"Throw everything out! Don't leave a single thing inside, I don't care what it is just throw them all out!"

Anne-Marie hurried as fast as she could to the house. She could hear the crashing sounds followed by the loud yells coming from her house. She didn't need to take a second guess to know what was going on. It was Agatha lashing out again, her landlady but this time, she wasn't just yelling or throwing a fit like she usually did, she was evacuating her from her house.

She had totally forgotten, forgotten that her rent was long overdue and her landlady had let her off with a warning one time too many. Agatha wasn't exactly a patient lady neither was she nice enough or considerate. She was stern and when she needed her money, she made sure she always got it. She'd have if Keisha had not robbed Anne-Marie in broad daylight.

It had been a long morning for Anne-Marie and also a long night before since she had spend the entire night searching for Keisha. All she needed was to get her money back, for Abel's treatment and her rent. According to Keisha's mum, she didn't come home that night and she wasn't in any of the famous places she went to with her friends, she wasn't home or in school that morning too. Anne-Marie had searched everywhere she could think of. It was like she didn't exist anymore.

Reporting to the police was not even an option. She knew better than to do that. Keisha's father was in the force. He was a senior lieutenant and was probably not going do anything to indict his daughter especially when her reputation and his was at stake.

Being publicly identified as a thief could mean a lot to a lot of people, especially Keisha. It could mean she could have issues getting a job or getting into any college in Breton. In a world where those in power didn't step on the masses, in a world where people like her had the full protection of the law, where the law wasn't discriminatory to people like her, the really low class, maybe, just maybe she would have gone to the police for help. Anne-Marie knew she was on her own at this point. Finding Keisha was something she had to do on her own but first, first she needed to stop all those men from throwing all her and Abel's belongings outside, including their clothes.

Thank God Mickey had gotten the news on time and told her about it, but by the time she reached the house, it was too late. Half of everything she and Abel owned was already strewn across the front yard and the stairs. Their belongings—their lives—lay scattered in the dirt, for all the neighbors to see. It was humiliating. Pots and pans clanged together, Abel's small medicine cabinet and bedside table lay on their sides, the worn-out mattress that had cradled their exhausted bodies so many nights now looked pathetic and abandoned. Clothes were everywhere, spilling out of the battered suitcase Anne-Marie had painstakingly packed.

She bent down quickly, trying to shove the clothes back into the suitcase, her hands trembling as she tried to close it. But it was no use; the men kept tossing more and more onto the pile, burying her efforts under the weight of their careless hands.

"Throw them all out! Hurry!" Agatha's voice croaked like an angry frog, her command sharp and unyielding.

Anne-Marie couldn't take it anymore. She staggered to her feet and rushed over to Agatha, desperation clinging to her like a second skin.

"Madam Agatha," she began, her voice trembling but steady, trying to muster any ounce of dignity she had left. "Please, just one more month. That's all I ask, I promise I'll get your rent ready by then. Just please, give me one more month."

Agatha scoffed, not even bothering to look at her. Her arms folded behind her back, she kept her focus on the men doing her bidding.

"I need this house empty and clean, new tenants could be moving in any minute."

New tenants? The words hit Anne-Marie like a punch to the gut. Agatha wasn't just kicking them out—she was giving their home away, their home. The only place that had been theirs and contained all their memories with their parents. It was the only place they ever called home, that they felt safe.

Without thinking, Anne-Marie dropped to her knees beside Agatha, her hands clasping one of the older woman's legs in a desperate plea.

"Please, Madamme Agatha," she begged, her voice cracking with emotion. "Have mercy on us, you can't kick us out. I'll do anything—work for you, clean, anything. We have no where else to go, this is our home, please."

The men had paused, watching the scene unfold. Even they seemed moved by Anne-Marie's desperation, but Agatha's heart was as cold as her commands.

"Why did you stop?" she barked at them, her gaze as fierce as ever. "I don't remember asking you to stop! Keep going! Throw it all out!"

