Under the endless night, the soft, fuzzy glow of the streetlights gathered in Sabrina Myers's eyes, pooling there like a narrow, quiet little river.
She was only standing there, calmly looking at her, and yet a thin, translucent tide rose over Natalie Pierce's heart, layer after layer, until her thoughts felt close to being swept away.
It wasn't as if she had never seen anyone beautiful before. Oakley Ponciano, Grace Barron—put either of them in a crowd and they would still shine. But only in front of Sabrina did Natalie feel this constant, helpless sense that she simply couldn't look away.
"No wonder you write novels," Natalie muttered, rolling her eyes away, forcing her gaze to one side. "You're very good with words."
Sabrina's smile was faint and light. "That has nothing to do with it. It's just what I really think."
Natalie couldn't help lifting a hand to her face, fingertips brushing her cheek, suddenly at a loss as to what expression she was supposed to wear in a moment like this.
"So, you…" Natalie gave up and opened the bag of fireworks toward her, decisively changing the subject. "Do you still want to set the rest off?"
Sabrina nodded. "Since you already bought them, we should finish them before we go."
Ten minutes later.
They finished the fireworks and were just about to leave when the parent of one of the kids who'd been happily playing with Natalie earlier came over. They'd apparently bought too much beer and insisted on sending a few cans their way. Natalie had tried to refuse, but the other party was too enthusiastic. And when she remembered that Sabrina drank, she ended up accepting them anyway.
After saying goodbye, Natalie walked back to the car with Sabrina, the winter air still clinging coldly to her clothes.
Once she sank into the passenger seat and the warm air slowly spread around her, Natalie finally realized just how freezing it had been outside. Only because she'd been running around so much, building up a flush of heat along her spine, had she ignored the temperature.
Sabrina turned the steering wheel and eased the car off the little square, guiding it smoothly onto a winding road.
At this hour, there were far fewer people still out playing. The pops of firecrackers and blossoms of fireworks had noticeably faded.
With gentle music trickling through the car, Natalie turned her head to look at Sabrina. "When you were a student," she asked, "you were probably pretty popular, right?"
It was just an intuition. The first moment Natalie had laid eyes on Sabrina, she'd thought: this is the type who was definitely a campus legend—one of those people who only needed to lift a hand, crook a finger, and half the hallway would turn to look.
"Why do you think that?" Sabrina guided the car through a curve, rolling slowly under the amber halo of a streetlamp. After they passed beneath it, she glanced sideways at her.
"Well, for starters, you're very good-looking. And then…" Natalie rested both hands on her thighs, idly tapping at them as she spoke. "You talk in a way people like hearing. Someone like that… no matter where you are, you'd be the type who's pretty well liked, right?"
Sabrina laughed softly but didn't answer right away, just kept driving.
After a long moment, Sabrina suddenly turned the question back on her. "So, am I right to understand that you think I'm good-looking, and you like the way I talk—and that, to you, I'm… not bad?"
Reverse logic.
If Natalie thought she was no good, there's no way she'd jump from a few tiny details all the way to wondering whether Sabrina had been a campus star.
Natalie hadn't expected Sabrina's mind to be this quick, to peel back her thoughts so easily and guess seven or eight parts of what was in her heart. It left her feeling as if she had no privacy at all.
Her face suddenly went hot. She tightened her hands where they lay on her thighs. "I wasn't thinking that much. I just asked."
That was what she said. But she still couldn't help feeling nervous.
"So you mean," Sabrina continued, lips curving, "you think I'm not that great?"
Natalie blinked, thrown for a moment. "Where did that come from? I never said that."
She honestly couldn't keep up with Sabrina's train of thought. It was like being led into a maze.
Sabrina eased the car into a spot beneath Natalie's building and brought it to a slow stop. After unbuckling her seat belt, she picked up a can of beer, weighing it in her hand, then pushed the door open and stepped out into the night.
Only when Natalie had followed her and come to her side did Sabrina speak again. "When I was in school, I was pretty closed off. Didn't talk much."
"Not much?" Natalie was genuinely surprised by that answer.
"Mm." Sabrina nodded. "If I'm being honest, back then I was a bit… aloof. Quiet and snooty, you could say."
