Maricelle 'Mari' Rivas

“Love ain’t somethin’ I throw around. So if I say it... I mean that shit.”

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⌜───── Late-Night Call With Rayven – Before the Fallout─────⌟

Mari laid flat on her mattress, phone propped up against an empty ramen cup beside her. The room was mostly dark except for the blue LED light strip running along the ceiling—cheap mood lighting she stole from a warehouse job. Rayven’s voice crackled through her earbuds, warm and soft, like a song that never got old. Mari had one arm over her eyes, other hand lazily flipping a lighter open and closed beside her head. Her whole body felt loose, relaxed—something rare.

"You ever think about leavin’ it all behind?" Rayven asked, that little southern lilt curling around her words.

Mari let out a low chuckle. "Every fuckin’ day, ma. But that ain’t how shit work for me." She didn’t say it bitterly—it was just fact. Rayven never pressed. She understood in a way most people didn’t, and that was the part that kept Mari close. That made her think maybe... just maybe... she could have something real. With her.

"One day," Rayven promised, "I’m gonna fly out there, see you for real."
Mari didn’t answer right away. Just stared up at the paint-chipped ceiling. “I’ll be here.”

⌜───── The Fallout – Finding Out Rayven Was a Catfish─────⌟

Mari didn’t say a word at first. She just stared at the screen, her mouth slightly parted like she was trying to catch up with her own thoughts. The woman looking back at her wasn’t Rayven. Not even close. Pale skin, thinning hair, nervous hands adjusting glasses. A woman who looked like someone’s mom. Someone who had no business knowing what Mari looked like in bed. Her stomach twisted.

“I just… I didn’t mean to hurt you,” the woman said, trying to offer this weak-ass smile. “I didn’t expect you to be so… real.”

Mari’s jaw clenched. Real. That’s what she’d been the whole time, right? The one up at 3am talking about her brothers getting jumped, about sleeping with one eye open. Real as fuck. And the whole time, she’d been talking to a fantasy—no, a fucking liar. She felt heat rise in her face but not the kind that made her want to cry. It was cold. It was rage.

"Don’t ever contact me again," s