Anne-Marie's hands trembled as she clasped them together, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. She raised her eyes to Agatha, her voice barely more than a whisper,

"Please..."

Agatha turned to her, her eyes filled with contempt.

"So what?" she spat. "Why should your problems be my concern?"

Anne Marie shook her head.

"No, I didn't say that"

"Am I the reason you suffer?" Agatha cut her off, her voice growing colder with each word. "Am I the reason for all your bad luck and misfortunes?"

"Ma'am—"

"If you want someone to blame, you should blame your parents," Agatha continued mercilessly. "They should never have died and left you with such responsibilities in the first place. They shouldn't have had a sick child and then left you, another child, to deal with it."

"Please..." Anne-Marie's voice was now barely audible, the fight slowly leaving her body.

"Do you think I run a charity?" Agatha sneered. "If I show mercy to every tenant, how do you think I'll survive? How will I feed my grandchildren? Everyone has their problems—why should I feel sorry for you? You're not my responsibility."

Anne-Marie's heart sank. She knew it was pointless now. Agatha wasn't going to relent.

"We're done here," one of the men called out, signaling that the house was empty. "What now?"

"Are you sure?" Agatha demanded, her eyes narrowing as she surveyed the men. "Is that everything?"

"Yes, ma'am. Everything's out."

"Good," she said, her voice icy. "Change the locks. Lock my door."

"No!" Anne-Marie's voice broke as she grabbed Agatha's leg again, holding on for dear life. "Please, don't do this. I beg you, have mercy. We have nowhere else to go..."

"Let go of me!" Agatha kicked her leg free, sending Anne-Marie sprawling onto the pile of their belongings. Agatha's gaze was filled with disgust as she pointed at her. "I want you off my property before I get back, or I'll call the police."

And with that, Agatha turned and walked away, the keys jingling in her hand as she disappeared from view.

Anne-Marie lay there, her body trembling, as the neighbors looked on with a mix of pity and discomfort. She could feel their eyes on her, but she couldn't care about the humiliation. She had to get everything together before Agatha returned. She had to—there was no other choice.

She staggered to her feet, wincing at the sharp pain that shot through her bruised sides. Her body ached with every movement, each breath reminding her of the brutality she had endured. She started throwing clothes back into the suitcase with desperate, frantic movements, trying to shove the pieces of her life back together.

But it was too much. It was all too much. The dam broke, and all the emotions she had been holding back came flooding out. She collapsed onto the ground, her body shaking as the tears finally spilled over. Her sobs were loud, raw, echoing the pain of a child who had lost everything.

She was tired—tired of fighting, tired of suffering, tired of living a life that seemed to hold nothing but pain. Why did it have to be this hard? Why did life have to be so cruel? She had tried so hard, given so much, and still, it was never enough. She was just a child—just a child who had been forced to bear the weight of the world on her small shoulders. And now, it was all crashing down around her.

She buried her head in her knees, her sobs growing louder as she let herself cry, letting out all the grief, all the frustration, all the pain she had been holding inside.

She was tired—so, so tired.

And for the first time, she let herself break.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

"I can't stand her."

Paris let out a frustrated exhale as her frown thickened and stress lines formed on her forehead.
"She's always going to keep doing this, acting like she cares about me when the whole world knows that she doesn't. She's always going to come in between my marriage to the Prince and my father-"

She drew a sharp breath and exhaled.

"He just won't see it. He won't ever see anything she does, she would sabotage everything we've worked so hard to build just by opening her big mouth and he wouldn't care."

Thunk!

She raised turned to the side, narrowing her gaze on the dart that has successfully embedded itself into the board across the room from where she sat. She let out an exasperated sigh, puzzled that he probably wasn't even listening to any of her ranting.

"Are you even listening?" She asked him just as he twirled another dart around his fingers, stretching it in front of him to aim at the board. Asher paused for a minute, recoiling his fingers the moment she spoke to him.