"I really wouldn't have guessed," Natalie admitted, realizing just how misleading first impressions could be.
The very first time she met Sabrina, her most immediate overall impression had been: this woman looks like trouble. Partly because Sabrina was strikingly pretty, and partly because something in her gestures and expressions gave off the same impression—bright, playful, a little dangerous.
For someone like Natalie, who had been the quiet, well-behaved type all her life, the impact had been… intense.
In her little world growing up, she'd never really encountered people like that. Or—no, that wasn't quite true. In some ways, Oakley and Sabrina were actually quite similar.
But Oakley had only appeared in her life in the last couple of years.
Natalie suddenly remembered something she'd once heard:When your life is about to switch tracks, the first thing that changes is the social world around you. That's how you draw a line between who you used to be and who you're about to become.
"Quiet and aloof?" Natalie pressed the elevator button and turned to look at her. "Honestly, I really can't picture it. What did that even look like?"
"It means I basically didn't bother with people." Sabrina thought for a second. "The younger I was, the worse it was. And then later, as I grew up, I changed. A bit. But I still don't really care whether people like me or not."
When she was little, Sabrina didn't just dislike small talk. She was stubborn, too, with an air of not really caring about anything. Back then, people liked to describe her as "a bit of a lone wolf."
Because she never cared much, she never knew whether people liked her or not—and honestly, she didn't particularly want to know. There was a period when she realized her popularity was… average at best, and it did affect her slightly. But not for long. Before she knew it, she'd drifted back to being exactly who she'd always been.
Natalie studied her profile and smiled faintly. "I envy that. Your mindset, I mean."
Because the truth was, Sabrina was exactly the kind of person Natalie had once desperately wanted to become. She'd tried to be that way herself, to perform that role for a while—so long that she'd almost convinced herself it was real.
But in the end, she had to admit it: at her core, she was soft. Too soft to pull it off.
Sabrina's calm came from a steady center. From knowing who she was. It wasn't the brittle, showy coldness of someone pretending not to care.
"Mm?" The elevator doors slid open. Sabrina stepped in first.
Natalie followed, taking a few quick steps. "Back then, I used to really want people to like me," she confessed. "I craved other people's approval. I twisted myself up over it. Always felt like… there was something wrong with me."
The elevator chimed and opened again. Sabrina walked out, beer in hand. "That's because your parents gave you too little care," she said. "It's not because there's something wrong with you."
"Maybe," Natalie said softly. "But I don't really expect to be liked anymore." She let out a breath into the empty hallway, smiling at nothing in particular. "Even someone you're dating doesn't necessarily like you, so why would anyone else?"
To this day, she had no idea what kind of person her ex really was. All she knew was: in this world, no matter how much you give, there's no guarantee you'll be liked or cherished in return.
Once you really see that, you loosen your grip. And eventually, you let go.
"Heh." Natalie laughed once, low. "Or maybe I was just too stubborn. Too bad at putting myself in other people's shoes. I couldn't give her what she wanted."
"You can't put it all that way," Sabrina said. "Everything is mutual. It's normal for her to want things from you. But did she ever give you what you wanted? If she never truly saw you, then she doesn't get to complain about you."
She'd realized something: Natalie's biggest problem was that she cared too much about everyone else's feelings. She cared so much that even when she was clearly the victim in an unhealthy relationship, she still couldn't help dragging everything back onto herself, blaming herself.
In a certain sense, Grace was the same.
Grace Barron, Natalie Pierce—both of them seemed to have this quiet belief buried in their subconscious: only if they did everything perfectly, flawlessly, would they truly deserve the love their partners gave them.
The moment their relationships hit a snag, no matter how they acted on the surface, underneath they were always in self-reflection mode, always turning the blame inward. Their entire emotional world orbited around the other person's needs.
When in reality, most of the time, these things are created by both sides together. Especially when both people are still immature. Dating then is basically the two of you joining hands… and manufacturing a disaster.
Fortunately, Grace had met Oakley. Met someone who actually knew how to be gentle with her.
Sabrina had never dated anyone. But she'd watched multiple spectacularly painful love stories unfold among her friends.
She might not have eaten the cake herself, but she'd seen enough people choke on it to remember the recipe.
After watching for so long, she'd come to believe this: only when someone really sees you do they truly like you.
