offstage

Scarlett Davis learned early that love didn't stay.

Not in the loud, dramatic way people talk about in stories—no slammed doors, no cinematic goodbyes. Just quiet absences. Empty spaces where something used to be. The kind that make you question if it was ever really there at all.

She was six the first time she noticed it. It was a Tuesday. She remembered because Tuesdays were supposed to be pancakes-for-dinner nights. Her dad used to flip them too high on purpose, letting them almost hit the ceiling just to make her laugh. She would sit cross-legged on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs, waiting for him to mess up so she could tease him about it.

That night, the pan stayed cold.

"Where's Dad?" she had asked, her voice small but expectant, like the answer was something simple. Something temporary.

Her mother didn't look at her.

Anne stood at the sink, cigarette balanced between her fingers, the window cracked open just enough to let the smoke slip out into the dark. The kitchen light flickered overhead, buzzing faintly, like it couldn't decide if it wanted to stay either.

"He's not coming back," Anne said.Just like that.

No explanation. No softness. No pause.

Scarlett had waited for more. For a why. For a when. For something that would make the words feel less permanent.

Nothing came. She remembered nodding like she understood. Like it didn't matter. Like she was older than six and used to this kind of thing.

But that night, she didn't sleep.

She lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment she could remember with him—every laugh, every half-finished conversation, every promise that now felt like something she must have imagined.

She didn't cry. Not then. Because crying meant it was real. And if she didn't cry, maybe he would come back tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

He didn't.

Things didn't fall apart all at once after that.

They unraveled slowly.

Like a thread being pulled from a sweater—barely noticeable at first, until suddenly everything was loose and uneven and impossible to fix.

Anne changed.Or maybe she had always been that way, and Scarlett had just never noticed.

The house grew quieter. Not peaceful quiet. Heavy quiet. The kind that pressed against your chest and made it hard to breathe.There were nights her mom didn't come home. And nights she did—but wasn't really there.

Men came and went. Voices blurred together. Arguments echoed through thin walls, sharp and unpredictable.

Scarlett learned not to ask questions.

She learned to stay in her room.

She learned how to take care of herself.

And eventually... she learned how to take care of someone else. Charlie was born when she was nine. He was small. Too small. Wrapped in a hospital blanket that looked too big for him, like the world had already given him more than he could handle.

Scarlett remembered the first time she held him. Carefully. Like he might break. Like everything else in her life already had.

"He's your responsibility too," Anne had said, her voice distant, distracted, already somewhere else.

Scarlett didn't question it.

She just nodded. Because that's what she did. She accepted things. Even when she shouldn't have.

Charlie became her constant.

Her reason. Her anchor. When the house got loud, she covered his ears. When things broke, she told him it was okay.

When their mom disappeared into herself, Scarlett filled the silence with stories she made up on the spot—stories where things always worked out, where people stayed, where love didn't feel like something you had to hold together with your bare hands.

She became strong for him.Even when she didn't feel strong at all. Trey came into their lives when Scarlett was thirteen.

At first, he smiled too much.

Brought food home. Paid attention in a way that felt unfamiliar but not entirely unwelcome. Anne laughed more around him—loud, careless laughter that didn't quite reach her eyes.

For a moment, Scarlett thought maybe this was it. Maybe this was the part where things got better. She should have known better. The first time he yelled, it wasn't even at her.

The second time... it was.

By the third, Scarlett had already learned to keep her head down.

To stay quiet.To watch the room the way people watch storms—tracking every shift, every change in tone, waiting for impact.

Charlie was six when he flinched for the first time. Scarlett noticed. She always noticed.

And something inside her shifted.

Hardened.

If no one else was going to protect him... she would.

By sixteen, Scarlett Davis didn't believe in love.

Not the kind people talked about.

Not the kind that stayed.

Love, in her world, was conditional.

Temporary.

Something people used when it was convenient—and abandoned when it wasn't.

So she adapted.

She stopped expecting things.

Stopped needing things.

Stopped feeling things too deeply.

Because needing people meant giving them the power to leave.

And Scarlett had learned that lesson already.

Elliot Faris wasn't supposed to matter. He wasn't.

He was just... easier. Easy to talk to. Easy to laugh with. Easy to want.

He showed up just enough to feel real.And disappeared just enough to keep her guessing.It wasn't love. But it felt close enough. And for Scarlett... that was more than she had ever had.

Years later, standing in a crowded concert venue, pressed between strangers and flashing lights, Scarlett didn't think about any of that.

Not really.

She didn't think about the way her chest still tightened when someone got too close.

Or how she checked her phone more than she should, waiting for a message that didn't come. Or how a part of her still believed that if she could just be enough... someone might finally stay. She just focused on the music. On the noise.

On the feeling of being surrounded by something bigger than herself. Safer than herself. She didn't know yet that everything was about to change.

That one moment—one accidental, impossible moment—would pull her into a world she had only ever watched from a distance.

A world of cameras. Of attention. Of people who didn't just leave quietly......but left loudly.Publicly. Painfully. And she definitely didn't know this:

The boy she was about to collide with— the one the world thought was untouchable—was carrying his own version of the same truth.

Love doesn't stay. She would learn it again. Just in a different way.