Say You Want Me

Void

Love is a complicated thing.

Love can be beautiful or it can be strange... It is always beautiful in its form, but not for everyone who sees it. It depends on where you are, what you feel, and your point of view. Love can make you smile, or it can hurt you. All at once. To love, you need to be vulnerable and be able to feel everything in an intensity that can sometimes break you.

Love cares and love despises.

It makes you feel like everything and like nothing.

That's how it feels.

When they touched, when they kissed, when they were together, laughing, breathing into each other, taking every part of their souls and turning into something they would never forget. Love in the most exquisite and fragile way. And then, the emptiness, the chaos, the questions, the distance and the silence. That terrible silence, and that weird feeling as if nothing else was going to happen.

"I am sorry."  Bradley says with the simplest voice he could use. Cozy, but his heart was shattering and ready to tear his chest apart, bleeding and hurting him.

"It's ok."  Stefani replies. "It's not our fault..." She takes time to think and hold back tears, and to keep her voice calm and steady. "We'll find each other again at some point of our lives, I hope." She smiles, even though all she wanted to do was cry.

"This is not a good bye, Stef. It's just-" He walks across the room, looking at his feet touching the gray carpet on the floor. "I can't..."

"Hey, I know. I know how it feels. I'm not mad at you. We can't be together. Not now. We have to do this. It's not safe. It's not healthy. It's okay." She says pausing rapidly between every phrase, trying to convince herself of her own words. "Irina does not deserve to go through this. She's not the enemy. And we are not bad. It's okay." She repeats.

"I love you so much." He says between sighs, those words ending to shatter what was left of his heart.

"I love you too, B. And never dare to think that I don't."

"We're going to get through this, right?"

"Of course we are, my love."

And that was it. Their first call after two weeks without talking to each other. The reason? Bradley was feeling too guilty. And Irina had enough evidence to end his and Stefani's career.

"She has the pictures." It was the first thing Bradley said when Bobby answered the phone shortly after the argument with Irina.

"Who-"

"Irina. She has the pictures, Bobby. Christian sent them to her. I don't know what to do."  He ran over the words, sobbing as he cried.

"Wow. Calm down. Where are you?"

"I'm home. Please, what can we do? I feel like I'm not going to be able to move on with this."

"Bradley. Listen to me, Irina's not going to do anything against you. She loves you and loves Lea ..."

"But..." Bradley interrupts Bobby.  "What about Christian? He's already sent the photos to her and can do the same thing for anything."

"Bradley, I'm sorry but I think you need to get away from Stefani. It's urgent. I don't know what Carino has in mind, so that way you and Stefani will be less at risk." He hears Bradley cry. He breathes and continues. "In the meantime, let me handle everything else. Irina loves you, don't do this to her. Take care."

So what could they do but wait?  Wait for time to pass and let people forget the beautiful couple they were. Two months passed and Stefani struggled to get back to her routine without keeping in touch with Bradley, being busy with MET Gala and Haus Laboratories, and new projects and songs. Bradley tried to do the same, more and more dedicated to his work as a producer in the film Joker, now almost in the final adjusments. He could no longer see Irina so sad for everything he had done. It wasn't fair. And there was Lea, his daughter. How could he do that to his child? Those women in his life. All the three of them. The love he felt for them all capable of making him sacrifice his own feelings and needs.

It was almost as if they didn't know each other anymore, each following their lives as if love had not appeared in the past year.

No, they couldn't be together. Not that time. And at some point they did understand that and let life go on. Somewhere inside themselves they knew something was going to happen. They meant to be together.

Stefani writes some words on the paper while humming some melody that seemed to be brought by the wind that came through the open door of her living room. She hears the phone ring and reaches for it on the edge of the piano, still strumming some keys with her left hand. But she stops as soon as she sees the name on the screen.

"Stefani?"  Bradley's voice sounds softly in her ear, making her whole body electrify in a delicious and confused nostalgia.

"Hi!" She replies without knowing what to say.

"I- uh... I called to say it happened. I don't want you to know about this from the news. Me and Irina split up."