CLICK-CLACK. CLICK-CLACK.
The sound of aggressive typing echoed through the tiny apartment like a war drum.
It was 2 AM.
Midnight had died two hours ago. Sanity had died around 11:45 PM. And Elle Carter? She was halfway through a breakdown, three-fourths into a bag of expired gummy worms, and 100% committed to finishing Chapter 54.
She sat curled up in the far corner of her room like a gremlin in exile—wearing a hoodie large enough to double as a parachute, messy hair tied up in a bun so tragic it should be illegal, and spectacles so big they were basically windshields.
Her golden eyes—made eerier by the deep, majestic panda-level dark circles beneath—glowed with one thing:
Pain. Passion. And plot.
The screen in front of her lit up:
Chapter 54: He Called Me Wife, Then Kissed My Neck Like a Criminal
Elle whispered to herself like she was narrating a thriller.
"Aiden's hand trailed down her waist, his voice low. 'You belong to me now, Ivy.' Her heart pounded. She hated him. She loved him. She wanted to stab him in the face with a fork."
She paused, tilted her head, and squinted.
"Ugh," she groaned, rubbing her temples. "Too much fork violence?"
That's when something—or rather, someone—leaned over her shoulder like a pale, vengeful ghost from the underworld.
A voice whispered in her ear, smirking:
"No such thing. Fork him up."
Elle screamed.
"AAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! GHOST!! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!! I HAVEN'T EVEN WRITTEN THE SMUT YET!"
She flailed backwards, nearly knocking over her laptop, a mug of cold coffee, and what may or may not have been a half-eaten piece of toast from three days ago.
The "ghost" rolled her eyes and bonked Elle on the head with the grace of someone deeply used to this nonsense.
"It's me, you idiot."
Elle blinked behind her oversized lenses, then exhaled the way people do after narrowly surviving shark attacks.
"Thank God. I thought you were a demon."
The "demon" snorted. "Close. But I'm prettier."
Luna Morgan, age 22. Roommate. Best friend. Makeup wizard. Elle's designated adult supervision.
Dressed in neon pajamas with flamingos on them and holding the salted popcorn like it was a holy relic, Luna looked down at her best friend like someone inspecting roadkill.
"Elle. Babe. It's 2 AM. When was the last time you saw sunlight? Or shampoo?"
Elle stared into the void.
"I think I saw the sun on Tuesday. Maybe it was a hallucination."
Luna leaned forward and sniffed.
"That's not sun. That's desperation and instant noodles."
Elle swatted her away like a fly. "Get off me. I have trauma to type."
Her fingers flew over the keyboard again, violently passionate, like a woman possessed by the ghost of every dramatic romance author who ever lived. Luna plopped down onto the couch with a dramatic sigh, scrolling through her phone with one hand and chomping on stale popcorn with the other.
"I'm telling you, Elle," she said between crunches, "fork that bastard Aiden. Fork him with a pitchfork. And a side of rusty spoons."
Elle didn't even blink. "You need therapy."
"And you need better taste in fictional men," Luna snapped. Her eyes were practically glowing with rage as she stared at Elle's screen. "If he even thinks about forcing Ivy in this chapter—I swear on all the overpriced skincare I own—I will drag that fictional man into a real-life grave."
"He's not real," Elle muttered, not looking up.
"Exactly," Luna growled. "Which means he can die without legal consequences."
Elle groaned and dramatically face-planted into her keyboard. "Shut uuupppp."
"I will not!" Luna yelled from the couch. "My emotional well-being is tied to this relationship! If Ivy doesn't get her revenge arc soon, I'm filing a formal complaint. With God."
And then Luna went silent.
The clock ticked on.
TI–CK. TO–CK.
Now it's 3:00 AM. Exactly.
Elle finally slammed her laptop shut like it had insulted her mother. She slumped back in her chair with a groan that came from the depths of her exhausted, caffeine-addicted soul.
"I'm done," she whispered. "Finally. Done. May Aiden rot in literary hell."
