A/N:

Thanks to my lovely M&Ms (Meg, May, Mel & Monica) for all their help and support with this one 😘

Some of you may recognise the beginning from a Fic Lab prompt from earlier this year...anyway, I've been toying with warnings, but where's the fun in giving things away? All I will say is:

This isn't a love story.

This is a story about love.

This Is Where It Ends

Prologue

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Still Something

There's noise before the silence.

Fabric slipping to the floor. The weight of his belt hitting the hardwood still looped through his pants.

Skin against skin.

Dirty words whispered.

Moans.

Ecstasy.

But after… after there's a vacuum. Neither of us wants to have a conversation. It's not needed. It's not what we do.

Edward reaches the door of the apartment, a look toward me and a lift of his chin before he opens it. My mouth falls open to say something, the ghost of words and courage catching and dying in the back of my throat as the light from the corridor catches the platinum that circles the ring finger on his left hand. I'm reminded of my place. The door closes, and the sound of his footsteps grows ever fainter, until there's nothing.

It's then that the silence slowly suffocates me.

With trembling legs, I stand and walk naked to the window, parting blinds with one hand and looking out onto the street below. I see him make his way across it, his phone against his ear and keys in his hand. He pauses before he opens the driver side door of his Mercedes, a glance upward to where I am. Just as quickly, he's turning, ducking into the driver's seat and disappearing into the dark.

The silence deepens.

I move. The light in the bathroom is cold, showing smudges of mascara beneath my eyes and a tangle of hair coming undone from a bun. I breathe, closing my eyes before washing him away from between my legs. Underneath the warm water of a shower he disappears.

Minutes pass. As I dry my hair with a towel, there's noise from inside the apartment. A small thud, footsteps coming toward me, pattering against the floors. My movements are hurried—a t-shirt yanked over my head, lace panties pulled back on, rolling against wet skin.

Seth appears at the door to the bathroom, his hair wild, his eyes scrunched against the brightness of the light. He rubs at one with a curled fist before rushing towards me, into my arms and up onto my hip. I press kisses into his hairline, his head finding the crook of my neck.

"Did you have a bad dream, baby?"

I don't see him nod, but I feel it. I walk us back to his room, words of reassurance spilling out in soothing whispers. His night light glows. The space mobile hung from the ceiling, spinning slowly as I carefully tuck sheets around him. It doesn't take long for him to fall back to sleep, his favorite stuffed lion strangled in his arms.

I stay perched on the edge of Seth's bed, studying his face, brushing dark hair back off his forehead with my fingers—the image of his dad. The one who left me pregnant and chose his wife… the one who still comes back, time and time again.

Not for his son.

But for me.

For what I am.

On my tip-toes, I head back into the living room, closing the door quietly behind me. There's a roll of cash on the table, so thick I don't bother counting it. I hide it away, beside the rest of the money that buys Edward everything he wants from me: sex, my silence. And bringing up his son alone in a world that only knows him as a political rock-star, with a B-List movie star wife.