Chapter Text
the rain had been falling steadily since morning, soft and unhurried, like the world was trying to whisper something no one could quite hear.
inside lotties new york apartment, the air was still, too quiet. lottie sat curled on the couch, legs tucked beneath her, her thumb resting between the pages of a book she hadn’t turned in half an hour. the only sound was the distant hum of cars on wet pavement and the occasional creak of the upstairs floorboards.
nat stood by the window, arms crossed, her silhouette washed in gray light. she hadn’t spoken much since the night before.
everything she did now felt like retreat. quiet movements, short answers, averted eyes.
“did i do something?” lotties voice cut through the silence, soft and uncertain.
natalie didn’t turn around. “no.”
lottie set the book down. “then what is it?”
there was a pause. natalie’s fingers tapped once against her arm, then stilled. “it’s not you.”
the words hung there, dry and familiar. the kind of phrase people used when they were building a slow exit.
lottie stood and walked toward her. “then what is it? because I’ve been feeling like you’re.. slipping away from me. like you’re right in front of me, but i just can’t reach you.”
natalie exhaled, a sound caught between a sigh and a breath she hadn’t meant to release. “i just don’t know how to explain it.”
“try.” lotties voice cracked slightly. “i don’t care if it comes out wrong. please just tell me.”
natalie finally turned. her eyes were tired, not in the physical sense, but in the way that meant something inside had been unraveling for a long time. her voice, when it came, was quiet and deliberate.
“somtimes loving someone isn’t enough.”
lottie blinked. “what does that mean?”
“it means I love you. but i still need to leave.”
the words hit harder than they should have. maybe because lottie already knew. maybe because she hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“you cannot just say that and walk away,” lottie said, stepping closer. “we’ve made it through worse than this nat.”
“i know.” nat whispered. “but this is different.”
“how?”
natalie looked down at her hands, like they might hold the right words. “because i don’t know how to be with someone who sees so much in me when I don’t see any of it myself. you.. lottie, you glow. you’re the light. you have dreams and you believe and you make things happen. and i-“ her voice caught. “i dont know who I am around you except someone trying to keep up.”
lotties throat tightened. “then let me slow down. just me walk beside you.”
natalie shook her head. “even when you slow down, you’re still miles ahead of me. and I can’t keep pretending I don’t feel that. it eats at me every time I see how easily you love me. i don’t know how to accept your kind of love without wondering when it’s going to disappear.”
“im not disappearing,” Lottie said, her voice fierce and trembling all at once. “but you are.”
natalie swallowed hard. “im so tired lottie, of waking up every day and feeling like I’m not enough and waiting for the moment you figure that out too.”
lottie stepped back as if the space between them had turned sharp. “so instead, you’re going to make it come true?”
natalies eyes shimmered, but the tears didn’t fall. “im not trying to hurt you. im trying to protect you from the version of me that can’t love you right.”
“i never asked for perfect. i asked for you.”
“but not even i know who that is right now,” Natalie said. “and until I figure it out, i cant keep dragging you through my confusion when all it’s doing is bringing you pain.”
lottie looked at her for a long moment. at the woman she loves, the woman who had been her personal home, now standing at the edge of goodbye. there was so much she wanted to say, to fix, to hold onto. but in the space between them, she saw the truth.
“you do belong,” Lottie said quietly. “but i can’t make you believe it. and i wont beg for you to stay if you’ve already left in your heart.”
natalie nodded once, slowly. She stepped back, then hesitated. “i’ll carry you with me. always.”
lotties voice was barely a whisper. “i would’ve loved you for a lifetime.” but in her heart, she knew. she will love her for a lifetime.
the door closed with a soft click behind her. outside, the rain kept falling, steady and indifferent, washing the world in shades of gray. and through it all, natalie kept walking.
and lottie, alone now, stood in the middle of the room with her heart open and empty, like something had been carved out of her that she hadn’t realized was holding her together.
she crumbled. she felt every barrier of okay that she had always shown everyone finally fall down all in the hands of natalie.
——————————————————————
six months later.
——————————————————————
lottie never really believed in clean breaks.
she’d always thought that when people talked about moving on, they meant pretending.
pretending the nights didn’t stretch long and hollow.
pretending the smell of someone’s shampoo didn’t linger on the pillow.
pretending that love, when severed, didn’t still pulse beneath the skin like phantom limbs.
when nat left, she took the sun with her. not literally, of course. the sky still turned gold in the evenings and blue in the mornings, but it didn’t feel like daylight anymore. It felt like grayscale, the kind you only see in old movies or dreams you barely remember.
for weeks, Lottie didn’t sing.
she couldn’t even pick up her guitar. she didn’t go to open mics. her notebook sat untouched on the corner of her desk, gathering dust like some kind of unfinished eulogy. her music “friends” stopped checking in as much. people always assumed the artist in her would eventually return, maybe even stronger. but lottie didn’t want her strength. she just wanted her natalie.
the first song came like it was by memory. soft, nearly accidental. she’d been staring at the dull ceiling of her apartment one night, trying to remember the exact sound of nats laugh, whether it tilted more toward joy or mischief. when her fingers found the guitar again. she didn’t plan the melody. it spilled from her like breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
the lyrics came second. they weren’t polished. they were desperate and uneven and full of lines she later crossed out, only to write them again. but they were honest. and for now, that’s all she had.
“oh, tell me now, aren’t i good enough?”
she sang under her breath.
“enough for you.”
it wasn’t just one song. it was dozens. lottie became like a collector of heartbreaks, each line a different shade of the same pain. every melody was a map back to natalie. her voice cracked when she recorded the demos, raw and untrained. but that’s what people liked. not the perfection. the honesty.
The first EP was called “deeply still in love”
she didn’t think it would go anywhere. it was made in her bedroom, with shabby equipment and too much red wine. but people listened. people cried. people said, “It feels like you wrote this about my heartbreak,” and lottie smiled in interviews and said vague things about lost love, never naming natalie, she couldn’t. the songs did it for her.
when she performed live for the first time, there was a moment of silence before the last chorus of “some protector” a pause long enough for lottie to think about calling natalie, telling her she was still writing her name in the margins of songs. still hearing her voice in the chords. still wondering if she listened. if she knew.
but she didn’t call.
she just closed her eyes, wrapped both hands around the mic, and let the bridge cut her open.
“Am I guilty? Am I sorry?
Do I miss you at the party?
Am I dragging this forever?
Am I thinking 'bout September?
Am I wrecking reputation
While you're making reservations?
Am I lying to my mother
That someday I'll find another?”
the crowd was silent for a beat too long after she finished. then they clapped. then they stood. but none of it touched her the way natalie’s silence did.
later, in the greenroom, someone asked her, “so who are all the songs about?”
lottie laughed, soft and tired. “just one person.”
And that was the truth of it.
every chord
every lyric
still natalie.