Beth heard it clearly—so clearly it seemed to cut through the thrum of the music, through her friends' chatter and the clink of glasses.
It was Gabe's voice again, low but emphatic, leaning toward someone at the table:
"You don't know how crazy Leon's parents are," he said, shaking his head slightly. "They force him to work even during fevers. Like—full-on fever, still on set, still in front of cameras."
He let out a dry laugh, one that didn't quite land as humor.
"And the most stunning thing is—" Gabe's voice softened, as if still trying to puzzle it out himself— "they really love him. As a person, not a product. They just don't know how to stop. They think they're doing it for him. They think pushing him is protecting him."
Beth went still.
Her heart thudded—not from longing now, but from a deep, unsettling ache.
She hadn't known that. Not this, not the truth of it.
She had assumed—like everyone—that Leon was just careless, untouchable, swept up in the glittering currents of his fame. But this wasn't just ego or artifice. This was... something older. Something sadder.
A boy who had been loved so hard that the love had turned into pressure.
Who had learned that being beautiful, being brilliant, being available even when sick or broken was the only way to keep that love coming.
And suddenly so many things made sense—his constant answering of calls, the compulsive need to reply to messages, even her own text, which he had replied to despite everything.
He couldn't not perform.
Beth felt the ache shift again. Not toward forgiveness, not toward reconciliation—but toward understanding.
No wonder he had kept her out of parts of his life. No wonder he had drunk so heavily that night, slumped in weariness beneath the weight of calls and stares.
And yet—
That understanding didn't change her choice. It didn't make the love they had shared any less incomplete.
It only made her sad.
Sad for him.
Sad for the boy beneath the myth.
Sad for all the love he might never know how to hold without breaking.
Beth looked down at her glass.
Beth's breath caught.
She hadn't meant to keep listening—but how could she not, now?
Gabe's voice was carrying again, the words slipping through the gaps in conversation around her like shards of something sharp and unavoidable:
"They surpass even Aglaya's parents. You know what they do? If Leon doesn't show up, they don't punish him—they punish themselves. Like real punishment. Cease to eat and all that sort."
Beth's stomach twisted.
She had never imagined that. The image of his elegant, ruthless parents—powerful, perfectly coiffed people starving themselves to force their son's compliance—was so grotesque, so warped, it almost didn't seem real.
But the voices around the table were too casual.
This wasn't a shocking confession to them. This was known.
"No," Kevin shot back, "I say equal."
Beth forced her gaze to remain neutral, sipping her drink though it tasted like dust.
Then Rene grinned, leaning in: "Aglaya's mother is the sister of Leon's father. Aglaya's father is the brother of Leon's mother. It runs in the family."
Oh.
The web tightened even more.
Beth had known they were cousins, but this—this—revealed a deeper entanglement than just blood.
A closed loop of expectation and perfection. No wonder Aglaya and Leon operated on the same surreal wavelength of beauty and tragedy.
"Half the time," Gabe continued, voice darkening slightly, "he shows up on set laced with drugs."
Then he gestured toward Leon, who was still on his phone, half-slumped in his chair, pale beneath the glow of the fish tank.
"He probably has a fever right now."
Beth looked.
And suddenly, for the first time that night, she truly saw him.
Not the myth.
Not the tragic prince.
Not the boy who had once kissed her beneath fireworks.
But a sick, tired young man trapped in a machine he couldn't stop feeding. Answering yet another call, voice low, eyes glazed with exhaustion.
As Beth glanced once more — a last glance, she told herself — she caught a small detail that pierced more deeply than any of the words had.
Leon's hand trembled.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't the drunken, theatrical shake of someone begging to be seen.
It was subtle — a fine, betraying tremor in the fingers of the hand holding the phone. Just enough that the light from the tank made the movement catch her eye.
A tremble of someone carrying too much.
And in that instant, Beth understood the phrase completely — burdened genius.
A boy crushed by brilliance, by beauty, by the impossible weight of being Leon Troy in a world that refused to let him simply be Leon.
Not that it excused everything. Not that it changed the past.
But it explained so much of what she hadn't been able to grasp when they were together:
Why he had disappeared.
Why he had compartmentalized her.
Why he had lied by omission, about Yale, about the bars, about the truth of his life.
Because he was too burdened to be real—not just with her, but with anyone.
And now here he was, pale, beautiful, drowning in a sea of obligations, phone in one hand, drink in the other, trapped beneath layers of expectation thicker than any sweater Burberry could sell.
Beth's chest tightened.
But instead of longing, it was filled with resolve.
She could not save him.
She could not pull him from that cage.
And she could not be a part of it, no matter how sharp the ache or how soft the memory of their shared fjord nights.
Her gaze dropped.
As the evening dragged on, Beth noticed another grim rhythm to the scene at Leon's table.
He smoked. A lot.
Cigarettes appeared and disappeared between his fingers like clockwork. Each one lit with a mechanical flick of a lighter, the motion so practiced it barely looked conscious. He wasn't savoring them — there was no pretense of style, no cinematic moment — it was need, pure and plain.
In between answering calls and drinking steadily, Leon smoked one cigarette after another. The ashtray in front of him filled quickly, but no one at the table seemed surprised. Gabe casually pushed another pack toward him without a word. Rene and Kevin carried on talking as though this was simply what Leon did now.
And through it all — he didn't eat.
Not a bite.
Beth watched in disbelief, and with growing concern. There was food on the table — expensive, beautiful plates of small dishes meant to be shared. Others picked at them between drinks. Girls who had drifted to the table nibbled absently, the bros grazed without paying attention.
But Leon?
Nothing.
Not a single mouthful.
Only the drinks. Only the cigarettes. Only the endless, weary phone calls.
