Xev Bellringer Ride //free\\ Instant

This time, he didn’t say sorry. Elena —

He looks at me then—really looks—and I see it: the same man who taught me to ride, who held my hair back when I was sick, who whispered my name in the dark like a prayer. Buried under three years of distance and his father’s ghost.

He turns the whiskey bottle in his hands. “Because it’s the place I swore I’d never come back to. And I thought—if I could survive being here, maybe I could survive anything.” xev bellringer ride

He takes a drag from the cigarette, exhales slowly. The smoke curls between us like a question mark. “You came all this way to tell me I’m an asshole. I could have told you that over the phone.”

“Come inside,” he says. “Please.” The motel room smells like ash and regret. His duffel is open on the floor. A half-eaten sandwich on the nightstand. The bed is unmade, the sheets tangled as if he’s been wrestling something in his sleep. This time, he didn’t say sorry

“Anything.”

“Yeah,” he says, and for once, I believe him. He turns the whiskey bottle in his hands

I don’t brake. I lean.