Page 29 of Chasing My Bliss (Behind The Lens #6)

Felicity

M y whole body aches. It even hurts with just thinking.

This isn’t right.

Consciousness slowly creeps its way back into my body.

A dull ache throbs behind my eyes, my mouth is dry as dust. The air smells different—yet somehow familiar, like I’ve been here before.

Ezra’s woodsy cologne and Roxy’s lavender body spray consume me.

Almost as if they’re here. Wherever I am.

I try to move but my head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton, my thoughts drifting sluggishly out of reach.

My eyes slowly open as I try to focus on where I am.

I blink. Once. Twice. The ceiling above me is unfamiliar—the wood in the rafters gives off an unfinished look.

As if I’m in a room that’s waiting for someone to love it enough to come and finish it.

My eyes become heavy and I have to close them, just long enough to build up the energy to open them again.

Panic stirs low in my gut.

Where am I? Who took me? Why?

My limbs are slow to obey, heavy as stone.

I try to sit up, but my body protests with every movement.

My eyes closing as I press them together in agony, trying to push out the pain.

My pulse quickens. I don’t know where I am or remember getting here.

The last thing I remember is—what? Leaving to see Ezra.

Then a hand. The sweet smell as the cloth pressed way too tightly to my face. Then, nothing.

Darkness.

How long has it been? Hours? Days? It can’t have been minutes. At least I don’t think so.

I muster up all the energy I have and push myself upright, the room tilts as a wave of nausea rolls over me. I steady myself with a trembling hand against the mattress.

And then—I see them.

Two figures, standing at the end of the bed. Watching.

Familiar faces.

My chest tightens—not with fear, but with something softer, more fragile. Recognition. Relief. They found me, saved me from whoever did this to me. I don’t know what happened but right now, they’re here. I’m safe. And that’s enough.

“You found me.” My voice comes out in a broken rasp, like gravel being churned in a dry well.

"Wh—...what...?" I grab my throat with my free hand as I struggle to swallow. My throat’s so dry it hurts.

“Here, Baby.” Roxy moves from where she stands beside Ezra, a bottle of water in her hand. She twists off the top and places it at my lips. “Slow, don’t try to drink too fast.” I cough, one that’s weak and shuddering, each swallow torture.

“Are you done?” Roxy asks as I pull away and I nod.

“Wh-what happened?” My voice strains to just say a few words.

Roxy looks back to Ezra, their eyes locked on each other, almost as if there’s a mutual understanding between them about something.

Ezra moves around the bed, sitting down beside me, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.

“Let’s get you comfortable. We can stay here or go downstairs. Your choice. Then we’ll tell you everything.”

“Here is fine.”

“I don’t know where to start. Whether Ezra should speak first or me. All I ask is that you listen and wait to say anything until we’ve told you everything.” Roxy’s voice is lacking her normal confidence.

“I’ll start first, and we can go in pieces.” He reaches out, taking my hand in his, gently rubbing the pad of his thumb along my skin. “I want to apologize for how I reacted when you confessed the feelings you had for Roxy. I was hurt, jealous and afraid.” He gulps, scooting closer to me.

“But why—”

“Shh, Baby. You promised to let me finish.”

“Okay,” I say reluctantly, afraid that my world is about to crash all around me.

“I shouldn’t have cut you off. But I had to think. I’ll come back to that, though. For you to know what happened, I have to go back to the beginning. Before we met.”

My eyebrow raises in confusion. What could something that happened before we met have to do with him ghosting me the way he did?

“I knew about Behind the Lens before you told me. I’ve known about the site for a long time.

Subscribed to many channels on it. I was ready to leave it, bored of the same type of woman, when I came across you.

” My eyes widen in disbelief. “You drew me in and I fell in love with you, and I didn’t care who you were.

You gave little information about yourself.

But I paid attention. Every detail pulled my focus.

