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Two hundred and five

Author: Ese Gwede
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-08 14:11:38

~Fallon~

I hadn’t posted anything in weeks.

The blue light of my screen lit up the dark bedroom, my legs tucked beneath me on the bed, a bowl of untouched strawberries beside me. Outside, LA hummed like it always did—cars in the distance, a siren wailing somewhere, life moving on like it didn’t care who got left behind.

But I wasn’t moving. I hadn’t, not really.

I’d told everyone I needed a break from the online space, and I meant it. The press had hounded me, brands had dropped me, PR managers had sent carefully worded statements and recommended ghostwriters.

I ignored them all.

Still, the silence didn’t mean I wasn’t watching.

Tonight, for the first time in a while, I cracked.

I opened Instagram.

Not to post—God, no. But to look. To scroll through the wreckage of the life people used to envy. The life that was now a tabloid headline, an ongoing guessing game for fans and trolls alike.

The first post on my explore page was a photo of me and Reid from an old campaign shoot—me in his a
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  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and sixty

    ~Fallon~The call came just after sunset.The sky outside my apartment had turned dusky lavender, soft and almost too still, like the city was holding its breath. I stood barefoot on my balcony, hair damp and curling at the ends, wrapped in a robe that still smelled like citrus and spa soap. My fingers circled the stem of a wine glass. Cold rosé. Third night in a row.I wasn’t celebrating anything. I was avoiding something.The phone lit up, screen bright against the deepening twilight.Reid Callahan.Again.I didn’t move.I just stared at the name, at the memory of that kiss, at the memory of what his hands had felt like gripping my waist as if they were trying to remember how I fit. At the letter, still folded neatly in the drawer beside my bed. At the voice message he never sent—but I sometimes imagined he had.He was calling more now.Not like before—not erratic, not dramatic. Just… consistently. Once a day. Twice sometimes. Always in the evening, never too late. Always short. Alw

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and fifty nine

    ~Fallon~It was easier to smile when there was a camera in front of me.Not because I was fine.But because I’d learned how to package pain in highlighter and lip gloss. Learned how to transform silence into strategy and grief into marketable grit.I didn’t know what healing looked like, not really. But I knew how to make it look good.My camera was perched on the tripod. The soft ring light framed me in a glow that made my eyes look clearer than they felt. My sweater was off-the-shoulder, casual but styled. Intentional. My hair was undone in the way that takes thirty minutes and four products.And I was filming.“Shade is ‘Sunset Cream,’” I said into the lens, voice smooth, calm, the edge of huskiness still left over from the night before. “Perfect for that natural, summer glow. Especially if you’re somewhere warm like I am…”I smiled. A soft one. Not the full wattage kind. The kind that said: I’m okay. No really, I am.I paused the recording. Replayed it. Nodded.My reflection in th

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and fifty eight

    ~Reid~The jet touched down in Los Angeles just after midnight.The cabin lights came on too bright, too sterile, too loud for the kind of silence I was carrying inside me.Out the window, the city glowed like it always did—overfed, indifferent, pulsing with life I no longer felt part of. And yet, it was mine. The kingdom I built. The skyline I used to look at like a scoreboard.But none of it meant anything now.Not after Fallon.Not after the kiss.I sat still while the other passengers gathered their bags and filed out. My jacket rested across my lap, crumpled from being twisted in my fists for the last hour of the flight. I couldn’t stop fidgeting—legs bouncing, heart racing, thoughts cycling through the same four-second moment like it was a highlight reel I couldn’t shut off.Her lips.Her hands in my shirt.The way her breath caught when I pressed my forehead to hers.She kissed me back.That’s what kept destroying me on a loop.She kissed me back.It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t no

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and fifty seven

    ~Fallon~I hadn’t even changed my clothes.I stood in the middle of my apartment with the sweater still clinging to my skin like it remembered everything—his hands, his breath, the way his mouth had found mine like it was muscle memory.And maybe it was.Maybe that was the most dangerous part.Because my body hadn’t hesitated. Not even for a second.It remembered him.The way he kissed me like a confession. Like an apology. Like a promise he wasn’t sure he was allowed to make.And I let him.Worse, I kissed him back.There hadn’t been a plan when I left his hotel. Just motion. Just distance. But the moment the door closed behind me, I felt the weight of it all hit my shoulders. And now, hours later, I still hadn’t moved. I hadn’t showered. I hadn’t eaten. I’d just sat here, trying to will the memory out of my skin and failing.I buried my face in my hands, the silence closing in.Reid still lived inside me. That was the cruelest part. No matter how many miles I put between us, he was

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and fifty six

    ~Fallon~I didn’t make it far.Just five steps into the hallway before I heard the sound of the door open behind me—fast, no hesitation. No fear. Just the kind of urgency that only happens when someone’s made a decision they can’t walk back.“Fallon.”He said my name like it was oxygen. Like he hadn’t been able to breathe without it. And God help me—I stopped.I should’ve kept walking.I should’ve taken the elevator, stepped outside, and left this hotel with some shred of peace still intact. But my body had a memory of him. And that memory kept me still. It kept me there, pulse racing, feet planted, heart begging for one more second to figure out what the hell I was doing.The hallway was empty except for us. Just me, standing with my back to him and a thousand ghosts between us.Then I felt him behind me.Close enough that the air changed. Charged with tension. History. Heat.“I know you said not to,” Reid said, voice soft but shaking with something close to desperation, “but I need

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   Two hundred and fifty five

    ~Fallon~I didn’t sleep the night before.Not because of the letter, exactly. Not even because of Reid. It was what the letter unlocked—memories I’d sealed in glass and shelved, thinking they were safe up there, out of reach. But they weren’t. All it took was one page in his handwriting to pull everything crashing down.By sunrise, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall like it might give me instructions. My hands were shaking. My heart had been racing for hours.I didn’t make a plan.I just moved.I dressed in a rush—pulled on jeans and the first hoodie I grabbed, barely brushed my hair. No perfume. No makeup. No mask. I didn’t want to be beautiful today. I wanted to be real. I wanted him to see the cost of what he did to me written in my skin, in my eyes.The city was still quiet when the car pulled up. Pale light spread like fog across the street, slow and unsure. It mirrored how I felt.The lobby was chilled and silent when I walked in. A grand piano sat in the c

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