Marcus Comes Running (Sydney’s POV)
1039 Words
The night air slices through me the moment Drake and I step out of the emergency exit. My lungs are still fighting for breath, my mascara is a war crime, and my heart feels like someone’s gripping it with icy hands. I’m shaking so badly that Drake stays half a step behind me, close enough for me to feel his presence, but not too close to smother me.
He learned my pace in seconds.
He learned my pain even faster.
I grab the rail, trying to keep myself upright.
The hotel rooftop lights below glitter like spilled jewels, mocking me.
It’s Christmas season — everything sparkles except me.
“Easy,” Drake murmurs behind me, voice low, warm, completely unlike the world I just escaped. “You don’t need to hold everything in.”
My throat tightens again. I don’t want to cry anymore, but my body betrays me — saltwater spills down my cheeks, mixing with the cold wind. I shut my eyes hard.
I don’t know if it’s embarrassment, heartbreak, or humiliation that’s killing me slowly. Maybe all three.
Seven years.
Seven years.
Seven years of believing Marcus was a fixed star in my life.
And tonight? He turned into a collapsing black hole.
Drake steps in front of me—not touching—but close enough that his warmth wraps around me like a shield. His storm-gray eyes scan my face gently.
“Tell me how to help you,” he says, every word slow and deliberate, as though he’s afraid I’ll shatter if he breathes wrong. “Or I’ll stand right here and keep quiet. Your choice.”
He’s giving me control. Something Marcus hasn’t done in a long time.
I wipe my face with trembling hands. “Just… just let me breathe.”
He nods. “Then breathe. I’m not going anywhere.”
His voice does something weird to my chest — like heat curling around a frozen heart.
I inhale shakily. Exhale brokenly.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Then—
Footsteps.
Running.
My stomach drops.
Drake hears it too — his head snaps toward the sound, eyes sharpening like someone lit a fuse inside him.
The door slams open.
Marcus.
His hair is messy, tie half loosened, breath coming in ragged bursts like he sprinted across the entire hotel. His eyes lock onto me instantly — wide, frantic, panicked.
“Sydney.” My name falls from his mouth like a prayer he never deserved to say. “Baby, please—”
Drake shifts subtly, angling his body between us, blocking Marcus’s path with the kind of dominance that doesn’t require shouting. His presence shifts — heavy, commanding, almost primal.
“Don’t call her that,” he says, voice colder than the December wind.
Marcus blinks, taken aback. “This is none of your business—”
“She ran because of you.” Drake’s eyes burn. “Which makes it my business.”
The tension is a lightning bolt ready to strike.
I swallow hard. My voice wavers, but I force it out anyway.
“Marcus… just stop.”
He flinches. Hard.
Seven years, and he still looks shocked whenever I stand up for myself.
He steps forward, but Drake’s arm stretches slightly — not touching me, not touching him — just a barrier created by presence alone.
Marcus’s jaw clenches. “Sydney, you saw it wrong. Tyra kissed me first. I—I didn’t want—”
“You kissed her back,” I whisper.
Because that’s the knife.
The real one.
The one that cut me the deepest.
Marcus pales. His lips part, but Drake beats him to it, voice slicing like sharpened steel.
“You didn’t just kiss her,” Drake says. “You devoured her.”
“Stay out of this!” Marcus snaps.
But Drake steps forward — barely an inch — and Marcus instantly tenses like he walked into a hurricane.
“I’m staying exactly where I need to be,” Drake replies, not yelling, not posturing — just stating a fact with the quiet danger of a man who has nothing to prove. “She’s crying. You did that. Now fix your volume.”
Marcus looks at me again — and now his eyes are glassy, full of panic. Guilt. Desperation.
The kind that always comes too late.
“Sydney, please—just listen. Please.” His voice cracks. “I made a mistake but I love you. I—”
My heart twists painfully.
He never cries.
He never breaks.
He never sounds like this.
But I remember Tyra’s smirk.
Her hand in his hair.
His arm around her waist.
I straighten my back slowly, wiping the last tear that escapes.
“Marcus,” I whisper, “I’m not doing this right now. I need space.”
For years I thought giving him chances was love.
I only realize tonight that it was self-destruction dressed as devotion.
Marcus’s shoulders fall. “Sydney… please don’t walk away.”
“Then why didn’t you stop when you had the chance?” My words tremble—but they’re finally my truth.
Silence.
Heavy.
Crushing.
Final.
Drake places a warm palm near my elbow — not touching, but close enough to steady me with his presence. It’s protective without controlling, gentle without being weak.
Marcus notices the closeness, and something dark flickers in his expression — jealousy, fear, regret mixing like poison.
He opens his mouth—
But I’m already stepping back.
“I’m done for tonight,” I say, voice barely there. “Please… just go.”
Marcus’s breath stutters.
Drake stays still as a statue, watching Marcus with eyes that look ready to unleash hell if he says one wrong word.
Marcus finally inhales shakily, then nods, defeated.
“I’ll wait for you tomorrow,” he says softly. “No matter what.”
“No,” I whisper, voice breaking for the last time tonight. “Don’t wait.”
The words knock the wind out of him.
Then I turn away.
And for the first time in seven years… he lets me go.
Drake steps beside me, silent, protective, steady like a winter night that refuses to collapse even when the world does.
I don’t look back.
Not anymore.
- Writer
