. Ava always got jobs near Oscorp specifically so we could ride the subway to work together every day. I was never without my Ava. But this morning I snuck out way too goddamn early specifically to avoid her. To avoid anyone really. It's that whole walking target thing, I was worried if I told someone I was leaving they would try to stop me because they didn't trust me alone on the streets of New York. But this was my city. I wanted to be alone.
My first stop was the apartment I had grown up in. I had purchased it when Mary got deported mostly because I knew if I did the landlord would throw everything in it in the trash. My childhood wasn't great, but it was still part of me and it made me sad to let go of it. But after some thought I decided I would put it up on AirBNB. There were people in this city who's living is just resetting AirBNBs after people leave it, so I knew I could rent it out passively and still make pretty decent money off of it. Not that I needed money, but I liked the idea of it still being a piece of me. Then maybe one day I'd rent it out as an apartment to a family, or sell it all together, but for now I was focusing on one thing at a time. The first order of business was to get out everything I couldn't leave in an AirBNB, so like my old childhood photos, certificates of achievement, stuff like that. My mom had every single school photo I ever took framed and hung above the TV, even the later ones like sophomore year when my shirt was stained from a lunch room related incident, or junior year when Olivia hid my clothes during PE so I had to wear my gym shirt to class photos. My mom was pissed about that one. She bought me a nice shirt from Abercrombie to wear specifically for that photo. She grounded me for a week and wouldn't let me eat dinner to pay her back what I owed her for that shirt. I tried to tell her what had happened, but it made no difference. In her mind I lost the shirt on purpose, just to waste her money. Even so, when the pictures came back she ordered the most expensive package and ooed and ahhed over how beautiful I looked.
Pretty whack if you ask me.
"You're back." I heard.
"Shit!" I exclaimed, practically jumping out of my skin. I turned around and saw Paul lurking in the doorway, looking at me with amusement. He and Christian were brothers obviously, but I never really thought he actually looked that much like Christian. But now I could see it. I guess I just had never really seen him smile before.
"Nice to see you too, Stella." Paul offered.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Oh you know, 24 hour surveillance and all that."
"Wait, what?"
"Kidding." He said. I had never known him to kid. He let himself into the apartment and picked up one of the framed photos from the box I had thrown it in. The glass was cracked.
"You're not exactly being quiet." He said.
"I didn't realize you'd be up this early."
"Just got off work." He shrugged. "What are you doing here so early?"
"I have a show tonight, but I think I'm gonna turn this place into an AirBNB so I wanted to get it cleaned out while I'm in town."
"Need some help?" He asked. I didn't realize he was the helping type but I didn't want to call him out on it and discourage him.