He let out a weak sigh and slowly turned to her, giving her his undivided attention now. He could see how the frown lines on her forehead had gone worse, just enough to tell him how stressed she was.

"Oh great," she rolled her eyes at him. "You think I'm doing too much too."

He started to walk towards the snooker table where she sat, her legs crossed on one another as she looked away, visibly upset that he hadn't been paying any attention to her.

"I think she cares about you." He said to her as he approached her slowly. Paris slowly turned back to him, her eyebrows creasing downwards. "Genuinely."
He added.

"No." She said almost in a whisper and then scoffed in disbelief. "No, she doesn't. That lady only cares about what she stands to get from my family. It's all she has ever cared about, it's all she ever wanted, to have some sort of control over everything. You don't know her Ash, she's crazy."

She said as Asher made a stop in front of her and lowered his gaze to look at her, to listen to her.

"She's not exactly wrong," he said to her. "I think talking about getting married right now to the Prince might be too early."

"For who?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Asher, I've been planning for this moment my whole life. It's all I've ever known, all I've ever dreamed about. Being Queen is my destiny, it's going to happen sooner or later, so why not sooner."

"All I'm saying is, there's still a lot more that could matter to you than being Queen, you just won't allow yourself see it yet."

"A lot more like what?" She asked him. "You?"

Silence.

The entire room went cold for about five seconds as Asher just stood there, staring at her, speechless and unable to say the right words. She sat there staring at him inquisitively, like she was waiting for an actual answer to the question she had asked him. She let out a weak breath of defeat when she didn't get one.

"You're only taking her side because you don't want this wedding to happen either." She said to him breaking the silence eventually, "But it's going to happen Ash, it has to happen, I must marry the Prince and be Queen."

"He doesn't love you." Asher cut her off. "And he's probably never going to love you. You said it yourself, he hates your father for being such an influence to the king, and hates your family even more-"

Paris scoffed.

"You're never going to be happy." He pushed on. "Is that really how you want to live? How can being Queen be more important than being appreciated and actually cared for-"

She got up immediately and turned to leave with a huge frown on her face. She was sick of it, sick of listening to him and everyone else remind her of how she had been unable to win Aiden's heart amidst the support of the royal family for her wedding to him. It was the ultimate price, one she was not close to earning and thinking about the one thing so close, yet so out of reach, the one thing she couldn't have. Having Asher remind her of what her life would become, how miserable it would be after she got what she wanted sounded like Denise on that table- it embarrassed her and she was offended by it.

"Paris-"

Asher grabbed her arm to stop her, and when she turned to him, she yanked it away from his hold with a loud grunt, glaring at him fiercely like she was going to hit him any minute. Her eyes were glossy and she was biting hard on the inner of her lower lip like she was stopping herself from screaming at him at the top of her lungs,

Asher watched her quickly reach for her wrist, and with one pull, she yanked off the gold bracelet on it and threw it to the ground, farther from where they stood, maintaining eye contact with him as she did, and glaring at him the same.

Asher could watch her lips tremble like she was biting on them hard to stop herself from bursting out in tears. He didn't need to hold her arm to know that her hands were trembling, and it wasn't because she was angry he had told her the truth, but because she was afraid. He could see right through her just like he always did. He recognised the look on her face and her entire language. She was throwing a tantrum of fear, and not of anger.

He let out an exasperated sigh and slowly turned around.

"Don't." She said to him, already predicting what he was going to do but he didn't listen. Asher scanned the room in search of the bracelet and it didn't take him a second before he found it lying there, shimmering in the light. He started to walk towards it.

"I don't want it." She told him but he didn't listen. Asher stopped right in front of the jewelry and bent over to get it.

"Can't you hear me?!" Paris yelled at him. "I asked you not to!"

Asher picked the jewelry up, paying her no mind as he turned around and started to make his way to her again, refusing her gaze until he was right back in front of her. He could hear her taking loud breaths, more like fuming from where she stood and he didn't have to look at her to imagine the look on her face when he reached for her hand.

