“Does she know we’re coming?” asked Ben, steering the gleaming black BMW 7 Series down the quiet, leafy lane. Brandon was unclipping his seat belt before the car had stopped in front of the red-brick apartment building.

“I wanted to surprise her,” he said, fixing his spiked hairstyle in the mirror. It was half-past four on a Friday evening, and they were dressed for a night at the club, complete with their designer leather jackets, custom-made boots, and mousse-drenched hair. “Her exams are over. Thought she might want to come out with us tonight and have some fun.”

“He hasn’t even told her we have a week off,” Nathan said accusingly from the back seat. “And he talks to her every hour.”

Brandon stepped out of the car and shut the door. “I said I wanted to surprise her,” he repeated. “Come on, she’ll be happy to see us.”

Ben shared a glance with Nathan as he turned off the combustion, unable to believe how giddy Brandon became at the thought of his girlfriend. Pentoniac’s frontman sprinted ahead of them towards the wrought iron stairs, hardly able to contain the smile threatening to spill all over his face. In front of the red door, he paused for a moment before reaching for the brass knocker.

He knocked.

And knocked.

And knocked.

“What’s the matter, big boy?” Ben appeared next to him. “Isn’t she home?”

“She’s supposed to be.” Brandon pulled out his phone from his pocket and scrolled through the messages. “I asked her if she had plans for tonight and she said she’d come home from college and stay in.”

“Call her,” Nathan urged from the bottom of the stairs. As Ben reached for the knocker, Brandon pressed her number, his heart suddenly pounding against his ribs. His best friend’s knocks went unanswered, and so did his own call.

“She might be sleeping,” Ben suggested.

“She’s a light sleeper,” Brandon replied. “And she doesn’t take naps.”

“She’s probably out then,” Nathan said, glancing around at the calm, west London suburb. “Will the neighbours know?”

“I don’t think so.” Brandon pressed her number again while Ben kept knocking. “You know how she is. She likes to keep to herself.”

He was about to dig out the spare key from his pocket when they heard signs of life inside the flat. The creak of a chair, footsteps on the hardwood floor, and then, with a quiet click, the door scraping open.

“Hey, lads. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Brandon stared at the girl he last remembered arching and writhing underneath him a fortnight ago as their boundless passion raged through their entwined bodies and the tiny apartment she called home in this big city. But it was not passion raging through her today. The sunken eyes, the unfocused smile, and the hoarse voice were telltale signs of ill health.

“Are you sick?” Brandon asked, reaching for her in two strides. She was pale and cold, despite being clothed in an oversized cardigan. The apartment was pitch dark and deathly silent. “What happened?”

“Just a migraine.” She looked at them in turn with watery eyes. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“Glad we did,” said Ben. “You look terrible.”

“Yeah, you look like you’ve been run over by the tour bus,” Nathan deadpanned. “Even Brandy doesn’t look that bad after drinking the whole bar.”

“Stop fussing.” Isabel took a step back, swaying unsteadily on her feet. “It’ll go away.”

“You know it won’t go away on its own.” Brandon helped her onto the settee and sat beside her. “We were texting back and forth all day. Why didn’t you say a bloody word?”

“You didn’t tell me you were in London.”

“We have a week off,” Nathan answered. “Did you take medication?”

She nodded, the small movement aggravating the pain in her cranium and making her queasy. “I took paracetamol.”

“Lads, you go without me,” Brandon announced. “I should be with her.”

“Sure you’ll manage?” Nathan asked him.

“I’ll be fine…” Isabel weakly protested, clutching her head with both hands. Brandon rose to his feet.

“Yes, I’ll make sure of that.” He looked at Nathan. “You should go. Ginny has flown down to be with you, and Mark and Kyle will be waiting.” Turning to Ben, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave her like this.”

Ben nodded, coming forward to lay a kiss on Isabel’s hair. “I think I should let Mum know that you’re running yourself into the ground again. She’s coming to London in a few days. Maybe you can spend some time in Wimbledon with her.”

Even in the throes of her malady, Isabel was opposed to that suggestion. But she felt too weak to form words of protest.

Ben slapped a hand to Brandon’s shoulder. “Call us if you need anything,” he said before stepping out of the flat. Nathan hugged Brandon and followed Ben down the stairs. Brandon closed the door as the whirr of the engine faded away, leaving the flat cloaked in a cold heaviness.

“Alright. First things first.” He slipped off his boots and scooped her in his arms, his voice as bright as the London skyline at night. “You need to take your medication.”

He carried her to the bedroom, where he had owned her body and soul more times than they could count. The usually tidy place was a different sight today, littered with blankets, textbooks, notebooks, music sheets, and ice packs. The computer was on standby on her desk, surrounded by more books, a pair of headphones in a tangle of cords, and contents spilling out of her jumbo Chanel bag that he had got her from New York.

Isabel felt a creeping sense of guilt as he lowered under onto the unmade bed. “You don’t have to do this,” she insisted, pulling up the blanket to her chin.

