not edited
preantepenultimate
[ latin for fourth to last ]
THIRD PERSON POV
Phoenix sipped the whiskey neat that he housed in his palm—his third? fourth? for the evening—while he sat at the bar and flickered his eyes around.
In a drunken haze—and completely forgetting the events that took place earlier—he pulled out his phone from his joggers pocket and dialled his girlfriend's number. It rang out however and the bloke shrugged it off, thinking to himself she was probably still—and rightfully so—angry with him and his behaviour these past few weeks.
He had absolutely no reason to justify the way he's been to her lately. And he was wrongfully so, taking out his insecurities on her.
Adrianna Vasiliev, the girl held more power over him than he did himself, and it scared him to no end. He's become utterly dependent on her, and he certainly couldn't imagine his life without her. And he supposes that's the reason he's been such an arse to her—he's paranoid.
He feels vulnerable, he's wracked entirely of his nerves just thinking if he merely lost her. He was scared shitless and this past week, her episode that landed her in the hospital and finding out about her illness was enough to terrify him more than he's ever been before.
But his own current reckless behaviour was only pushing her away, isolating him to his torturous thoughts. The what ifs haunting his mind only focused solely on Adrianna, driving him fucking insane.
Phoenix Worthington found himself conflicted as he downed the glass of liqueur.
At the Worthington's mansion, it was numbingly quiet as the crew stepped in. They had all just come back from the cinema, with small smiles on their faces and they all seemed genuinely in bliss.
Blake was the one to drift away from the gang first, walking down the corridor that led to his brother's and Adrianna's room. With Coccadotts Cake Shop cupcakes in hand, he hoped to surprise Adrianna, put a smile on her face, but entering her room, his brows crinkled seeing it messy. Certain things were missing - her bookshelf looked like a tornado passed through and all of her medication was missing.
He rushed into Phoenix's room with frantic eyes. Finding it empty, he rang Adrianna's number and it rang out, and he wasted no time calling his brother. And he answered nearly immediately.
"Yes?" The brute answered, yelling over loud music.
"Is Adrianna with you?" Blake asked worriedly.
"No."
"Where the bloody hell are you," Blake roared, his calm demeanour turning over completely.
"The bar," Phoenix answered simply.
Blake scoffed, "Okay, while you're at the bar drinking your sorry arse sorrows away, Adrianna's missing."
"What?" His brother immediately sobered up over the phone.
"Adrianna's missing and her car isn't in the driveway," Blake seethed just as he stepped out into the living room once again, causing everyone's head to snap in his direction.
Instead of hearing Phoenix's reply, he heard an engine roar to life. "I'll be home in five minutes," Phoenix finally said, through gritted teeth.
Blake ended the call, feeling rage spread through his body and feeling the urge to smash his phone against a wall.
"She's not picking up my call," Hunter murmured, feeling a single tear roll down his cheek before his tears came uncontrollably and he covered his mouth with his hand to hide his cries.
All was silent, until Phoenix came bursting through the front door with wide and worried eyes.
"Where is she?
"I kept calling her on the way here, but it rang out each time," his voice was full of panic. They all remained silent, the guys staring at him with hard glares and Pyper, a messy face of streaked tears.
Phoenix ran into her room, seeing her most important things gone - her bottles of pills, her notebooks, her laptop, and he even noticed her first edition classics missing. And he began a slow chant, no, no, no, as his eyes teared up.
He ran out of her room and into his, looking around and it hit him at once, he completely remembered what happened before he so rudely stormed out of the mansion earlier. The fight.
"I've fallen out of love with you."
"I can't do this anymore."
"Maybe it was just lust from the start."
Lies, all of it were bloody lies and Phoenix realised with every word he said, he destroyed them, scarring her deeper and deeper with every word.
"Fuck!" He screamed hopelessly, impulsively smashing his fist against his bedroom wall.
"She couldn't have left," he rasped out in a whisper.
His breathing was ragged as he walked over to his bed where he had been writing in his journal—a poem or two or three about his love for her—before she came in with a cold exterior. But he could see right past her, her insides had quivered in hurt and fear and he only ruined her with his words.