And that tremor in his hand.
Beth's heart felt heavier with each passing moment. The man at that table was not the boy she had once walked with in Reine.
Nor was he the glamorous myth splashed across GQ covers.
This was something worse: a machine wearing out, caught in a loop of performance and addiction, no room left for nourishment or care.
Beth pressed her lips together, her jaw tightening.
She knew now — without doubt — that her leaving had been right. Staying would have meant watching him disappear, piece by piece, behind the fog of smoke and the poison of expectations.
Beth sat a little stiffer now, her gaze flicking between her friends and that shadowed corner where Leon held court — or rather, where he endured it.
And another piece of the puzzle snapped sharply into focus.
Linda's words came back to her: "His family controls his weight."
At the time, it had sounded grotesque. Now it was heartbreakingly clear.
Leon wasn't just slender — he was gaunt, the kind of thin that went beyond beauty, beyond style. The sharp lines of his cheekbones caught the low light of the bar with unnatural precision. His wrists looked fragile beneath the sleeves of that striped shirt. His collarbones stood out stark beneath his throat.
Heroine chic.
That cold, brutal aesthetic the fashion world still loved to consume.
And Beth saw it fully now — this was not just Leon's choice.
It was management. Family expectation. Brand maintenance.
No food.
Too much drink.
Too much smoke.
And that trembling hand.
He was perfectly sculpted for the cameras — even as he quietly, visibly unraveled beneath the weight of that sculpting.
And no one stopped it.
Gabe joked. Rene grinned. Kevin argued about parental cruelty and love. The girls at the table fluttered and leaned in, oblivious or pretending to be.
And Leon — trapped in it, not eating, not resting, just performing the role so perfectly conditioned into him.
Beth's heart clenched again — not with longing, not even with grief this time, but with a deep, cold pity.
She had loved him.
But she could not — would not — love what they had made of him.
And as she looked at him now — beautiful and broken, groomed for tragedy and spectacle — she knew that love meant leaving it behind.
Forever.
No wonder he isn't well. Mentally or physically, Beth thought, the realization sinking deeper now, settling into the marrow of her understanding.
How could he be?
A life of controlled weight, managed affection, and constant performance. A boy turned into a brand long before he had finished growing into a man. Fed on cigarettes and champagne, sculpted by cameras, paraded by a family who loved him and broke him at once.
Beth's fingers tightened around her glass.
And then — the sharper thought, the one that made her wince inwardly:
For all my professed indifference, I've just spent the last two hours thinking about him.
Damn it, she cursed herself. Damn it, Beth. You're supposed to be past this.
You had told yourself you were done. You had looked away. You had said goodbye.
And yet—here you were.
Watching. Listening. Caring, despite yourself.
The betrayal wasn't Leon's this time — it was her own heart's stubborn refusal to fully let go. Even as she built a new life, even as Jefrey's steadiness warmed her days, some piece of her still throbbed with the echo of an old love that refused to be silenced by logic or time.
Beth let out a slow breath.
"That's enough," she told herself, sharply this time. "You are not going to let him steal another moment from the life you've fought to rebuild."
She drained the rest of her drink, stood a little taller, and turned fully to her friends — this time with intent, with decision.
It wasn't indifference yet. But it would be. And tonight, she would take another step toward it.
Toward freedom.
Beth froze, her stomach sinking, as her friends continued to chatter excitedly about Leon — the very thing she had been so desperately trying to avoid thinking about for the last few hours.
They were debating, not in hushed whispers but loud enough for her to hear, whether Leon Troy would mind if they asked him for pictures.
"Do you think he'd mind?" one of her friends asked. "I mean, he's so... used to being in front of the camera, right?"
"Well, yeah, but it's not like he's just some random celeb," another chimed in, "We're in Oxford! He's practically on our turf now."*
They laughed, but it wasn't a light laugh. It was the kind of laugh that showed they were excited by the idea, not realizing the discomfort in the space growing around them — especially for Beth.
The words clung to her, heavy and suffocating.
Leon Troy. The name hung in the air like smoke.
Beth's hands clenched around her glass, the ice rattling as she fought to keep her expression neutral.
"I mean, how would he even react? Would he just say no?" one friend added. "He's got that aloof thing going on, but if we ask nicely...?"
Another voice piped in. "You can't just ask him. Maybe just... wait till he's alone and then approach him, you know?"
Beth could barely breathe.
She didn't know if it was anger or exhaustion, but her thoughts raced — Why would they want to do that? Why would they want to be part of that spectacle?
It was as if they didn't see him at all.
As if they couldn't feel the deeper currents she had seen in him — the pressure, the isolation, the way he was built into something far bigger than himself. Something that wasn't meant for real connection, but only for admiration, consumption, and performance.
To them, he was just a celebrity. A photo opportunity.
But to Beth, he was the boy who had once whispered I'll come back soon.
The boy whose life had been turned into a cycle of empty gestures.
Her heart pounded. She stood up, the sudden urge to leave gripping her.
"You guys should just ask him," she said, her voice sharper than she intended, "I'm sure it'll be fine."
Her friends didn't notice the edge in her tone. They were already grabbing their coats, laughing at how crazy it would be to ask Leon Troy for a picture.
But Beth?
Beth turned away, looking toward the door.
Her chest tightened. She needed to leave — before her own heart broke, once again, by the sight of Leon becoming just another object to be photographed, to be adored from afar, without a single thought to what lay beneath the surface.
She had promised herself she was done with this. Done with him. Done with the shadow of someone who would never let himself be fully seen.
But as she walked away from the table, the ache in her chest refused to quiet.
She wasn't done. Not yet.
But tonight — tonight, at least, she was walking away.