THE KISS

The phone didn’t just ring. It roared, shaking the whole house like something angry had crawled out of the storm and wanted to be heard. My stomach dropped. It always did before calls like this. Before truth like this. I forced my voice steady on the third vibration.

“Ava.”

Claire’s voice sliced into me. Clean. Sharp. The kind of voice made for delivering bad news and not losing sleep over it.

“Tell me you have pages.”

My pulse thudded. “Claire, I’m working. I swear. But Julian finally started talking and”

“Ah. Julian.”

Her sigh could’ve earned a Golden Globe. “I don’t care if he’s in some Gothic tower perfecting his contemporary dance skills. I care about your manuscript.”

Heat pulsed in my face. “He’s complicated. You knew”

“What I knew,” she snapped, “is that deadlines don’t care about his trauma, or your feelings, or whatever emotional weather system you’ve got going over there. Your time is up. Honestly, I should never have hired you.” Her words hit harder than yelling ever could. Precise. Final.

“I’m trying my best, Claire. Just give me”

“No.”

Just that. Quiet, sharp, dangerous.

“You should’ve been trying earlier. Two weeks, Ava. Two.”

The silence after her voice wasn’t empty, it hummed with judgment, with the feeling of something closing.

“The publisher is pulling the plug,” she said.

My heart paused.

“What?”

“It’s over. The book’s canceled. You’re done.”

Done.

The word echoed through me like a church bell struck wrong.

“Claire… I’m begging you please.”

“I already begged for you,” she said. “More than you deserved. PR says he’s a liability, legal says the timeline is laughable, and the board…” She laughed, brittle. “They say memoirs from fallen rockstars are démodé.”

Her pity hit harder than her cruelty.

“Ava, sweetheart… the world doesn’t wait for writers like you. If we can even call you a writer.”

Something in my chest twisted.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Unproven. Emotional. Untalented. Desperate.”

The world tilted. Those words sank right into the soft spots I never admit exist.

“This isn’t fair,” I whispered.

“Fair?” She laughed again, delicate as cracked glass. “This is publishing. Fairness died ages ago. Now maybe you’ll have time for your little passion projects what do you call them? ‘Stories about children bullying’?”

Something in me cracked. Not loudly. Quietly. The kind of break you don’t notice until everything starts slipping through it.

“Claire, wait please listen…”

“Good luck, Ava.”

She hung up first. Of course she did. The silence after wasn’t silence at all. It slithered through the room, filling every corner with that awful, heavy truth I didn’t want to face.

Unproven.

Emotional.

A mess.

Outside, the storm hammered the windows like it was cheering for my failure. Rain so loud it felt personal. I looked around the room, boxes half-packed, bills spread like accusations, bags of clothes I’d pretended I’d organize someday. Every insecurity I tried burying clawed back up with sharp little hands.

I sat down. Hard. And for a moment, I didn’t breathe. Maybe Claire was right. Maybe I wasn’t a writer. Maybe I was just someone who wanted to be one. Someone who always fell short right when she got close. I pressed my palms against my eyes.

Why do I always ruin things when they start to matter?

Why can’t I be steady just once?

A foolish part of me wanted Julian. Wanted him to walk in and say something anything that could keep me from unraveling. But that wasn’t fair. He had enough of his own ruin to deal with. He didn’t need mine stacked on top. I stared at the window. The rain slid down the glass like it knew exactly where it belonged. Gravity guided it, and it obeyed.

I wished I had that kind of certainty.

To fall without panic.

To trust the landing.

“Ava?”

I jolted.

Julian stood in the doorway, framed by the stormlight. He always looked like he belonged in dramatic weather like the sky was an extension of him. Concern carved across his features. It made my throat tighten.

“Claire fired me,” I breathed.

His jaw clenched. “She what?”

“No book. No paycheck. Nothing.”

The words tasted like metal.

“I’m back to nothing.”

He moved toward me slowly, like I was something fragile he didn’t want to scare away.

“Ava…”

“I know what you’re going to say,” I cut in. “That it’ll work out. That something will come through.”

I shook my head.

“It won’t.”

He inhaled sharply. “Then I need to tell you something.”

There was something in his voice that made my ribs tighten. Something that warned me whatever came next wouldn’t be simple.

“What?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded stack of papers.

Bills and depts notices.

The things I hid at the bottom of bags like hiding them made them less real.

“Why… why do you have those?”

“They were sticking out of your bag I saw them yesterday” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have looked. But you kept flinching every time your phone buzzed and I”

He swallowed.

“I paid them.”

Air punched out of my lungs.

“You what?”

“I paid them,” he repeated, voice low enough that it almost blended with the rain.

Humiliation flared through me, hot, sharp, painful.

I stepped back.

“You can’t do that. That’s not helping me. That’s humiliating.”

My voice cracked.

“You can’t fix my life like you’re tuning one of your broken strings.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that…”

“That’s exactly how it feels! You made me into a debt you could clear. A mistake you could pay away.”

His face crumpled. Not dramatically. Quietly. And that hurt worse.

“I didn’t mean”

I didn’t let him finish.

Something inside me snapped, and I bolted down the hall, down the stairs, out into the storm that welcomed me like an old friend.

Rain soaked me instantly, cold and merciless.

“Ava!”

Julian burst out after me, breathless. I spun, rain in my lashes.

“You don’t get to decide my life!” I yelled.

“You don’t get to fix me like I’m some broken relic you can glue together with guilt!”

He stepped toward me, rain sliding down his face in silver lines. He looked wrecked. Not in the chaotic rockstar way in the human way.

“I wasn’t trying to fix you,” he said, voice scraped raw.

“I was trying to save the only thing that feels alive in my life.”

My heart stuttered.

“What?”

“You.”

Lightning fractured the sky.

“You, Ava.”

And before I could breathe, before common sense could catch up, he cupped my face and kissed me.

It wasn’t gentle.

It wasn’t careful.

It was a man clawing his way out of emotional exile, desperate for something real.

For one heartbeat, I let him.

For one heartbeat, I wanted to believe him.

Then-

SLAP.

My palm cracked across his cheek. He staggered, blinking through the rain, stunned but not angry.

“How dare you,” I whispered.

“How dare you kiss me like that.”

He opened his mouth, apology already forming.

But something inside me, something old, bruised, stubborn snapped in a different way. I grabbed his soaked shirt, pulled him toward me, and kissed him back.

This kiss wasn’t fear.

It wasn’t confusion.

It was fire finding fire.

Our mouths collided like two storms meeting in midair. His hands found my waist. Mine tangled in his hair. Rain poured between us, cold and wild. Thunder roared like the world was tearing open. He kissed like he’d forgotten how to breathe. I kissed like I finally remembered how. When we finally broke apart, gasping, he rested his forehead against mine.

“Ava…”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he whispered.

“Then I shouldn’t have kissed you back,” I breathed.

But neither of us moved away. We were two souls standing in the wreckage, finally recognizing each other in the dark.

The storm raged on, but I didn’t feel afraid of it anymore. Blackwater Hall felt like home for the first time.