STARRY EYES | mileven

twenty

TW: mentions of an overdose attempt

**

ever since mike had entered el's life, he's been nothing but a nuisance to her. he was aware of that. from threats to fake news to invasive paparazzi — all of it circling her, attaching itself to her name when none of it had been her fault. all because she had the misfortune of crossing paths with him.

none of it had come from him directly, that much was true. but it might as well have.

because it always worked like that, didn't it?

he didn't need to be the one pulling the trigger to still be the reason the bullet existed.

she'd be better off if he just left her alone. if he put distance between them now, before things tangled any further, before she got pulled more into bullshit she hadn't asked for.

and if he was a better person, he just might have done that.

but he wasn't.

it was selfish, he knew that much. it was so selfish that he didn't even want to bother disguising it as something else. because even now, with everything that had just happened, with the look on her face still burned into his mind, the last thing he wanted was distance.

if he truly believed in anything, he might've believed that he was cursed. some ancient spell put on him where everything he touched eventually decayed, where every place he walked past rotted under his steps.

he knew that just like anything else, she'd eventually be sucked in by his thunderstorm, too. for years, he'd been unable to control the weather around him. sometimes people were hit by the lightning, sometimes people were caught by relentless hail, and sometimes it was just dark clouds draining everything of color and warmth.

all he had ever managed to give anyone was downpour and thunder.

still, even now.

a quiet sigh slipped past his lips as he crouched down, resting his weight on the balls of his feet while his hand found lu's soft grey fur. she leaned into his touch instantly, her small body warm beneath his palm, a little sound rumbling from her chest, unaware of the rainy cloud that followed him everywhere.

a small, sad smile set on his lips. "why do i only make everyone unhappy, lu?" he murmured quietly.

her tail flicked once before settling again. he received no response, of course he didn't, but he let his hand linger anyway. his fingers moved absentmindedly as the question repeated itself in his head, circling, returning, refusing to settle into anything that resembled an answer.

why do i keep making everyone unhappy?

after a while, he pushed himself back up slowly. he grabbed a can of tuna from the small counter, opening it with a quiet click before setting it into her bowl.

"there you go," he said softly, watching as she immediately moved toward it, her attention shifting away from him entirely.

that felt about right.

he lingered for a second longer, then turned and left the room.

the hallway was quiet, but his mind wasn't. it moved too fast, jumping from one thought to the next without ever staying long enough to fully process any of them. el's voice. her words. the way her expression had changed when she said i didn't sign up for this. the article. the pictures. angela's voice, far too calm when she admitted it.

he exhaled through his nose. it was pointless to blame himself. logically, he knew that he hadn't known, that he hadn't seen it coming any more than el or aiden had.