TOP OF THE ROCK

☆ | 19.0

☆

"BLUUUUUUUE."

There was nothing but an arctic silence in her ear.

Did he not answer? Didn't the dial tone cut off? Wasn't he there, on the other side of the phone, laughing at her? Wasn't he always there, watching and waiting, planning something cruel?

A veil of icy air whipped at her numb cheeks, and she shivered, wrapping an arm around herself. The world spun, spun, spun into a dizzy blur of blue and white colors. Winter.

Fuck. What did Vans put in her drink? How many drinks did she have?

"Blue," she whispered, her voice cracking.

"I'm here."

Her bottom lip trembled. Why was he doing this to them? Why was he doing this to her? Was it all a lie?

"Blue, I..."

A million curses tumbled up to the tip of her tongue, but they felt sharp, jagged on the roof of her mouth, like glass crunching between her teeth. Too many things. The desire to cry, or choke him, and the need to confront him, to hit him, to demand an answer, an end to all the lies, and the longing to lie, hold it all in, and wait to fucking kill him.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

Blood.

There was nothing but blood, a metallic taste, and red, a raw filter tainting the blue-grey winter wonderland around her, and rage, a razor sharp threat biting at her heart.

"I'm... drunk." Her stomach lurched. "I'm... I'm drunk, and it's cold."

"Baby," Blue snickered, "it's cold outside."

"I ought to say no, no, no," she murmured, her heart sinking.

A warm laugh fluttered through the phone. "Okay, baby, I'll come get you. Where are you?"

Slowly, she glanced up, squinting at the blurry street sign, and then everything seemed to collapse. She stumbled, her knees buckled, gravel burned into her palms. A cry ripped from her lips.

"Star, hey, hey, hey," he soothed from the burner phone that sat beside her on the sidewalk. Tears stung her eyes. "Hey, okay, I know. Okay. I'll be there soon. Just... don't move."

It didn't occur to her that she'd never given him her location because when Blue lifted her from the sidewalk several minutes later, darkness danced across her vision.

When her eyes fluttered open next, the world was white and... bright. Her head throbbed; her chest tightened. Cool tiles caressed her skinned knees.

"How you feeling, baby?"

The sound of his voice sent her reeling back. An explosion of light and pain wracked through her, and as she wretched, fingers curling around porcelain, head hanging into a toilet, it hit her.

She was... sad, so she called Blue.

Because there was no one else. She was alone.

Hot tears spilled over her cheeks. A string of bile dribbled from her lips. Misery clenched around her heart.

"I know," he breathed, fingers tracing her warm cheeks to tuck a curtain of hair behind her ear. Blue gathered all the long strands in one hand. "It feels like shit to be alone."

Fuck him. She was better alone.

Blue didn't know her.

But when she swiveled to face him, dizzy and desperate, their eyes clashed, and something seemed to echo through that alluring shade of azure. Maybe they were alike.

They were both selfish, and that's why they were both alone.

Blue held her gaze with an unapologetically soft smile, never glancing at her tear-stained cheeks or flushed cheeks—only her bloodshot eyes.

"It's okay." Blue kneeled to the bathroom floor, tipped her chin up, and swiped a thumb along her damp cheek. "It's okay. I know, Star."

Blue knew how it felt.

"My name isn't Star."

"I know."

"It's Catalina," she said quietly.

Maybe she was too fucked up to care.

Maybe Blue was lost in the moment.

Because when he cocked his head to the side, one inch, a perfectly calculated mannerism that made her heart skip, Blue broke his own rules.

"Mmm. Beautiful. Catalina," he drawled her name lowly, and it rolled off his tongue like honey, nothing sharp and cold, only a smooth, sweet secret between them. "I'm Niko."

☆

**GOD. SO, yeah. This is a really quick and dirty first draft of this entire story, but I'll admit... I LOVE this chapter way more than I should. ⭐️