Luna peeked over the top of her phone like a hawk hunting for drama. "I hope you forked him up. Or else…"
She paused for effect.
"…I swear on my Lancome serum, I will unsubscribe. I will stop reading your novel. I will take away your daily validation."
Elle gasped, clutching her chest like Luna had stabbed her. "You monster."
Luna flipped her hair. "Try me."
They stared at each other for three long, intense seconds.
Then Elle broke the moment with a groan, dragging her feet toward the bedroom. "I'm going to sleep. I need to wake up early."
Luna blinked. "Early? At what time?"
Elle turned slowly, her panda eyes dull with death and caffeine withdrawal."Six A. M." she declared like it was a war cry.
Luna dropped her popcorn. Literally. She glanced at the wall clock like it had personally betrayed her.
"SIX?! Elle! It's already freaking three! Have you completely lost it? What's more important than your damn sleep?!"
Elle's face twisted into something between a haunted doll and a smug gremlin. Her lips curled ever so slightly.
"...It's Calen's birthday."
Luna went still.
No breathing. No blinking. Just… buffering.
Then, voice trembling like the heroine in Elle's own novels, she asked, "Don't tell me tomorrow you're gonna…"
Elle's smirk deepened. The panda was evolving into a chaotic queen.
"That's right," she said, eyes gleaming with the light of terrible decisions. "I'm going to propose."
Silence.
The kind of silence that usually comes before a natural disaster.
Luna stood there like she'd just witnessed a car crash in slow motion. "Elle. Elle Carter. You sweet, sleep-deprived lunatic. You're going to propose… to your boyfriend… at 6 AM… after writing fork-filled smut until 3 in the morning?"
Elle shrugged like it was the most normal thing in the world. "I already bought the cake. And the ring. I even made a playlist."
Luna screamed into a couch cushion.
"You don't even like him that much!" She muffled through the fabric. "You said his face looks like a wet sock when he cries!"
Elle looked wistful. "Yeah… but like, a cute sock."
Luna stared at her. Blinking. Processing. Rebooting.Then she muttered, deadpan, "Get lost. Before I kill you."
Elle smirked like the gremlin she was."I'll haunt you and write you as the villainess in my next novel," she sing-songed, and with a dramatic flourish only a 3 AM writer could master, she SLAMMED her bedroom door shut.
"SLAM!"
From inside, her muffled voice called, "Don't forget to read my update, loser!"
Luna groaned, collapsing back onto the couch. "I live with a lunatic. A sock-shaped lunatic."
***
[THE NEXT MORNING]
The next morning, at precisely 6:00 a.m., Elle's alarm screamed like a demon being exorcised.
BZZZZZZZT! BZZZZZZT!
Elle shot up from bed like a vampire rising from the crypt—except less elegant and more "possessed raccoon in crisis." Her hair resembled a tragic bird's nest, her mascara had migrated to her jawline, and a fine string of drool still clung romantically to her chin like a devoted ghost.
She blinked once.Twice.A third time, just to make sure her soul had caught up with her body.
Then suddenly—cackling.
Like a Victorian widow who'd just snapped.
"Heh... hehe... HAHAHA," Elle giggled to herself like the villain in a soap opera. "It's a big day... Today... I will propose to him."
With the enthusiasm of a caffeinated rabbit on Red Bull, she snatched her phone from the nightstand and lit up the screen. There, smiling back at her like a Greek god dipped in bad decisions, was a selfie of Calen Wolfe.
Black T-shirt. Golden hour filter. Slight smirk.
"Soon," she whispered ominously. "You'll be officially mine, you smug little future husband."
She kissed the screen with the devotion of someone who had absolutely lost touch with reality.
Then she shot out of bed, did a questionable hair flip, and squealed, "LET'S DO THIS!" before dashing to the bathroom with the energy of a Disney princess... on a sugar high... with unresolved emotional trauma.
Behind her, her phone slipped from the bed and hit the floor—display still glowing with Calen's face, blissfully unaware of the chaos that was coming.