September arrived with a subtle shift—mornings crisper, evenings edged with earlier darkness, and the lazy pace of summer replaced with sharpened rhythms of routine.
Beth returned to Oxford.
The familiar streets of her hometown felt both comforting and smaller than they had just a few weeks ago. She was back in her school uniform, back among classmates who spoke of exam prep, university plans, and who kissed whom at the last party of summer. But Beth no longer lived quite in that world.
She was seventeen, yes—but also someone who had stood beside hospital beds in the middle of the night, whispered yes to an engagement ring on a boat, and learned how to smile without letting the weight of a dozen realities crack her composure.
Weekdays, she was a student. She sat in classes, aced essays, and turned down gossip about Leon Troy with effortless denial. No one quite believed her anyway.
Weekends, she took the train to London.
Sometimes Amanda came too, especially if Helena was having a difficult spell. But often, Beth traveled alone. She'd bring books, sketch pads, letters for Helena, banana bread from Chris (who'd insisted on becoming the official morale officer), and updates from school.
The hospital became a place not of dread, but of rhythm. She learned which nurses were kind, which ones pretended not to notice visiting hour violations, and how to coax a smile from Helena even on her weakest days.
Then, when her hours at the hospital were through—Beth would walk or take the Tube across London to Leon's flat.
Leon's space was high up, somewhere tucked between Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, in a building with a slow lift and a neighbor who always smelled like Turkish coffee. The flat itself was spare but beautiful—flooded with light, walls lined with books and film posters, and always a faint trace of vetiver in the air.
Sometimes Leon was home before her, waiting with tea and whatever he'd managed to cook (or order and disguise as cooking). Other times she arrived first and sat on the sofa, flipping through his abandoned scripts, waiting for the key in the lock and the quiet, unmistakable sound of his laugh echoing down the hall.
They didn't always talk about the future. They didn't need to. It was there in the way he'd reach for her hand without looking. In how she'd leave a hair tie on his nightstand and he wouldn't move it. In how he never missed her calls now—not once.
She didn't live in London. Not yet.
But on weekends, it felt like part of her did.
And during the week, in Oxford, when the world returned to equations and history essays and lectures on university interviews, she would glance at her ring sometimes—quietly, secretly—and remember the stillness of a lake, the weight of a promise.
She was seventeen.
And somehow, already living in two lives.
And learning how to love both.
The sky over London that October afternoon was gray—not stormy, not ominous, just gray, in that muted, indecisive way that makes the city feel like it's holding its breath.
Beth had taken the train straight after school. She hadn't texted Leon. She'd meant it to be a surprise.
Her backpack still slung over one shoulder, she let herself into the flat with the key he'd given her—"For when you're here," he'd said. "Even when I'm not."
She closed the door quietly behind her. The flat was filled with soft music—classical, low, from the speakers or maybe…
Beth padded down the hall, following the sound.
The music room.
She reached the doorway.
And froze.
Beth had been standing there for maybe three seconds.
Three seconds was all it took to etch the image into her mind forever.
Leon, dressed in that familiar thin ivory linen shirt, sleeves undone at the cuffs. An unlit cigar dangling between two fingers, carelessly elegant. His head bowed, not in thought—but toward her.
Toward Aglaya.
Aglaya knelt before him, draped in a flowing summer-silk dress the color of fresh blood, absurd for October but perfect on her. Her face was lifted, soft, expectant. One hand on the floor for balance. The other—holding a lit match, like she'd summoned the moment from a play. The flame flickered against her skin. It should've burned.
And Leon's hand—his hand—was on Aglaya's cheek.
And he was kissing her.
Not a mistake. Not a moment of confusion.
A deep kiss, slow and familiar, like something remembered. Like something rehearsed.
Beth didn't realize she'd spoken until her voice echoed in the stillness.
"Leon!"
It tore out of her—raw, horrified, cracked.
His head jerked up.
The match hissed out.
Aglaya blinked, unmoved. As if nothing about this situation was strange or wrong.
Leon paled.
"Beth—" he stood up too quickly, his face folding, scrambling for something—guilt, explanation, charm? He hadn't decided yet. "Beth, wait, this isn't—"
But Beth was already backing away.
The doorframe suddenly too narrow, the air too thin. Her vision tunneled, her heart a frantic, sick drumbeat in her ears.