“All I’m doing is being a decent human being,” he scoffed gently. “And your man, completely, utterly besotted with you. Turnabout is fair play, innit?”

Opening the drawer where she stored her medical supplies, he started to rummage. “Please tell me you have your migraine pills?”

“I don’t want to take them. They make me groggy.”

“But you need to, babe. You’re barely hanging on.” He found the bottle and checked the expiration date. “We’ve been over this. Paracetamol does nothing for migraines. How long have you been suffering?”

“I woke up with a headache,” she groaned. The pounding in her head had become more excruciating by the minute, and it was sheer will power that had kept her from vomiting despite the nausea clawing at her chest. She could not think straight, could not see straight.

Brandon took out a pill from the bottle.“Take it,” he coaxed, holding out the tablet in his palm. Isabel let out a small moan of agony.

“Don’t want it,” she repeated, pressing a hand to her forehead. Brandon feigned exasperation.

“Don’t want it? And who’s going to look after me if you’re laid up like this? I’m knackered after every recording, every show, and you keep me in shape so I can continue to be the popstar the world demands.” He smiled, the crinkle of his eyes almost running down his cheeks. “Who else is going to make sure I have clean socks every time I pack my bags?”

Isabel groaned again. “You’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself, Folan.”

“Maybe. But it’s much more fun when you’re fussing over me.”

Despite her misery, she felt a small warmth from Brandon’s electric presence, as though he carried a slice of the stage with him everywhere he went. The lead vocalist of the biggest boyband in the world was hardly the apparition one would expect at a modest student apartment, but there he was with his beaming smile and warm, hazel-green eyes, momentarily chasing away her shadows.

“Take it, love,” he pleaded, handing her the pill and a glass of water. “Just swallow it down and I’ll hold you until it kicks in. It’ll take the edge off and help you sleep. Please? For me?”

She hesitated, hating that it was going to make her feel unlike herself but aware that it was the only relief. With a shaky sip of water, she swallowed the pill, the bitter aftertaste lingering down her throat.

“Relax, mo chroí,” Brandon whispered, collecting the ice packs from the table. “I’ll get you a new cold compress.”

Draping his jacket across the chair at her desk, he walked out of the room. Her aching eyes followed him, entranced by the light he radiated. The pace and the glamour of the world he inhabited often intimidated her, yet, when it was just them, he was not the dashing pinup boy or one of Ireland’s youngest millionaires. He was the lad who held the key to her heart, who was her beacon in a world that often seemed too loud, too harsh. After all that time, she still wondered how someone so full of life could care so deeply about someone who was still learning to live.

Brandon surveyed the orderly kitchen with a furrowed brow. The place was almost too neat, minus any sign of recent activity. The refrigerator held a lonely carton of milk, an untouched pack of beer left by him weeks ago, and some leftovers that looked questionable. It was unlike Isabel, meticulously disciplined and pathologically self-sufficient, needing a stocked pantry and at least three days’ worth of food in the refrigerator to feel secure. She was usually the mother hen, an infuriatingly selfless creature pushing a cup of soup into their hands before they even knew their throats were sore.

As he placed the melted ice packs in the freezer and fetched a new one, he realised that she might have been under the weather for days, while he was busy promoting their new album. Plus the pressure of exams had probably left her with no time for shopping and cooking, leaving her to the mercy of takeaway. This was not Sligo. She did not have the comfort of home, Elsa’s company, or Emily’s motherly care here. She was on her own, driving herself to bury the trauma of her past under a mountain of achievements while keeping up with him and the celebrity life she had inadvertently become part of.

When he returned to the bedroom, Isabel had clutched her head again, her fingers curled in her hair. Water trickled from the corners of her closed eyes and down her cheeks.

His heart broke. He did not remember the last time she was ill. It also had been a while since he last had a glimpse of the vulnerable girl hiding beneath the smart, stylish woman the world recognised as his partner, his sanity on the rollercoaster ride of fame and stardom, seeing him through long days on the road, heated production meetings, gruelling recording sessions, and endless hours in front of the camera.He sat in front of her in the dimming light filtering through the heavy curtains.

“Thank you.” She took the ice pack and placed it against her forehead. Brandon pulled the blanket around her.

“What’s going on?” he asked, staring at her clouded face. Isabel swallowed hard, the weight of his concern probing into the cracks of her defenses. She raised a hand to wipe off the moisture that had escaped her eyes.

“Exams, the internship, too much to do… then this.” She moved the ice pack to the top of her head, the cold providing a moment’s reprieve from the pain. “Everything hurts.”

Brandon shook his head in a gentle reproach. “No, really,” he said, his thumb circling the back of her palm. “It’s not just the pain. Something else seems off with you. What is it?”

“It’s your rare week off, Brandy.” Her bloodshot eyes met his tender gaze. “Just go out and live, instead of sitting here with me.”

