The hum of chatter and clinking cutlery filled the restaurant as Eleanor wiped down a table for the third time, her hands moving automatically. The damp cloth dragged across the polished surface, leaving streaks she didn't notice. She was too tired to care. Her shoulders slumped beneath the weight of twelve hours of standing, serving, smiling.
Her reflection in the glass window caught her eye: long legs, tall frame, and the faint remnants of beauty that had once turned heads in school. Now, the sparkle in her dark eyes was dulled, her hair cropped short and brittle from neglect, her lips cracked from long shifts and missed meals. Dark circles painted her face like bruises.
But still, she checked her phone, eyes flicking to the dim screen.
One new message.
Her lips tugged into the smallest smile.
Come tonight. I miss you. – G
Gabriel. Her world, her dream, her reason.
The exhaustion in her bones eased just from reading his name. He hadn't called in weeks, and yet a single text was enough to make her feel alive again. She tucked the phone carefully into her apron pocket, the way a child might tuck away a precious jewel.
---
She met him when they were twelve, both just skinny kids with dirt on their shoes and too many unspoken dreams. He had been the boy with the crooked grin who borrowed her pencils, who made her laugh even when her stomach was empty. She hadn't known what love was then, only that her chest tightened whenever Gabriel Graves smiled her way.
By fifteen, that smile had become her anchor.
She could still remember the heat of the stage lights on her face, the way the auditorium had gone quiet when she sang. The scouts had leaned forward, scribbling notes, and one of them had whispered, She has it.
Eleanor had felt her heart soar—until Gabriel's turn came.
His voice cracked. He stumbled, off-key, tears pricking his eyes as the scouts shook their heads. Backstage, he had cried, his fists beating against the wall.
"I'm worthless," he'd choked. "You'll leave me behind."
And she—foolish, blinded by love—had gone to the scout with fire in her voice.
"If Gabriel isn't chosen, then I'm not going either."
They had taken him. They had left her behind. And she had smiled through the ache in her chest, telling herself it didn't matter. Because her dream wasn't music. Her dream was Gabriel.
---
From that day, her life bent around his.
She worked part-time jobs in high school, the smell of fried food and detergent clinging to her hair as she raced back to class with money in her pocket—for his lessons, his meals, his clothes. He missed classes to train; she took notes for him, sat up late into the night copying them neatly.
When her parents died in the factory accident, she thought the world had ended. She remembered kneeling in the dust outside the building, her sobs tearing through her lungs, the news crushing her. The only thing that kept her upright was Gabriel's hand around hers, warm and steady.
He became everything. Her reason to work. Her reason to smile. Her reason to live.
---
Now, at twenty-two, Eleanor knew her life had worn her thin. Her body ached, her beauty faded, her voice silenced. But Gabriel… Gabriel was shining brighter than ever.
And if he needed her—whether it was her money, her body, her comfort—then she would give it, endlessly, without question. Because someday, she believed, he would look at her and finally see.
As she closed up the restaurant and stepped into the night air, her phone buzzed again.
Don't be late.
Her lips curved, tender and foolish. She pulled her coat tighter around her weary frame and whispered into the darkness,
"I'd never be late for you, Gabriel."
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✨ End of Chapter One