***"You and I walk a fragile line***
***I have known it all this time***
***But I never thought I'd live to see it break."*** *\- Taylor Swift*
***Alissa Blake***
The world had a funny way of reminding me that true happiness was something that could never be mine. The night with Holden was... perfect. There was no other way to describe it. For the first time in years, I allowed myself to lower my defenses, and let someone see me, touch me, and love me.
It was both terrifying and exciting at the same time.
But now, he was leaving. It wasn’t fair.
The tour. Months away. It didn’t seem like much on paper, but it felt like an eternity considering the time we had already lost.
What were five months compared to the years we had spent apart? The problem was what those months could mean: distance, doubts, and all the rest that came with it. It wasn’t good, and you didn’t have to be very smart to know that.
I tried not to think about it while working at the event, but my mind was elsewhere. I did what I had to do, and completed my tasks with the least interaction possible, but the emptiness lingered.
Last night still marked my skin like a vivid reminder. His touch, his eyes telling me things I never imagined I would hear... It felt like living a dream I never thought would be mine. But, like everything in my life, something already seemed wrong.
I felt it deep in my stomach, like a bad omen.
While adjusting some cables in the corner of the stage area, a coworker, Lara, approached with her phone in hand. She was the type to be way too excited for my taste, always talking too much about celebrities and gossip.
"Did you see this?" she asked, excited, holding the phone in front of me before I could even respond. I should’ve known I wouldn’t like it. But it was worse.
"Holden Young and Chloe Laurent: The dynamic duo everyone is loving!"
My heart skipped a beat.
In the photo, Holden was standing next to her, the aforementioned Chloe. A girl with vibrant red hair, a radiant smile, and eyes that seemed to light up the room. She was beautiful, in a way that seemed calculated to be perfect.
Terrible for my ego.
But it wasn’t just that that bothered me. It was the proximity. They were standing side by side, smiling for the cameras, and the way she held his arm was casual but intimate enough for my taste. I guess I’m jealous.
"They look so cute together, right?" Lara commented, not noticing my expression. "She’s the winner of that Canadian reality show, remember? She has the voice of an angel."
*Voice of an angel. Of course.*
I vaguely remembered Chloe Laurent. I’d watched a few episodes of the reality show out of boredom, and she was one of the favorites. With talent, charisma, and that kind of beauty that seemed straight out of a fairy tale, she captivated everyone.
Including Holden, apparently. Ugh.
"They’re going to have amazing chemistry on stage," Lara continued, while I struggled to keep my expression neutral. "People are already shipping them online."
Shipping.
I swallowed hard, diverting my gaze from the screen. Something twisted inside me, a feeling I hadn’t had in years. Insecurity. It was brutal and invaded every corner of my body like slow poison.
I knew Holden was in a different world, surrounded by people who lived to shine. But seeing him like this, next to her, made it feel like I was being ripped out of the story before it even began.
"He’s such a sweetheart, huh?" Lara continued, unaware of my silence. "It must be amazing working with him."
"Must be," I murmured, my voice sounding farther away than I’d wanted.
I tried to focus on my work, but my hands were trembling slightly. It wasn’t just Chloe. It wasn’t just the photo. It was everything.
It was the tour.
It was the fact that, soon, he would be on planes, stages, and crowded dressing rooms. Surrounded by people like her. People who understood that world, who belonged to it.
And me?
I was just Alissa Blake.
I took a step back as if I wanted to distance myself from the conversation, but Lara kept talking. About how talented Chloe was, about how excited the fans were for the tour. I wanted to run away from there.
"They’re going to crush it," Lara concluded, finally noticing my silence. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I replied too quickly, forcing a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. "I just need to finish here."
She shrugged and walked away, but I stayed there, trying to breathe. Trying to convince myself that it didn’t mean anything.
But the truth was that, even before he left, I felt like I was losing Holden.
...
When I finally finished my shift and returned home, the feeling still haunted me. I opened the apartment door and was greeted by the familiar silence. I put my bag on the couch and collapsed beside it, exhausted.
I grabbed my phone, half-distracted, and opened social media. The photos of Holden and Chloe were everywhere. Headlines about their chemistry, theories about a possible connection, and expectations of interaction.
Each image felt like a reminder that I would never measure up to that world.
That’s when my phone buzzed with a new message.
*"Don’t you want to talk to me, Alissa? ☹"*
It was from that strange account again. For a moment, I almost deleted the message, but something stopped me. Something about that night already felt wrong, and the message only seemed to reinforce that feeling.
I read and reread the text, my stomach churning.
It was... weird. I didn’t know what to do, but something about it made me uneasy. It seemed innocent, but there was a constant discomfort that I couldn’t ignore.
I thought about blocking the account but hesitated. Something inside me said there was more to it.
I opened the profile again. There was nothing but posts about drawings, a few songs, and typical phrases from a child. It was strange, but not alarming.
Until I noticed something different: a new friend added.
When I clicked on the profile, the air seemed to disappear from my lungs.
My mother.
My hands started shaking as I looked at the profile picture. It was her, no doubt about it. The face was more aged but unmistakable. My mother, whom I hadn’t seen in years, is now a friend of this strange account.
I went back to the child’s profile, and something inside me started to solidify.
*She wasn’t just any child.*
*She was my sister.* There were photos with my mother and father, several of them on my mother’s profile. No way.
Everything began to make sense in a cruel and unsettling way. The discomfort, the familiarity in the tone of the messages. It was her. A sister I didn’t know existed.
I leaned back on the couch, trying to process what I had just discovered. My heart was racing, my mind spinning. Why now? Why like this? And what did she want from me?
I looked at the phone again, the message was still open on the screen.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I didn’t know how to respond, but one thing was certain: my life, once again, was about to change.