PRESENT-
Ryan Bennett had sat through countless shows, premieres, and productions. Theater was no stranger to him. Seated beside Maya with Alina just beyond, he was watching the stage with all the pain due to his failed plans and left everything to destiny.
But as the curtain fell on the performance and Ethan took the stage with a microphone in hand, he started slow, thanking his fans, his colleagues, and his journey. Ryan leaned back. Then the words came unexpectedly, sharp, like an arrow that flew across the hall and lodged in Ryan's chest.
The crowd hushed. Ryan frowned, shifting in his seat.
"Kai Arden." The name dropped like thunder.
Ryan froze. He had braced for anything, anecdotes, jokes, tears, but not this. Not Kai. Not here. Not in front of Alina.
He darted his eyes sideways, and there she was, Alina Carter, the girl whose hate for Kai Arden had burned hotter than anything Ryan had seen. Her face was pale, her lips parted, her disbelief raw. Maya touched her arm, whispering something, but Alina didn't move. Her eyes were fixed on the stage, drinking in Ethan's every word as if each one rewrote a part of her truth.
And Ryan? Ryan sat floored. Because Ethan wasn't lying. Ethan wasn't performing. He wasn't feeding a script Ryan had plotted. He was speaking from the marrow of his bones, recounting how Kai had once stood to watch a stranger perform on a street corner. How Kai, the man who wore walls like armor, had been the first to see Ethan's worth. How Kai had offered not only encouragement but quiet, unseen support until Ethan could carve his name into the world.
Ryan's chest tightened. He had come here to support his friend. Instead, reality bent him.
Alina's fingers curled against her lap, trembling. Her expression shifted, shock, anger, and confusion, all twisting at once. And Ryan knew. He knew this was the moment he had been waiting for, but not the way he had designed it. Not through lies. Through truth. Through Kai's truth.
And suddenly Ryan saw it. The futility of his endless planning. He had spent months arranging the board, moving pieces, orchestrating coincidences. He had found the house, hidden the truth, and manipulated the roommate situation, all so Alina could see Kai's humanity. And yet nothing had worked. Kai remained misunderstood, Alina remained bitter, and Ryan remained frustrated.
But fate... no, destiny had done what he could not. Sitting there, listening to Ethan speak, Ryan felt something inside him loosen. Relief, yes..but also awe.
All this time, he had underestimated Kai. He had thought of him as too cold, too untouchable, too unwilling to show his heart. He had treated Kai like a puzzle to be solved, a machine to be managed. But here was Ethan Vale, standing in front of hundreds, proof that Kai had changed lives in ways Ryan himself never could. Proof that behind the silence, behind the sharp words and the brutal honesty, there was a man who believed in people more than he ever believed in himself.
Ryan exhaled slowly. He let himself glance at Alina again. She wasn't breathing normally; her chest rose and fell too quickly. Her eyes glistened, and though she tried to blink the feeling away, Ryan saw it. The cracks. The walls of hate that had defined her view of Kai were trembling, breaking under the weight of Ethan's words.
Ryan had wanted this, her heart shifting. But he hadn't wanted it like this. Not through shock, not through pain. He had wanted control.
And yet, wasn't this better? For the first time in weeks, Ryan stopped calculating. He didn't rehearse the next move, didn't draft the next step in his head. He simply sat there, floored by the truth.
Maybe it was never supposed to be his plan. Maybe it was always supposed to be fate's. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms, his jaw tight but his heart strangely calm. For once, he didn't need to interfere. For once, he could let the truth stand on its own.
Yes, this was what he had wanted all along. Not a performance. Not a lie. Just the real him. Kai Arden.The man who believed in people more than he ever believed in himself.
And Ryan, watching Alina's stunned reaction, realized something with a pang of humility. He had never needed to play. Kai had already written his own story.
The night air outside the theater was cool, tinged with the faint scent of rain-soaked asphalt. The crowd spilled out in waves, buzzing with the afterglow of Ethan Vale's performance. But inside Ryan's car, silence stretched like a taut string.
Alina sat in the back seat, her dress gathered neatly at her knees, her fingers knotted together so tightly her knuckles had turned pale. She stared out of the window, watching the blur of streetlights pass, but seeing nothing. Her mind replayed the voice on stage, Ethan's words echoing again and again.
Each repetition only deepened the confusion coiling in her chest. That couldn't be the same man...the man who once snapped at a trembling young writer, who tore into her work with cruel, dismissive words. That man couldn't be the same one who lifted Ethan Vale from a forgotten street corner.
Her lips parted slightly as though to say something, but the words never came. Instead, she pressed her forehead lightly against the cool glass, her reflection staring back at her with haunted eyes.
In the driver's seat, Ryan kept his focus on the road, but his sharp eyes flicked occasionally to the rearview mirror. He could see her expression distant, fragile, caught between disbelief and reluctant hope. Exactly what he had imagined, though not at all how he had imagined it happening. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, reminding himself to let the silence breathe. To let this moment sink in for her.
Beside him, Maya tried once, gently. "It was… a good show, wasn't it?" Her voice was careful, almost hesitant.
Alina didn't answer right away. Her throat worked, swallowing the tide of emotions threatening to spill. "Yeah," she whispered finally, her voice so faint it nearly drowned beneath the hum of the car engine.
Maya gave her a small smile, but it faded when she saw Alina's vacant gaze return to the window. She exchanged a glance with Ryan, who only shook his head slightly. Let her be.
The drive wasn't long, but to Alina it felt endless. Every passing streetlight was another question she couldn't answer, another truth she couldn't reconcile. Was Kai Arden the merciless critic who shattered dreams or the quiet believer who saved them? And if he was both, then who was the real man beneath the name?
By the time Ryan pulled up in front of her house, Alina hadn't moved. She blinked when the car stopped, as if waking from a dream.
"We're here," Ryan said softly.
Alina fumbled with the handle, stepped out into the night air, and gave them both a quick, distracted nod. "Thanks… for the ride." Her voice was distant, her thoughts still tangled far from the curb she stood on.
Ryan watched her walk toward the house, her figure small against the glow of the entryway lights. And he thought, not for the first time, that fate was doing more work than he ever could. Inside, Alina carried Ethan's words with her like a weight she couldn't set down.
The night air clung to them as Ryan's car rolled back into the city. The atmosphere inside the car was heavy, but not with the same kind of stunned silence that had filled it earlier when Alina sat in the back seat, lost in her thoughts.
Now, with only Maya beside him, the energy shifted. Lighter on the surface, perhaps, but threaded with an undertone Ryan couldn't quite shake. He gripped the wheel a little tighter, the faint scent of Alina's perfume still lingering in the car, stubborn and distracting.
Maya sat angled toward him, her body relaxed but her eyes gleaming with a mix of curiosity and amusement. She let the silence stretch for a few moments, just long enough to feel intentional, before breaking it with a sudden smirk.
"So," she said suddenly, her voice lilting with amusement, "I mentioned once that I liked Ethan Vale, and suddenly...boom...front row seats. Don't tell me you went through all this trouble just for me, Ryan Bennett."
Ryan's grip on the wheel tightened. The words pressed into his chest like a weight, heavier with every passing second. He glanced at her briefly, those mischievous eyes, the curve of her grin, the teasing sparkle that expected him to play along.
But he couldn't. Not this time. He exhaled slowly, his voice lower than usual. "Maya… it wasn't for you."