Give Up, Or Give In?
1465 Words
SARA
I drag Gwen into my suite and slam the door shut, twisting the lock without looking away from her.
She stands there like she’s carved from stone. Like someone drained all the color from her and left this grayscale version behind.
It makes me sick.
It makes me furious.
Mostly at myself.
Why can’t I fix her?
Why can’t I bring back the girl who once lit up my entire world?
“Gwen.” Her name cracks in my throat. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
Nothing.
“Why won’t you look at me?”
More nothing.
I step closer, heart hammering. “Why don’t you see me?”
Finally, she lifts her chin—but her eyes… are dead.
“Because I’m no longer a person,” she says quietly. Too quietly.
“I’m your doll.”
My breath snags.
“Everything I had was taken by you. I tried to escape, and I was dragged back. My best friend is gone. There’s nothing left for me.”
It hits me like a punch. The kind that knocks the soul out of you.
I kneel at her feet, clinging to her hands like they’re the only real thing in my universe.
“I want to be your next thing,” I confess. “I want everything I do to be for you. You don’t deserve cheaters or low-paying jobs or a stagnant life. I want to take you around the world. I want you to never work again. I want to—”
Her eyes are glassy. Unreachable.
I stand and cup her face, trying to tilt it toward me. She resists, turning away, and desperation claws its way up my ribs.
I lean in. Kiss her.
She jolts like I’ve burned her, stumbling backward, breath shaking.
For one flicker—just one—I see something ignite behind her eyes.
A spark. A spark I thought I erased.
She darts to the opposite side of the room, spine pressed to the wall, barely breathing.
I stay kneeling, lowering myself onto the couch where she’d been sitting seconds ago. My chest tightens until it hurts.
“There’s still hope, Gwen,” I whisper.
She’s confused. Guarded. Beautiful.
“You’re still fighting.”
The words tremble out of me as my throat burns.
And then I break.
Hot tears spill over, unstoppable.
Ugly. Loud.
The kind of crying I haven’t let myself do since before fame coated me in steel.
“I was afraid I ruined you,” I choke out, wiping my face with shaking hands. “But you still have hope. You still feel something. I didn’t take everything from you.”
Gwen watches me, a storm of pity and resentment and exhaustion. And maybe—just maybe—the faintest flicker of the girl I knew.
But she doesn’t come toward me.
She doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t save me like she once did.
And it devastates me.
Because I finally admit the truth:
I want her.
All of her.
And I don’t know how to earn forgiveness from someone I broke.
---------------
GWEN
The moment Sara starts crying—really crying, shoulders trembling, face blotched, breath stuttering—something inside me snaps so fast I almost hear it.
Not pity.
Rage.
Eleven years of swallowed resentment detonate at once.
She cries like she lost something.
Like she is the injured party.
Like she didn’t shred my life and call it love.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches.
“You don’t get to cry like that,” I say, stepping off the wall. “Not when you’re the one who ruined everything.”
She flinches, stunned. “Gwen—”
“You don’t get to kiss me and lock doors and then cry like I hurt you.”
“I didn’t want to lose you,” she whispers.
“You didn’t lose me,” I snap. “You took me.”
Her expression twists—anger, grief, want all at once. “I was trying to keep you—”
“You don’t get to keep people, Sara!”
“Then WHY,” she erupts, closing the distance in three furious steps, “WHY DOES IT STILL FEEL LIKE YOU’RE MINE?”
The room goes silent.
Something inside me ignites—molten, violent, hungry.
“I was never yours,” I hiss.
But my pulse jumps.
My hands shake.
She notices.
“Oh, really?” she whispers, stepping even closer. “Then why are you trembling?”
I shove her.
Not a warning—an eruption.
She stumbles back but returns instantly, grabbing my wrist.
“Let go,” I warn.
“No,” she breathes. “Not until you tell me the truth.”
“Fine.”
I shove her harder.
She grabs me again—this time at the waist, pulling me toward her with shocking force.
I slam her against the dresser. She gasps, eyes blazing, lips parted.
We move on instinct—shoving, grabbing, spinning.
Her body pins mine to the wall.
Mine shoves her off.
Her hand fists my shirt.
My nails dig into her shoulder.
Angry breaths.
Hot skin.
Fingers bruising.
Hearts racing like thunder.
She grabs both my wrists and slams them above my head—not hurting me, but holding me there, body pressed flush against mine.
“Tell me you feel nothing,” she murmurs, her lips brushing my cheek.
My breath comes out shaking. “I feel hatred.”
“And?” she breathes, leaning in closer.
I shouldn’t.
I can’t.
But my body betrays me, arching toward her heat, her smell, her grip.
“And I feel trapped.”
Her knees buckle. Her eyes flutter shut like the words destroy her.
I twist suddenly, flipping us—her back hits the wall now, my forearm across her collarbone, my body pinning hers.
“And?” she whispers again, begging for it.
“I hate that part of me still wants this,” I growl in her ear.
Her exhale is shattered—relief, hunger, desperation all tangled.
Her hands slide to my hips, pulling me closer until our bodies are flush, heat pouring off both of us.
Her forehead drops to mine.
“Then take it out on me,” she murmurs. “Let it out. All of it.”
Something inside me breaks free.
I grab her shirt and yank her into a kiss—not gentle, not sweet, but furious, messy, teeth and breath and need. She groans, fingers sliding into my hair, pulling just enough to make my breath hitch.
Our bodies crash together—my leg between hers, her palms roaming my waist, my nails dragging down her ribs.
The kiss deepens—hotter, rougher, angrier.
Her lips bruise mine.
Mine bite hers.
Our breathing turns feral.
Her thigh presses between mine, forcing a sound out of me I don’t recognize.
Heat floods my stomach—confusing, intoxicating, wrong.
I shove her toward the bed. She grabs me mid-push and pulls us both down, bodies tangling on the mattress, breathless and shaking.
Her hand trails up my side, slipping under my shirt—
I freeze.
Everything freezes.
My breath stutters. My heart slams against my ribs.
“No—no,” I gasp, scrambling back, falling off the bed in a clumsy scramble.
Sara sits up instantly, reaching toward me—but stops when I flinch.
Her face goes devastated.
Then determined.
Then devastated again.
I’m shaking.
I can’t breathe.
My anger melts into horror at what almost happened.
“I can’t stay here,” I choke out. “I need a room. A separate one.”
She opens her mouth—pleading lined up behind her teeth—but I shake my head hard.
“I can’t survive you twice.”
And before she can stop me, I unlock the door and step into the hall.
I don’t look back.
Not once.
---------------
SARA
The door clicks shut behind her.
Silence swallows the room—broken sheets, bruised lips, the ghost of her body against mine.
For a long time, I just sit there on the edge of the bed, fingertips brushing the spot on my mouth where she kissed me back.
Really kissed me.
Fought me.
Touched me.
Burned for me.
A slow, wicked smile spreads across my face.
She thinks she escaped.
She thinks she’s free.
But she gave me everything I needed.
Her rage.
Her spark.
Her desire.
Her fire.
Pieces of the old Gwen—my Gwen—bursting through the cracks.
She’s waking up.
And she doesn’t even see it yet.
The taste of her still on my lips, I whisper into the empty room:
“My doll is coming back to life.”
And God, it’s delicious.
- Writer
