25 parte Ongoing Billie rises fast inside an unforgiving industry, her life expanding until there is no space left to be private. Fame does not save her. Every feeling is louder, everything more visible, every moment lived under watch. She learns how to perform strength while carrying a darkness she refuses to name, terrified that if she lets it surface, it will consume her. The world keeps asking for more of her, even as she is quietly unraveling.
Natalie remains behind, rooted in a place that never opens for her. Stripped of choice and opportunity, she clings to her creativity as proof that she still exists. Her life is small, quiet, and heavy. She survives by disappearing inward, haunted by the sense that something essential has already passed her by. Around her neck hangs a key, a symbol of what she has always believed she was waiting for, though she no longer knows what door it belongs to, or if it will ever open.
Years later, when their lives intersect again, love does not arrive as salvation. It arrives as tension. As longing. As fear. Their connection becomes both refuge and risk, forcing them to confront the parts of themselves they've learned to hide. Together, there is desire, guilt, shame, and the terrifying realization that loving someone does not mean you know how to stay alive for them.
TRIGGER WARNINGπ
heavy sexual themes
various mentions of: sh, suicide ideation, truama, depression, etc.
Slow burn, friends to lovers, gxg.