"Don't," she said, her voice sharp and shaking. "Don't."
And then she ran—this time not quietly, not secretly. The flat door slammed behind her with a crack.
Aglaya sat back slowly on her heels, looking at the door.
The air still trembling from the slam of the door.
Leon and Aglaya looked at each other—not with panic or guilt, but with the slow dawning of realization, the kind that comes not from thought, but from instinct. From EQ, not logic.
"Touché," Leon murmured, after a long beat. His voice was oddly composed, as though responding to a clever line in a scene rather than the implosion of his own relationship.
Aglaya gave a little half-smile, smoothing her dress with one hand. "Queerly virtuous," she said drily, her gaze flicking to the still-swaying door. "She thought we were—what, lovers?"
Leon gave a faint, almost amused snort. "She must have."
Aglaya's brow lifted. "You going to go after her?"
He hesitated. Just for a second. Then: "No."
His voice was cool. Certain.
"If she can't understand what this is," he said, gesturing vaguely between them, "then she doesn't understand me at all."
He paused, and added carelessly, "Besides, she is not the first."
"You spoiled brat," Aglaya giggled, the sound light and airy as if the world hadn't just spun on its axis. Her tone was teasing, affectionate—the kind used only with people who've known you long enough to forget the shape of boundaries.
Leon smirked faintly, the cigar resting unlit between his lips.
Without being asked, Aglaya knelt again on the floor beside him, reaching for another match with practiced grace. Her silk dress pooled around her like a curtain, crimson against the pale parquet.
She struck the match.
The flame flared softly to life.
Leon leaned forward, eyes half-lidded, and cupped his hand as she lifted the flame to the end of the cigar.
For a moment, there was only the sound of fire catching tobacco, the slight hiss, and the faint flick of sulfur curling into smoke.
Leon inhaled, then leaned back, exhaling slowly. "Thanks."
Aglaya rose to her feet again, brushing off her skirt. "Anytime. You always look better with a crisis in your mouth."
He chuckled dryly, eyes trained on the smoke spiraling toward the ceiling.
"I suppose," Leon said, exhaling another lazy plume of smoke, "I'll need to find someone else to take to the Twilight City premiere next month."
His gaze flicked sideways—deliberate, lingering, just a second too long—resting on Aglaya's mouth, then back up to her eyes. "Preferably you."
Aglaya scoffed, taking exactly one step backward as if his suggestion carried static electricity. "No. You'll make Jay jealous. And then he'll write another jazz ballad that drips with wounded masculinity. I like having ears, thank you."
Leon chuckled. "Jay's practically a publicist in a turtleneck. He'd survive."
Aglaya raised an eyebrow. "Still no."
He shrugged, unconcerned. "Maybe I'll ask Bar, then."
"Your ex?" Aglaya drawled, flopping onto the divan like a Roman senator, arms stretched dramatically. "How very predictable."
Leon flicked ash into a porcelain dish on the piano bench. "She knows how to handle premieres. And cameras. And me."
Aglaya narrowed her eyes. "You're still in the stage of fame where you think that counts as compatibility."
He grinned. "Alright, then. Romina."
Aglaya sat up. "The supermodel?"
Leon nodded, amused. "The one I had a crush on for, what, five years? Maybe she'll tolerate going out with me now."
Aglaya rolled her eyes. "She'll tolerate the photos. She'll tolerate the press. She'll even tolerate your melodrama. But she won't tolerate you."
Leon didn't argue.
"I wonder," Leon mused, tapping ash from the cigar with idle precision, "if she remembered to leave the ring behind. Pure theft if she took it. It cost quite a lot of money."
Aglaya threw her head back in delight. "You are even more miserly than Sanlu," she declared, rapturously scandalized. "And he never pays for dinner when he goes out. When his girlfriend left last spring, he recited to me every single dime he saved from the break-up like it was Shakespeare."
Leon smirked faintly. "I still think Sanlu beats me in terms of economics. He once repurposed a birthday gift for me as a Christmas present to me."
"Yes, but you," Aglaya waved a long finger at him, "you have that terrifying quiet stinginess. The kind that pretends to be generous until it comes to a ring."
"Rings have resale value," Leon said blandly. "Emotions don't."
Aglaya cackled. "You're vile. Next time just draft a clause—'If we break up, darling, kindly return the ring. Market value's a beast.'"