He fought with himself to match her cold aura, putting up his own, when he was really breaking down on the inside, desperate to beg her to forgive his stupidity and tell him everything will be okay. But instead, he did the one thing a man does when he loves a woman - he hurt her.
A speck of blood red in his peripheral sight caught his curiosity and he tilted his head slightly to see what it was. A single rose and a note written in her beautiful script.
"No," he whispered, sitting on the edge of his bed and shaking his head. He refused to believe this, this couldn't be real, this has to be a dream, a voice drowned out in his mind desperately. But he wiped his tears on the sleeve of his Lauv crew neck—the crew neck she wore so many times—and started to read, murmuring the words quietly.
phoenix alexander worthington,
Before continuing, he pulled out his phone, dialling her number for the fourteenth time, but instead of hearing her angelic voice, he was met with, "*giggle* hi, if this is a boy, this number does not exist; if this is Pyper, *in a sing song voice* darling just hold on; if this is Hunter, I'm currently dead, but coming back as ghost to haunt you; if this is Phoenix, hi baby, I love you." He heard his own deep chuckle in the background, causing the knife in his heart to twist painfully.
i, don't know, where to begin. i'll start by saying i know now, what heartbreak truly is because everything is going numb, everything but pain. as i'm writing this, i can hear my heart breaking, shattering, yet every fiber within me is still willing to love the same one that broke it, you.
i can't let go of you, the one person that made me feel like home. it seems, i can't close the door to my heart since it's door have been blown to pieces now.
but it seems no matter how much you've hurt me, the selfish parts of me will always want you irrespective of the repercussions. i really never knew what it was like to feel happy, and now that i did, i never wanted to let go. but life doesn't always give us what we wish for, right?
i was yours the moment we met and you hadn't hesitated to mark what was, yours.
i love you, i love you so much, it hurts. i touched you with scarred bones, and you kissed me with bruised lips. we whispered all our flaws and inhaled the storm together. feeling broken in your arms somehow helped in healing my fractured pieces overtime though.
i was, and i still am a broken soul, but you knew that, didn't you? i was a mess, i was broken, but by a mere touch, you mended me. by a mere touch, you fixed my fractured heart, and to that, i feel that i owe you.
this was bound to happen, wasn't it? you were the king of making me feel everything you wanted me to feel while i was the queen of wearing my heart on my sleeve. and in the end i just needed you to break my heart. this is the worst type of destruction, to give someone so much power over you they can completely destroy you, and that's what i did.
you told me, 'don't fall for me,' and i just said 'catch me.' and you did just that. you caught me from falling, every time. you saved me from drowning, every time.
before i met you, i was living in hell. my mom was dead, and my mental health problems had increased a tenth fold. but you helped me, you were my taste of heaven. during our time together, you took away my pain. my dad died, and you saved me from a downward spiral. but aside from the melancholic events, we shared moments that'll forever stay engraved in me.
you did things for me no one else has ever done for me, you showed me what is was like to feel, to live, and to love. you took me to bookcon in nyc, you taught me how to skate, you took me on expensive dates. you showed me off.
we have so many memories on the south beach strip, the hollywood strip, and the ft. laud strip, and key west. i won't ever forget our drunk confessions night, or the night in my room with candlelights. and i most definitely won't forget our made up bar 'hoes & brooding bastards.'
you once said to me i was the epitome of temptation, making you want to succumb in every living moment. but it just so happens, that we, as people, are the masters of lying about our feelings. we make each other feel important when in reality we are not. and in the end, it breaks us. it shatters us wholly.
you told me you fell out of love with me. i suppose that's okay - people change along with feelings. but phoenix, a part of me will always love you, no matter what. because once you truly love someone, the feelings will always remain, despite the way they may be, the intentions behind them. and as long as i'm around you, i will always run back to you, no matter how deeply you hurt me.