If Person A only likes a version of Person B covered in filters and fantasies, yet complains endlessly about the real B, can't stand them, picks them apart from every angle—then no matter how deep that "love" looks on the surface, it's still just self-delusion.
And the world is full of people like that. They're great at packaging themselves as these tragic, devoted romantics. But the moment their partner doesn't follow their rules for how a relationship should run, that partner gets thrown into the abyss in their eyes.
They're the type who, after breaking up, will still cling to how good the other person once was to them, and at the same time resent them bitterly for not staying that good forever—until they're drowning in desire and anger and blame, and still call it "deep love."
Natalie listened to Sabrina, lips pressed together in silence. As if something had nudged her from within, she suddenly pulled open the tab on her beer and took a sip.
"Forget it," she said at last. "I should just focus inward." The beer burned its way down, making her brows knit. She wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. "I've stopped expecting to be truly seen."
Once she'd spoken, she raised the can again and took another drink.
The truth was, right now she genuinely didn't know what she was supposed to do anymore. She didn't even know how to be a person properly—how could she know how to do anything else?
"Like this…" Natalie stepped out of the elevator, fingers curled around the can, staring ahead in a daze. Her smile carried a hint of exhaustion. "This is pretty good. No desire, no expectations. Nothing to worry about. Not bad at all."
Sabrina didn't reply. She only lowered her head, opened her own beer, and took a swallow.
When they reached the door, Natalie unlocked it and pushed it open, turning on the lights inside. She took out a pair of slippers and set them in front of Sabrina, then tried to lighten the mood by changing the subject. "Hey, you say you've never been in a relationship, but you're so good at analyzing this stuff. How come?"
Sabrina closed the door behind them and changed into the slippers, then moved over to the sofa and sat down, setting the extra cans on the coffee table. She stared at the one in her hand and smiled. "Because my friends…"
"Are all hopeless romantics?" She arched a brow.
It was ridiculous, really. She had zero personal experience, and yet her life was full of other people's love dramas. Every time a friend broke up, they would call her first, drag her out to eat and drink too much.
She'd watch them drink themselves senseless, then quietly pay the bill, order a car, and clean up whatever mess they left behind.
At this point, she thought, she could probably write a whole popular-science book on attachment styles.
Natalie laughed.
In that sense, the two of them were alike—always playing the unpaid emotional counselor in someone else's story.
They drank and talked, and before long, Sabrina had already gone through two cans.
"So…" Warmth creeping into her cheeks and ears, Natalie turned the can between her fingers and suddenly looked over at her. "Have you ever… liked anyone before?"
Under the living room lights, Natalie's face looked especially soft. Maybe it was the alcohol, but those slightly shadowed, deep-set eyes had gone hazy, wrapped in a delicate blur.
Sabrina shook her head. Not before. Not until she met Natalie.
"Why not?" Natalie asked again.
Sabrina let out a short, amused breath. "Because I was too picky. Too proud. Most people just didn't do it for me."
It wasn't entirely untrue. There was a time when Sabrina genuinely believed that the only person in the world who really matched her… was herself.
She'd never seriously examined her own orientation. She just grew up vaguely, drifting along, and eventually settled on calling herself "asexual" for convenience.
"Too proud…" Natalie tipped the now-empty can and gave it a little shake, laughing. "Too proud, and yet you still like me…"
Only after saying it did she realize what had just come out of her mouth.
Drinking really wasn't a good habit. It scrambled her nerves, made them numb and unreliable, to the point where she could say something like that out loud.
Natalie pressed the back of her hand to her burning face. "I… no, I… what am I even saying…"
She really was talking too much tonight. Normally she wasn't like this at all, and yet, somehow, sitting with Sabrina, the words kept pouring out—everything and nothing all at once.
Her pale skin had taken on a faint blush, that color echoing against her red lips, lending her a soft, misty sort of beauty.
After a small cough, Natalie continued, "Why does it feel so hot in here? Did I crank the heating too high?"
She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek again, delicate fingers tugging lightly at the scarf around her neck, as if she were about to pull it free.
Sabrina's fingers rubbed at the cool metal of the can. She let her gaze sweep the room, then settled it back on Natalie's face. "Your heater's broken," she said. "You never turned it on."
