POV: Atlas Vale
Fourth year.
We made it.
She's asleep on my lap, curled like a cat, tracing lazy circles over my palm even in her dreams. Blair Maddox. The girl who used to flinch at the word love, now smothers me in it like she was born to. She's clingy. In the best way. Overaffectionate. Dramatic. Always touching me — shoulder, hand, thigh, hair — as if reminding herself I'm still here. As if reminding me that she stayed.
She stopped smoking.
Stopped drinking.
Just because I once said: "I don't like seeing you do this to yourself."
She didn't argue.
Didn't roll her eyes.
Just quit.
Cold.
Clean.
Done.
Like I mattered more than the hurt she used to drown in.
God, she's changed.
No — not changed.
Unmasked.
Under the smoke, the recklessness, the smirk — she was always this girl. The one who makes coffee just the way I like it. The one who writes "I love you" on the bathroom mirror with her eyeliner. The one who starts fights if someone looks at me too long and kisses me like she owns me after.
And I let her. Gladly.
Because if there's one thing I've learned — it's that Blair doesn't love softly.
She crashes.
She consumes.
She gives everything.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting it. Let her crash into my life, let her consume every quiet part of me. Let her give me everything — and finally, let myself give it back.
I remember when people used to whisper that she wouldn't make it. That she was just a rumor with heels. A mess in a black dress.
Now?
She's top of our class.
Still wears black, though. Still stuns every room into silence.
But now she carries peace in her eyes.
Because she finally knows what it's like to be loved without conditions. Without fear. Without flinching.
And so do I.
"Atlas," she murmurs, blinking up at me with that sleepy, sunlit smile, "Do you think we're gonna be okay?"
I brush her hair back, kiss her forehead, and whisper against her skin, "Blair Maddox, we've already survived the fire. Everything after this… is just living."
She grins. All teeth, all chaos, all her.
I swear, the day she walked into my life, she ruined every plan I had — and somehow, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
The End.
Signing off .
Siddhii Singh.