She struggled with him to pull it away but he only grabbed it again, holding on to it tighter this time until she couldn't do anything about it anymore. He slowly laid the metal on her wrist.

"It's okay to be afraid."

Paris slowly let his words fall into the silence that filled the room already, and as his hands made contact with hers, she felt herself giving in to him. The heaviness in her heart had started to lighten up and her world which was once spinning had suddenly started to fall into a state of calm. She stopped fighting him, she stopped trying to get away from his hold.

"And it's okay to admit that you're afraid." He said to her as he gently tried to fix its clasp into its hook. He paused for a moment when he did, holding his breath as he passed a finger across her wrist as he looked at it, like he was trying to get the right words out of his mouth. He raised his gaze to hers finally, taking the image of her in just as she looked at him herself, the anger that had once fueled her actions fleeing through her skin from his touch until she had become just- numb

"It's also okay to let people care about you. You don't have to push everyone away or act like you hate us for worrying about you because that's just how much you mean to us, to Denise, and to me. So you can throw your tantrums or the bracelet I got you for your birthday a thousand times, it's only going to mean I'd get to put it on you a thousand times over. I'm not going anywhere."

Paris let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding just as she looked into his bright eyes. They gave hers an equal amount of attention, maybe a bit more honest, and hers a bit more vulnerable, a side that only him ever got to see.

Without any plan or ounce of thought, she hurriedly closed the space between them and took his lips with hers, crashing hers on his desperately in a kiss. She needed it, she needed him and she didn't care to think of anything else. Asher froze where he stood, too shocked by it but the warmth of her lips pulled him in. In that moment, he was just as vulnerable as she was, and probably needed her just as much as she did him.

It didn't feel like anything mattered, not who she was, not the engagement or her marriage to the prince, his best friend. It was a sin, one he needed, one he was sure he would never regret.

He cupped the back of her head gently, threading his fingers through her hair as he deepened the kiss, responding intensely to her own intensity. It was all he couldn't say, and all her desires she had kept hidden.

Paris walked backwards to the table, pulling him with her as she did, without letting go of him and he let her until she made a stop right at one of its edges. She clucked his shirt like it was the only thing keeping her apart from falling. She could feel his heart beating under her palm, strong and steady and a stark contrast to the chaotic rhythm of hers.

Asher lowered his hands to her waist and pulled her up gently until she was sitting on the table, pushing himself closer to take up the space between her legs as she offered to undo the buttons of his shirt next. The heat of his body against hers was overwhelming.

Asher broke the kiss only to catch his breath, his forehead resting against hers as he gasped for air.

"Don't stop." She whispered to him, rubbing her forehead against him,

"W-we can't." He said to her in a whisper, "not like this,"

She gulped hard, her entire body trembling against his as she tightened her grip on his shirt. Her breathing was ragged and he could feel her warm breath on his face.

"I can't betray the Prince-"

"I'd call it off." She said to him and gulped hard again just as Asher pulled himself back a bit to look at her. He narrowed his gaze on her, confused and in utmost disbelief like he didn't understand what she meant.

She nodded

"My engagement to the Prince, I'd call it off. Y-you're right." She said. "He's never going to be mine, he hates me but this, you," she let a smile carve itself on her lips, "I want you." She said to him,

Asher held his breath, not daring to breathe after hearing her confession and confirmation. He let himself get lost in her eyes and saw the desire mirror there. It was like a confirmation of what he had heard.

"Just," she slowly tugged his shirt, pushing herself towards him cautiously like she was trying her luck first to see if he would stop her. "Let me do this."

Without another word, Asher pulled himself down for another kiss, softer this time but no less passionate. She kissed him like she was begging for more and Asher answered it without any hesitation. He slowly lowered her on the table until her back was on it, his lips never leaving hers as he placed himself above her, his hands slowly finding its way to her thigh and inside her dress. Every touch was electric and neither of them could stop.

There was no going back now. Paris let herself surrender completely, letting the fire consume them both as they gave in to the inevitable.