Here it is.

Enjoy.

June 22nd, 2021

I wasn't sure if I should've been surprised that Seraphine managed to find the spot. She stood near the edge of the hill, wearing an oversized light blue hoodie that came to rest at her mid-thigh, and white stockings covered the rest of her legs.

I let out a shaky breath. Then, I slowly approached her. "Hey," I said softly. I walked up to stand beside her.

My hands came to rest atop the railing that separated the edge of the hill from L.A.

I overlooked the entirety of Los Angeles from Hollywood Hills. The city lights glinted like small stars on the horizon, an ocean of shimmering gold and silver. Schools of cars, with their red and yellow lights, drifted atop rivers of asphalt. And the sun, finishing its trip across the ether and dipping beneath the sea, set the sky ablaze with soft shades of pink and purple and orange.

Seraphine seemed to flinch at my entrance. She whirled around, a hand covering the bottom half of her face. "H— hi."

Despite how softly she said it, how quiet her voice was, the strain with which words seemed to leave her lips, hearing her voice again after nearly a full year of missing out on it left an inexplicable feeling in my throat.

I glanced down at my hands. The dome of silence that surrounded us was suffocating, but neither of us seemed eager to break through it. We stood there, side-by-side, in utter quiet for a time. Seraphine glanced between the view of the city, the ground, and me— and she seemed right on the verge of saying something but she couldn't.

"You're different." My words came suddenly, perhaps a little too loudly, but truthfully. Seraphine carried herself differently than she did last August. Had this been the old version of her, she would have asked me more questions than I cared to answer; she would have barged her way through my barriers. But here she was, standing quietly.

"And so are you," she softly replied. "But… I guess it'd be a problem if we hadn't changed since the last time we spoke to each other." Seraphine brought both of her hands behind her back and momentarily stood on the balls of her feet. "I wanted to congratulate you on your… EP release." She managed a smile as she glanced to the side. "Every second of it was brilliant."

"The same goes for you," I found myself saying. "You listened to mine?"

"Thanks. And I did." Sera pursed her lips. She inhaled deeply, turning her gaze to the city. "That last song, 'Better Than I Could,' that…"

"That?"

"That was about me, wasn't it?" She asked the question with an impossible softness.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah. It was. I wrote it after I texted you."

She let out a small giggle. "I figured, since that last paragraph you sent was literally in the song. "

I chuckled. "Yeah, guess that would make it pretty obvious."

"But it's nice to know that sending me that message helped you write." Her smile slowly morphed into a frown. "At least I'm good for some things."

"True enough."

At her half-hearted joke, the quiet returned.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, what I was supposed to do. I didn't even know why she called me out here. Nor did I know why I even agreed, much less specified a place to meet. I had every question under the sun, and no answers in sight. So, naturally, the first step would be to get some answers.

"Why did you call me out here, Seraphine?" I asked.

My sudden question caused her to freeze. "Just gonna jump right into it, huh?" Sera cracked a smile, but there was no mirth in it. Her gaze flicked up to meet mine. "How honest do you want me to be?"

I looked at her flatly.

"Right. Bad question." She pursed her lips before continuing. "I… I just wanted to see you again." Sera nervously adjusted the sleeve of her hoodie. "I had this plan, this stupid plan, to just send you, like, a letter or something, congratulating you on your debut EP and all of that, that I would put all of my feelings into the letter and hoped that it would fix everything. But after what you sent me, I tossed that plan away."

"Why?"

"Because as ready as you might be to say goodbye, Jae, I know that I'm not." Sera laughed bitterly.

I held my breath as Seraphine spoke her mind.

"And I know how selfish it is of me to say something like that. And I know that being selfish is really dumb, and it's the reason why you and I ended up like this in the first place, but I just… I just really wanted to see you again. To talk to you again. To be able to just hear you speak again," she whispered hoarsely. Her azure eyes sparkled and glinted, the tears that gathered within them shimmering like soft glass.

Sera looked up at me, then realized how long she'd been talking. "I'm rambling again," she said, momentarily stopping. "I'm sorry."