Leon grinned lazily. "That's not a bad line. I should add it to my next pre-dating agreement."
"You mean your next tax form," Aglaya retorted, standing and stretching like a cat. "Come now, Lord Miser. Let's get wine. You can moan about romance and losses while I gloat about not being emotionally available to anyone."
Leon rose, flicking off the ash and sighing dramatically. "What would I do without you?"
"Probably lose more jewelry," Aglaya said sweetly, and walked ahead.
Leon froze, his smirk faltering. The color drained from his face like ink fading from paper. His arm rose instinctively, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth.
A sickening pause.A sharp, hollow cough.Then another—wet, deeper.
And then: blood.
Bright, stark against the linen.
Aglaya's eyes widened, her expression shifting instantly from playful exasperation to cold, clinical alarm. She crossed the room in three long strides, snatched the blood-spotted handkerchief from his hand, examined it, then looked at him—her mouth tightening into a line.
"You idiot," she said, not unkindly.
Leon swayed slightly but caught himself on the edge of the piano.
Aglaya reached for her phone. "I'm calling René and Kevin. You know I'm useless with human biology. I barely passed GCSE science. Is it the bronchiectasis again?"
Leon coughed again, grimacing. "Maybe. Stress. The cold. The cigar."
She raised a brow. "You think maybe setting fire to your lungs might be the cause? Genius."
Leon's voice was thin, sardonic. "Let's just call it poetic consequence."
"You're burning," Aglaya said flatly, pressing the back of her hand to Leon's forehead. Her voice was equal parts concern and practiced indifference, the way someone checks if the kettle's boiled without admitting they care for tea.
Leon didn't even open his eyes. "Aesthetically," he retorted, voice low and cracked. "Very Anna Karenina meets Tuberculosis meets doomed lead of a Merchant Ivory film."
Aglaya snorted, brushing his damp hair back with a sharpness that was almost tender.
"You know," she said ironically, sinking into the velvet chair opposite him, "I might actually be worried if I hadn't seen too much in the industry—"
Leon cracked an eye open.
"—and if you hadn't coughed up so much blood over the years that it's more routine than tragedy now. I mean, really, darling. At this point it's less consumption and more subscription. Monthly."
He gave the faintest breath of a laugh, quickly swallowed by another cough.
She leaned back and crossed her legs. "But fine. Play your Gothic martyr card. Kevin and René will be here in twenty, and if you collapse dramatically in the meantime, I'm stealing your boots."
Leon managed a weak smirk. "They're bespoke."
"And I'm poor," Aglaya deadpanned. "So lie still, breathe shallow, and don't die until someone with an actual medical degree arrives."
"You are richer than me," Leon muttered, eyes half-lidded, his voice dry and faint.
"That's factual," Aglaya replied blandly, adjusting the hem of her dress like this was all part of some absurdly rehearsed stage scene. "But my financial poverty is emotional."
Leon gave the ghost of a smile. "You mean your trust fund's intact but your heart's in receivership?"
"Precisely," she said, examining her nails with theatrical detachment. "I may own a penthouse, a Birkin bag, and a controlling share in my father's guilt, but emotionally I can't afford a single stable attachment."
Leon coughed again, slower this time, and gave her a long, amused look. "So essentially, you're bankrupt in love but liquid in irony."
"Exactly," she said cheerfully. "Which makes me more functional than you at the moment."
Leon tipped his head slightly in surrender, eyes closing again. "Touché."
The doorbell rang—sharp, timely, a small salvation.
Aglaya stood up instantly, faster than she'd moved all afternoon, as though the sound had snapped some invisible cord that tethered her to the chair.
"Thank God," she breathed, with unhidden relief. "The cavalry."
She turned to Leon, still slouched pale and damp in the armchair, and added with her usual dry sweetness, "Try not to die between now and when I open the door. I'd really rather not explain that to René—it'll ruin his appetite."
Leon managed a faint wave of his hand, eyes still closed. "Leave the mess to someone else. That's the Aglaya Simon mantra."
She smiled as if it were a compliment. "Darling, I delegate everything except eyeliner."
And with that, she glided toward the front door, silk whispering around her ankles, ready to hand off the wreckage of a sick boy she did love—but not enough to pretend she knew what to do with the parts of him that bled.
She was never good at sympathy.
She'd always been better at exit strategies.