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ⁿᵒʷ ᵖˡᵃʸⁱⁿᵍ
𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 & 𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬
𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 , 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐫
𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐚 told herself she wouldn’t see him again. That whatever spark lit up her chest on the porch that night was just adrenaline and bad judgment. She even tried to drown it out with late-night sketching, with headphones blasting, with Keisha’s endless gossip about everyone but him.But denial doesn’t stand a chance against gravity. And Jax had the kind of pull that made gravity jealous.
It started with the texts.
𝐊𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐚, being Keisha, casually dropped his number in Maya’s phone one night.
“Don’t ask how I got it. Don’t ask why. Just… use it if you want,” she said, smirking like she already knew the choice Maya was going to make.
Maya stared at the contact — just “𝐉𝐀𝐗” in all caps — like it might bite her. For two days she didn’t touch it. But then, lying awake at 2 a.m. with her heart refusing to calm down, she caved.
hey. it’s 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐚.
She almost threw her phone across the room after hitting send. But the reply came fast.yeah i know. don’t text unless you mean it.That was it. No emoji, no “what’s up.” Just that. And somehow, that made it worse.
The next weeks blurred into something she couldn’t explain to anyone. They didn’t “𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞.” Jax wasn’t the type to pull up with flowers or post her on Instagram. He didn’t even like to be seen. But he’d text her late — come outside, walk with me, drive’s waiting — and she’d sneak out, adrenaline buzzing through her veins louder than the crickets.
They’d sit in his car, tinted windows sealing them off from the rest of the world. Music low, engine humming. Sometimes he drove aimlessly through streets she’d never seen, neon lights flickering against his face. Sometimes he just parked somewhere quiet, the silence between them thick but not empty.
Maya asked questions, little ones, testing the edges of his walls.
“So what do you do all day?”
“Handle business.”
“What kind of business?”
He’d cut her a look sharp enough to slice paper. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”And yet, when she caught him staring at her sketchbook one night — flipping through pages of wings, eyes, cityscapes — he asked softly, “You draw all this?” like it mattered. Like he cared.
Summer became a rhythm: lies to her parents, late-night drives, whispered conversations. She stopped showing up to art club meetings. Her grades slipped, not by much, but enough for her teachers to raise eyebrows. Keisha covered for her whenever she could, but the thrill of rebellion was stronger than the guilt.She told herself she was in control. That she could walk away whenever she wanted.
But control doesn’t feel like your phone lighting up with his name and your pulse spiking like you just ran a marathon.
One night, the air thick with July heat, they ended up on the hood of his car, parked by the river. City lights shimmered on the water like broken glass.
“You ever think about leaving?” Maya asked, legs curled beneath her.
“Leaving what?”
“This. All of it. The city. Whatever… business you’re in.”
Jax didn’t answer right away. He leaned back on his hands, eyes on the dark sky. “Ain’t that easy.”
“But if it was?” she pressed, her voice almost a whisper.
His jaw tightened. “I don’t get to live in ‘if it was.'”
The words hit her harder than they should have. Because she realized she didn’t actually know him at all. Not really. She just knew the shadow version he let her see.
And then, like he’d felt her doubt bleeding through, he leaned closer. Close enough for her to catch the faint smell of smoke and cologne, close enough that her heart stumbled.
“Maya,” he said, low, warning and promise tangled together.
And before she could process it, before she could think about consequences, his lips brushed hers.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was sharp, like striking a match. Her whole body lit up, and for a second, she let herself believe she was the kind of girl who could survive 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞.
But the next morning, he was gone.
No texts. No calls. Nothing.
She checked her phone every hour, her chest a hollow ache. When she finally saw him again, days later, he acted like nothing had happened.Like she hadn’t been kissed by a storm.
Maya sits at her desk, staring at her sketchbook, drawing his face over and over until her pencil breaks. She doesn’t know if she’s falling in love or falling apart — but she 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩
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