It’s what helped me find you. I could make out the logo for the school on your ID that was just barely hanging out of your bookbag.

From there, I looked up the courses for the books you were studying and waited. ”

This can’t be real. This is something straight out of a book. A movie. This isn’t real life, yet it is .

“I heard your voice, and when I saw your smile, your eyes, I knew it was you. It’s then that I decided to put myself in your path, and nature took its course. You were always meant to be mine.”

Roxy clears her throat. “While that sounds creepy, how I met you wasn’t any better.

I’ve seen you around Behind the Lens but you were always quiet, kept to yourself, not letting anyone in.

Much like this psycho over here, I fell in love at first sight.

That day I met you for the first time about the calendar wasn’t the first time I watched your live streams. I’ve watched all of them. ”

I go to open my mouth, but stop. I promised to listen to them, but I’m suddenly rethinking why I’m still doing it. What they’re telling me is so far off from the way the people I know would act. They’re sounding more like stalkerish serial killers.

My mind begins to race, running through recent events. Are they the ones who took me? Who knocked me out?

I can’t help but shudder at the thought.

“I was following you one day when I saw you pull up in the parking lot. I overheard you and Lorna talking about the calendar. When you told her your boyfriend only felt comfortable with you being with a woman, I knew that was my chance.” Roxy looks away from me, biting her lip, then breathes deeply.

“I waited for you to leave then I went to her, begging for the chance to be your partner. She saw right through me and knew exactly why I was doing it. She knew I liked you. Lorna told me I was playing with fire and should be honest with you. I wasn’t, and now I wish I was. ”

The room is quiet for a moment, then Ezra’s deep timbre fills the space.

“I’m not good at sharing, Felicity, and I know what I want.

You’re my obsession. I knew I couldn’t be in the calendar, because of the tattoos and the chance of someone recognizing them.

I couldn’t risk my career. A woman was the best solution to give you this opportunity and Lorna what she wanted.

I just didn’t think you’d develop feelings. ”

“In hindsight, you should have factored that in. Knowing we’d be spending a lot of time together. But if you hadn’t pushed her to be with a woman, I wouldn’t have her in my life,” Roxy adds.

“Tonight I was fully willing to do anything to get you back. But when I saw you and her together on the live stream, I knew you had moved forward in your plans. I didn’t think. I reacted. It wasn’t smart, it was dumb, but people do stupid shit for love.”

“That’s the truth,” Roxy snorts, shifting my gaze to hers.

“So I rushed to your house, and well, you know what happened. I didn’t expect for Roxy to show up at my door. But I’m glad she did. We’ve talked. She’s told me how the two of you feel about each other and what you mentioned wanting. And I want to try. If you can forgive me.”

His thumb brushes over my knuckles again, and I pull my hand away.

As I bring my knees to my chest and rest my chin on one, Ezra takes that as a cue, and slides off the bed to kneel on the floor.

With my arms crossed loosely over my shins, I sit there in silence, and for the moment I’m unsure of what to say.

I listened to their flawed reasoning. But the two people in front of me, the very people I love, betrayed my trust with their actions. And as I mull over their words in my head, the confusion I felt after waking vanishes. In its place is disappointment.

My shoulders slump, and after a heavy sigh, I ask, “Why didn’t either—” I press my lips together and look at them before I continue.

“Both of you. Why couldn’t both of you tell me this?

You know, sit down and have a conversation without all these theatrics?

Or me having my body feel like I’ve been run over by a semi? ”

“We’re idiots,” Roxy says, her voice soft and cracked with guilt. “But we’re idiots who love you.”

I bite my lower lip, carefully going over everything they’ve told me. All the details. But there’s more I need to know. Things that aren’t clear for me. Answers I still need before I can even think about trying to decide, or give an answer to them.

“I have questions,” I tell them.

“We knew you would and want to answer every one of them honestly. There’s no more secrets.” Ezra tells me warmly, smiling at me, his dimples winking.