"No, it— it's fine." My hands found their way into my pockets. "I understand why you asked me out here now."

"And it's a stupid reason, isn't it?"

"I don't think so." Because you tore the words right out of my mouth .

She pursed her lips.

I continued. "It makes sense. Seeing each other like this again for the last time wouldn't hurt."

"…Last time?" Sera repeated.

"Yeah," I murmured. "Probably." I glanced at her. "I mean, we'll still see each other around I'm sure. We work in the same industry, after all." The lie burned my lips as it left my mouth. But it was for the best. A white lie. Those never hurt. Seraphine and I… We were growing in two separate directions now. We would never work out. An 'us' wouldn't survive a day. That was the reality of my world now, and I needed to face it.

And this was that moment.

"Probably?" She asked hopefully. "Can…" Seraphine trailed off. "How hard would it be for us to— to try again, Jae?"

I shrugged. "Not sure, honestly."

Seraphine fell silent. And so did I.

"What now?" Seraphine asked. "Do… Do we just go our separate ways? Go back to our lives?"

"You say that like its the worst thing ever," I said with a small laugh.

"It's not?"

"It… It might do you some good if you stayed away from me for a while," I explained. "You're doing pretty well for yourself, Sera. Throwing that aside—"

"I'm not throwing it aside, Jae," she interjected. "I'm not choosing you over my success. That— They're two separate things." Her voice was exasperated.

"I didn't mean for it to come out like that, I just…"

"You just?"

"I don't know," I murmured.

"Why?"

"I… I was so ready to say goodbye to all, Sera," I found myself saying. The words poured out of my mouth like a waterfall. "I was ready. I wanted to let go. I wanted to let you go. I wanted to let what we had, what we shared, become nothing more than memories that I could look back on. I was ready to say goodbye."

"And I ruined that," Seraphine finished.

My hands trembled against the surface of the railing, my fingers rapidly drummed against them. "No." I shook my head. "I… I just don't know what I'm doing right now." I wrapped my hands around the railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

Seraphine reached out and placed her hand over mine. Her touch electrified me with its warmth and softness. Despite the callouses on the tips of her fingers, her hand somehow felt softer than they did before.

Seraphine's thumb caressed the back of my hand.

"I don't mean for this to persuade you or anything," Seraphine explained quietly. "But you were panicking, and I know that this helps you calm down, so…"

"It's okay. I appreciate the comfort."

Eventually, Seraphine spoke up once again. "Do you think you can find out what you want?" She asked.

"I want to be happy," was my instant reply.

"Happy?"

"Happy."

"Not comfortable?"

I shook my head. "Not comfortable."

"But you don't know how to be happy," she stated.

"Yeah."

"Then keep thinking," Seraphine said. "I'll wait."

"Seraphine, I'm not sure if it's that easy—"

"Jae." Her fingers interlaced with mine. "I know what I want. I know what'll make me happy."

"And you think it's being with me?" I asked.

Seraphine nodded once. She turned to face the city, her hand still tight around mine. "I've spent the last six months living a lie, Jae," she revealed. "For six months, I've lived what I thought was my dream life, what I thought would make me happier than anything else in the world."

"Even me."

"Even you," she confirmed without a moment's hesitation. Sera glanced back at me with a pained look in her eye. "Cruel, right?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah. That's one word for it."

"But, let's be honest, if they'd chosen you over me, you would have done the same thing to me, right?"

"Back then, yeah," I said. "Now… I wouldn't ever dream of doing something like that to you, or anyone."

"And the same goes for me." Seraphine let go of my hand. "But I was wrong. I was so terribly, awfully wrong. I've never felt so alone, so lost, and so… broken in my life before. I could handle not having either of my parents' around for my birthdays, I could handle being left by myself in an apartment when I was thirteen, and I could handle celebrating the holidays with no one but myself…" Her voice cracked.

"But being surrounded by such talented people, such busy people and having no one there to call my friend after nearly a full year of having you by my side?" I couldn't see Sera's face, but I knew that she was crying. Her hands frantically rubbed at her face, her sleeves wiping away tears and her tear-stains from her cheeks. "I couldn't do it," she murmured. "I couldn't fucking take it anymore."