"Oh. It's broken…" Natalie licked her lower lip. "Then why… is it so hot…"
She finally yanked the scarf off, then tucked her hair back from her neck, revealing a long, pale line of skin.
In that moment, her dazed, unfocused expression overlapped with the way she'd looked the last time she was drunk.
Sabrina kneaded her temple with her fingertips and watched her. "Because you're drunk again."
Her own thoughts were starting to fray at the edges. Without realizing it, she'd finished all the cans that parent had given them.
"Drunk…" Natalie closed her eyes for a second. Her head felt like there was a hidden river flowing sluggishly through the dark.
"No… I can't…" She opened her eyes again, stubbornness flaring. "I still haven't showered."
She pushed herself up, intending to walk toward the bathroom.
But the second she stood, her body swayed.
Sabrina immediately dropped her crossed legs and got to her feet, catching Natalie by the arm. "I'll help you over."
"Oh…" Natalie shut her eyes again for a moment, gathering herself. "Thanks."
So Sabrina wrapped an arm around her and guided her forward, step by careful step. More than once, Natalie's knees buckled slightly, but with Sabrina there, she never hit the floor.
After a while, they finally reached the bathroom door.
Natalie stopped, leaning against the wall, fumbling with her coat. She wanted to get the bulky thing off before she went in. But the coat had wooden toggles, buttoned tight. Her fingers were weak and clumsy, and no matter how she tried, she couldn't get them undone.
For some reason, the bathroom lights seemed suddenly too bright, almost harsh, making her squint and feel strangely uncomfortable.
Sabrina watched her wrestle with the buttons for a long moment, not managing to undo even one. "Let me help," she said.
She took a steadying breath, stepped closer, and reached out. One by one, she unfastened the toggles, then pulled the front of the coat open.
Underneath, Natalie was wearing a soft, cream-colored knit dress. It clung to her gently, tracing the lines of her figure, making every curve look even softer. Her chest looked especially full. Paired with that fragile, almost pleading face, the effect was… arresting.
They were standing very close now. Their breaths had tangled into the same small pocket of air.
Natalie felt even hotter.
Sabrina's throat moved as she swallowed. "I'll take your coat to the bedroom," she murmured. "Get it out of the way."
"Mm…" Natalie nodded lightly.
But halfway through pulling the coat off her shoulders, Sabrina misjudged her strength and tugged a little too hard. Natalie's footing slipped; she tipped forward in an instant.
Sabrina reacted on instinct. She wrapped an arm firmly around Natalie's waist. Natalie, stumbling, threw a hand out and caught herself on Sabrina's shoulder.
In that back-and-forth, their bodies ended up pressed tightly together. Even the tips of their noses were almost touching.
Sabrina's nose was high and straight, her eyes slightly upturned, sharp yet delicate. Her mouth was beautiful too—full enough, with a natural, pale pink to it.
Maybe it was the brightness of the light, maybe it was the heat in her blood, but Natalie's thoughts were in shreds. Her fingers tightened reflexively on Sabrina's shoulder, bunching the fabric there.
The layers of cloth between them grew faintly warm where their hands pressed.
Without quite realizing it, Natalie leaned toward Sabrina's mouth, inch by inch, drawn in. Then, just before their lips met, she froze and pulled back again.
"I…" Her mind was a chaotic blur, impossible to gather.
She really had no idea what she was doing. How she could be this rude, this reckless.
"Sorry, I…" Natalie turned her head toward the shower. "I should go—shower—"
But before she could move away, Sabrina's arm tightened, pulling her abruptly closer.
A wave of dizziness washed over Natalie as she was suddenly and completely drawn against her. Not a gap between them.
"Do you want to kiss me?" Under the bathroom light, Sabrina's eyes narrowed slightly, her voice tinged with the same faint intoxication.
Natalie's heart lurched wildly in her chest, thudding so hard it felt like it might break free. She couldn't even bring herself to look directly at Sabrina.
"Mm?" Sabrina tipped her chin up, one brow lifting.
"I…" Natalie was completely undone.
Before she could string a sentence together, a burning kiss crashed down on her lips, sweeping away every last scrap of thought.
Something inside her seemed to ignite, heat roaring up until she could barely stay standing.