Chapter Text
"Come on Rayla, cheer up!" Nyx could be heard from the other side of the cell phone line. "It's just going to be one night, you know, go to a club, shake your bones."
Rayla snorted softly at her friend's insistence, she knew that Nyx only wanted the best for her and according to Nyx the best thing for her right now was to leave her apartment at night to party with her. But if Rayla had to be honest, she didn't fancy that idea at all, or any that would involve meeting people, not yet.
"I don't know, Nyx..."
"Come on Rayla! We will have a great time, it will be fun." Her friend insisted again.
"I just don't feel like it very much." Rayla answered as she dropped onto the couch in her apartment.
"It's just going to a good club for a few hours and dancing, maybe meeting a guy..."
Rayla flinched at that.
"No, Nyx. " She said seriously to her friend, making her stay silent for a few seconds.
"Rayla didn't want to..." She heard her friends start to say before she cut herself off with a snort. "Listen, I know that what happened hurt you and that you are still trying to move on..."
"I've already moved on" Rayla cut her off to remind her of that fact that she always seemed to forget.
"Whatever you say." Rayla could hear Nyx's eyes rolling in her voice. "But the thing is that a year has passed and you still don't want to go out to meet new people or simply go out to a club, you spend all day studying or in the gym training."
"Just because I don't feel like going out doesn't mean that I haven't moved on, because I assure you that I have moved on." Rayla told her, grabbing one of her sofa cushions to lean on it. "During the last few months I have been better and you know it."
Although Nyx was not with her, Rayla knew perfectly well that in those moments when she was shaking her head with a sad face, she made that face every time they talked about it.
"Yes, I know you've been better during the last two months, but going out wouldn't hurt you either, you know what I mean."
Silence took over the two friends' call, letting each one know that the other was reflecting on what they had just said.
After a few minutes Ryala snorted, breaking the silence.
"Okay, I'll accompany you tonight at the club." She said, announcing her defeat in that battle of insistence on the part of her friend. But before Nyx could even celebrate she added quickly. "But only tonight, and without meeting any boy, and that clearly does not mean that I haven't moved on, because I repeat that I did it"
That's when she heard her friend celebrate from the other end of the phone.
"Yes, great! Okay then I'll pick you up in two hours and take you to the best nightclub in the city. " Nyx said happily and triumphantly.
"Oh, so you're going to show off tonight. " Rayla joked.
"Puff, clearly, this historical event must be celebrated with style."
Rayla laughed at her friend's joke.
"Okay, okay, see you later, I'm going to prepare for this 'historical event'"
"Perfect, see you later!" Nyx said goodbye cheerfully, hanging up the phone.
Rayla put the phone down next to her as she huffed heavily and ran her hands over her face.
She didn't really want to go out partying, the few times Nyx had convinced her to go out she had ended up crying in the bathroom of a bar she didn't even know the name of. It was impossible for her, it was as if he was everywhere and she couldn't help but see him.
A familiar weight settled in Rayla's stomach, months had passed and she still hadn't discovered the reason why he had left her, he hadn't even given her an explanation.
And despite what Rayla had told Nyx, she wasn't feeling better, she hadn't gotten better since he left. But how could she do it? She always wondered when the idea of moving forward appeared in her mind. Rayla felt that staying stuck in a relationship was wrong, that it was the worst thing she could do. But she hadn't just been a relationship, he had been everything, he had been her past, her present and she had wanted him to be her future.
What she had had with him had been magical, legendary she could risk saying if she put her mind to it, and momentary too, much to her dismay and no matter how much she had refused that night when he left her.
That night...
A chill accompanied by a throbbing pain in her head assailed her when she remembered that night. The night when everything had ended without her knowing why.
She could still see him leaving her apartment with his head down as she tearfully begged him to stay, not to leave her, that they could fix whatever had happened, that she apologized a thousand and one trillion times if she had done something wrong.
He was the one Rayla had wanted to spend the rest of her life with. In the company of him.
But that was over, he had finished it.
With a heavy sigh, she got up from the couch, leaving her thoughts behind and began to get ready for that long night in which she knew she would end up crying again.
Rayla had only been in the club that Nyx had put her in for half an hour and she was already eager to leave. She couldn't stand it. The sound, the music, the people, the couples. Everywhere she looked there was something that reminded her of him. And she hated him for that.
When the fourth boy approached her in an attempt to flirt with her was when Rayla decided to put an end to this.
"I'm going to take a breather, I'll come now." He said to Nyx, who was busy flirting with the waitress.
"Okay, perfect. " she told her distracted. "But Rayla, take this, and let me know if you leave to go to home." Nyx told her while she handed her hers half-full bottle. "and know that tomorrow we will talk about this, seriously."
Rayla rolled her eyes.
"Whatever you say. " And taking the bottle she headed to the exit of that noisy and hateful nightclub.
When Rayla came out onto the street she took a sip of the bitter liquid full of alcohol while she heard her boots clicking on the cold floor of the street.
"I shouldn't have come." Rayla told herself as she snuggled deeper into her leather jacket and continued drinking, trying to ignore the cold she felt and the wind that ruffled her white hair.
It didn't take long for her to finish her drink. She wasn't surprised.
Deciding that she didn't want to be there anymore, she turned around to go tell Nyx that she was going home. They would talk later, when the agonizing pain that the alcohol was bringing back subsided a little.
"What a funny thing to have a broken heart," she said to herself as she left behind her observation post where she had been watching the cars go by for the last few minutes while she finished her drink.
Rayla looked up to look for the door of the nightclub, she didn't remember going far away but she didn't trust when she had been drinking either. Sometimes the going was shorter than the return.
And then when she looked forward she saw it.
She saw him.
Now he was looking at her with an expression of pain that Rayla didn't understand, why would he look at her with precisely the same pain that she had been experiencing for the last few months, the pain that had been burning inside her?
Rayla blinked, either to verify that it was really him and to dissipate the tears that threatened to come out.
"Callum?"
The last thing she knew was that one moment she was in front of him and the next blink he was holding her in his arms, hugging her as if to prevent her from running away from him, it felt like that because she was instead clinging to him so tightly in an attempt to keep him with her as she had wanted to do for the last few months.
She clung to him as if she could stop the time if she hid her face in his chest.
She clung to him even though she knew it was wrong.