“You both said you were subscribed to my channel. What were your names?”

“HotHands69,” he says while rubbing the back of his neck.

“RavenSin,” Roxy adds.

I stare at them—at these people I thought I knew, who I trusted . My mouth goes dry. Something in my chest clenches so tight I think I might snap in half.

I grab the water bottle from the bed and hurl it— hard . It bounces harmlessly off the wall, but the point is made.

“Are you kidding me?” My voice shakes. “You were jerking off to me? You were both watching me while pretending to be someone else? Talking to me like strangers—while you were already in my life?”

I swing my legs off the side of the bed, opposite Ezra, and push myself up too fast. The world tilts. I stumble, nearly fall, and brace myself on the bedpost. A sob climbs my throat, but I choke it down.

Roxy reaches out to help, but I hold my hand up to stop her. I close my eyes. No. I won’t fall apart. Not yet. One breath. Two. Then I sit back down at the corner, my limbs trembling as I look at the floor.

“Okay,” I whisper, barely audible. “Next question.”

“What else do you want to know?” Ezra asks. “I want to answer them all; have everything in the open so we can move forward with us.”

“Us?!” I snap, turning to watch him stand and move to the foot of the bed.

“Will there be an us after this?” Roxy once again joins him.

They’re too close to me, so I scoot towards the headboard.

“Am I supposed to put these lies, this… betrayal, behind me? Were you ever going to tell me that you planned our meeting?” To make sure they both understand, I looked each of them in the eye as I speak.

“No,” Ezra states firmly.

“At some point. I just wanted time to confess it in a way that you would think it was cute, endearing.” Roxy smiles, not wide and vibrant like normal, but small, and unsure.

“How did you know where I was living, Ezra? I never told you.”

He lifts his hand, running it through his hair as he exhales deeply.

Ezra laughs and I start to get pissed. It’s a valid question, and he’s acting like it’s something to make fun of.

“Felicity. I stalked you, found where you went to school and orchestrated meeting you. Of course I knew where you were living. I may not have been talking to you, but I was making sure you were okay.” He stops, brows furrowing as if he’s trying to think how to say his next words.

“Her and you being together as an item, officially, was a shock. That I didn’t know. ”

I shift my position.

“How did you find me, Roxy? If Ezra took me and you weren’t home, how did you know where I was? Actually, where am I?”

“You’re at my house. This is the attic. When I originally moved in I was going to renovate it into a guest room or office and never finished. I just never showed it to you.”

“I knew where he lived. Felicity, he’s a part of your life and I made sure to know about him. Seems I didn’t have all the details.”

“I can say the same,” he retorts.

“Roxy, did you know he took me?”

She shakes her head at the same time she answers.

“Not at all. I came to get him to help me find you. I knew it had to be someone who knew you, who knew where you lived. Honestly, I thought it might have been our freak ass non step brother especially after that dinner. So I came to get Ezra’s help.

” She shifts her eyes to him, a bit of a glare in them.

“But as he spoke, and I listened and observed, I started to realize the true story.”

“It led to us having a conversation and coming to a mutual agreement,” Ezra adds.

“An agreement?” I raise my eyebrow, trying to process this weird ass conversation.

“Yes. We both love you. Insanely. If it came to a choice between us we knew you wouldn’t pick either of us. So as much as I hate it, we came to a mutual understanding that makes everyone happy.”

Roxy shrugs. “Look, I’m not gonna lie—I had a moment walking in the living room where I thought, this is it, this is how I end up in some dude’s crawlspace, murdered and duct-taped to a water heater. But I wasn’t leaving without knowing you were safe.”

She glances at Ezra again, less of a glare this time. “So I dug deep, found my steel balls buried somewhere in my purse, and marched in like I owned the place. I demanded he tell me everything and show me you were okay.”

“And then,” she adds, almost grudgingly, “he asked if we could talk while we waited for you to wake up. And we did.”