"Sera," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if that's something that I can fix all on my own. I'm not an antidote to that problem. I might be able to help you, but—"

"That's all I need," she said. "Help."

"I don't know how much of it I'm going to be."

"What do you know, Jae?" Seraphine asked.

"I…" I trailed off. The words that I wanted to say were caught on the edge of my tongue. An eternity passed in the few seconds of silence that filled the air between the two of us. Hesitance traced my lips as I opened my mouth to speak.

Seraphine turned to face me. She took a step forward. "You?"

I shut my eyes and did nothing but shake my head.

"Unbelievable." She scoffed. "And here I thought you were different." Sera pushed past me, her footsteps as heavy as her crushing words.

I whirled around. "Sera—"

But she was already gone.

I bit my tongue so hard that it bled as I slammed my fist into the railing. I furiously punched it, over and over and over again until my knuckles began to bruise and bleed. With every punch, memories flooded my mind.

Start with doing what you couldn't do before. Tell her everything you wished you told her .

Another punch.

Then you might want to find that reason. Because even when you're in your darkest moments, when you're so uncertain about your future, when you don't know what to do next, remembering the reason you sing will save you.

Another punch.

I just want you to be happy. I don't care how successful you are. I don't care how much money you make for the two of us. I just want you to be happy, Jae.

Another punch.

Creak, crash!

The railing bent inwards from the force of the final blow.

I grabbed onto the bent railing and leaned over the edge and screamed the loudest I'd screamed in years. "I miss you!" My voice echoed throughout the hills. "I fucking missed you so much!"

I formed a cone shape with my hands, wishing into the stars and hoping that Seraphine would somehow hear me. "Every day was like a nightmare without you. I might be ready to let you go, but I don't want to. You and I— We— we were more than just partners at school, more than just a pair of musicians, more than just friends. We were meant to meet one another. We were meant to sing together. We were meant to be together."

"We were meant to be rising stars together." The words poured from my lips. Every word of it was an emotion I'd kept suppressed, a feeling I'd held back— every word was a confession, and I had more than enough words to say.

I kept going.

"You're the reason that I sing, Seraphine. Having you beside me, hearing you sing along with me, performing on a stage with me… You're the reason that I sing, Ser!"

I screamed until my voice was hoarse and dry and cracking.

"I…" I trailed off, my throat too strained to continue shouting. "I love you, Seraphine."

And now its too late.

Again.

The realization struck me like lightning. My knees buckled and I collapsed to the ground. Tears fell freely down my cheeks. Shuddering sobs tore through my entire body. I did nothing but lay on the dirt, letting myself cry my emotions out because I was too exhausted to do anything else. I lost track of how much time passed during that moment, but it felt like forever.

With the world still spinning around me and the evening sky growing darker, I slowly, dazedly stuttered up to my feet. I sat on the bench beneath the tree, letting my hands drift down to my sides.

I felt more lost than ever before.

Even with the success of my album, with the viral viewing of my music video, and even with a bright future awaiting me, I believed that my life as a singer failed before it ever truly began. I slowly began to doze off, emotionally drained, mentally drained, physically drained.

Just… a short nap will be fine .

Moments before I fully fell asleep, a soft voice called out from behind me.

"You know, falling asleep in a place like this is pretty dangerous."

It was Seraphine. She was standing behind the bench, her hands buried in the pockets of her hoodie and her brightly colored mask hung down loosely from her face. She sat beside me.

"Sera, I— I thought you left already."

"I did," she said. "But then I heard what you said."

"You… You did?"

She nodded. "Every word."

"H— How?"

Sera giggled. "You were screaming at the top of your lungs in the middle of a secluded part of Hollywood Hills. I think a lot of people heard you."

My cheeks burned in embarrassment. "Oh."

"Mmhm." She brought her hands together. "Did you mean it? What you said?"

"I…" I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah. Of course I did."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Are you sure you want to try again?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

"Promise?" She asked.

"Promise."

- Rising Stars -