and that is why i need to leave. i need fresh air, i can't take the feeling of being suffocated any longer. i can't breathe. and i'm being selfish, but i need to be. my pain bleeds deeply within me and i just need a fresh start - i'm desperate to start anew, explore, and find myself. because truth is, i've lost too much of myself in you - through our time together, i blindly blurred the lines between lust and love - and i'd need a passport to get back.
i'm sorry i loved you with my entire heart and it still wasn't enough. maybe, we will meet again in five years - then we'll laugh about how we broke each other's heart.
you said you were sorry for breaking me, but you didn't break me, i broke myself by loving you.
i'm sorry i wasn't enough.
i'm truly sorry for giving you constellations when you deserved the whole galaxy in its entirety.
vasiliev xxx
"Adrianna," he choked out, his tears falling uncontrollably onto her letter.
"You were enough," he cried out to no one in particular, "You were always enough."
Phoenix felt every fibre in his body break, shatter to pieces, and he wasn't so sure he'd make it out of this heartbreak alive. He knew that whatever he felt right now, she only felt it deeper, far more painfully, and he had no right to feel so hurt, not when he caused this. But he couldn't stop the agonising burn in his chest and he certainly couldn't close the gaping hole in his heart that told him everything he needed to know - he truly lost her, she was no longer apart of him.
He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, crying and staring at the letter in his hand and holding the rose in his other before he got up and made his way to the living room where all his friends sat silently - dazed, lost, and broken.
Gently, he placed the note and rose on the coffee table in the middle of the settee set in the living room. And then he met his brother's eyes, who was already glaring at him menacingly, causing him to visibly flinch. Everyone was quiet and the mansion was eerily silent, a pin dropping could've been heard and the gang stared wordlessly at the two brothers, waiting for one to break.
And Phoenix was the first.
"She left," he stated and the statement hung heavily in the air.
Talon—always the quiet and reserved one—took everyone by surprise when he stood up to his full height and walked over to Phoenix.
"What the fuck did you do," his roaring voice echoed throughout the mansion as he asked the question with furrowed brows and then forcefully pushed the bloke against the wall.
Phoenix took a second to recover before glaring at his friend since childhood, "Who the fuck-"
"No," Talon threw his head back, laughing humourlessly, "You don't get ask me who I think I am and you certainly do not get to tell me to leave, not when you fucked up this bad."
Phoenix pushed himself off the wall, making a move to lunge at Talon and fight him because he knew everything coming out of his mouth was right, and it infuriated him. But Talon was quick, realising Phoenix's move and shoving him against the wall once more. Though Talon was a few centimetres off of Phoenix's grand height, he didn't let it stop him from putting the brute in a chokehold and decking him right in the jaw.
"Fuck!" Phoenix yelled angrily, cradling his jaw in hands once Talon backed away.
"Don't you dare come at me," Talon hissed.
"Now tell me, Worthington," Talon started to speak, turning his back to Phoenix, "What the hell did you do?" He spun back around to face him once again within a split second.
"Your sister," he pointed at Pyper, not taking his eyes off of Phoenix, "Is a mess, it's as if she was the one in the relationship. Your brother," he pointed at Blake, still keeping his eyes on Phoenix, "Is hurt beyond words because he's suffering a loss that you caused, he just lost the only other girl he's ever let in and thought of as a sister.
"Hunter," he pointed at the said boy, "Looks like he's been shattered completely, he just lost his best fucking friend.
"Look at the faces of Marl, Eli, and Judah, for Christ's sake, they're all suffering a loss because of you.
"And you," Talon chuckled, shaking his head, "You just lost the girl you love," he said the last word bitterly.
"So tell me, what could you have possibly done, to push Adrianna away so far, that she left, disappeared, without uttering a single word?"
"I said all the things I shouldn't have said. I said things to her face no girl wants to ever hear," his face twisted in guilt and melancholy as he choked on his next words.
"I hurt her," Phoenix finally broke down in front them all, letting the tears falls freely down his face for the second time that night, "I've ruined her terribly," he fell to his knees, covering his face as he cried in pain.
———
i hope i aced the dramatics in these last few chapters.