“I live my dream every day. But I cannot have fun when I know you’re unwell.” He drew her into his arms, letting her face nestle in the valley of his shoulder. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Isabel put her arms around his neck, clutching the collar of his shirt in her fist. Her head hurt more from the strain of tears filling her eyes as her teeth sank into her quivering lower lip.“I’m sorry, the last couple of weeks have been hard,” she rasped. “And whenever I’m weak and exhausted, it all comes back.”

“What comes back?”

“The memories…” She muffled a hiccuping swallow in his shoulder. “The sounds, the smells, the voices, the blows…”

Brandon’s chest caved painfully. She had come a long way, but three years were hardly enough to erase the horrors she had endured for a lifetime. Every time she awoke with a start in the middle of the night or recoiled at slammed doors and raised voices, he saw the ghosts that still chased her, trying to hunt her down. While he was going around the world performing for thousands of adoring fans, she was there, alone in her city of birth after a transformative two years across the sea, wrestling with the echoes of a nightmare that still haunted her.

Emily had said that living alone could be a double-edged sword for her— and like most other times, she was right.

“Our minds play tricks on us when we are tired and weak.” He pushed her hair aside, kissing the fading scar on her nape. “And that’s why you need to take care of yourself, so the shadows cannot creep up on you and catch you off-guard.”

Pulling back, he wiped the tears from her face with the base of his palm. “Lie back,” he whispered, propping the pillows behind her. “Close your eyes. Let the medication work.”

She obeyed, leaning into his touch. He continued applying the cold compress to her head while holding her hand. “Last week when we were in Cape Town,” he said softly. “You wouldn’t believe what we did after getting bladdered post show.”

Isabel cracked open an eye to find the foolish charm light up his face, his twinkling eyes appearing rounder than usual. “Please don’t tell me you had an orgy,” she teased.

Brandon broke into the disarming laugh infamous for its lack of control. “Worse. We had a fruit fight.”

“What? Throwing fruit at one another?”

“Not one another. The four of them chucking fruit at me. The whole time, I was trying to dodge.” He made an animated impression with his hands. “I dodged all of them except the last one.”

“What was it?”

“Half a watermelon. Kyle hit me smack on the side of my face. It looked like I got shot, with all the red pulp gushing down.”

She winced at the idea. “That must’ve been painful…”

“Nah. It was the fleshy part. And the alcohol numbed the pain.” He laughed again, shaking his head. “Mark almost sent you a picture, but I stopped him in time. You probably would’ve been annoyed by our silliness.”

“I’m immune to it now,” she said, a small smile flickering across the sickly profile. Pentoniac’s antics had that effect on her— they were ridiculous and annoying but also surprisingly amusing. “I’ll never know how you lads ingest so much alcohol without killing yourself.”

“We’re from the west of Ireland. We’re practically bulletproof when it comes to alcohol.”

He put down the ice pack when he saw her head start to nod. Gently he moved aside and laid her down, making sure to put an extra pillow under her head. She would not be able to eat until the worst of the episode had passed — later that night or even tomorrow morning. But they needed to have food in the house.

Soup. She loved a hearty Irish soup, and luckily for them, there was an Irish restaurant down the road with very bad music but equally good food. He dialled a number and placed two orders each for four kinds of soups— Isabel’s favourite colcannon, beef barley, farmhouse, and his own favourite, Guinness onion. After ending the call, he tugged up her blanket and kissed her cheek before leaving the room. Even in her fitful sleep, she heard him saunter through the living room while quietly humming The Beach Boys hit I Get Around. His voice was always so stable and consistent across all mediums and formats that it sounded recorded and polished even when he was singing in a cramped apartment.

Brandon threw the forgotten half-eaten apple into the bin, straightened the cushions, arranged the books, and watered the houseplants. Back in the bedroom, he neatly stacked the notebooks on the desk, untangled the cord of her headphones, and picked up the socks she had discarded on the floor. Isabel stirred awake, his meticulousness a sweet reminder of their reversed roles.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Brandon tossed her socks into her laundry basket.

“What you do for me all the time,” he said. “I can be of help sometimes, can’t I?”

Sliding into bed next to her, he cocooned them both under the duvet. Isabel exhaled deeply when his arms came around her, his strong chest cradling her heavy head.

“What a way to spend your break,” she murmured, the throbbing of her head slowly receding into a muted drumbeat.

“Yeah, alone and undisturbed with the love of my life,” he agreed. “Couldn’t get any better.”

Reaching out a hand, he picked up a sheet of scribbled music from the bedside table. “It’s quite unplayable,” she admitted quietly.

“I won’t be able to tell anyway,” he chuckled. “Maybe someday you can teach me to play the piano, music theory and all.”He kissed her hair. “When are the results?”

“Next week.”

“Nervous?”

“No. I think I did pretty well.”

“You always do, my little overachiever.”

She snuggled into his arms. “You could’ve spent this time off in Sligo.”

“No, I planned to spend it with you— drive you to college every day, take you out to dinner, watch our favourite shows. That was the whole point of turning up unannounced today, so I could take you dancing.” He stroked her scalp in a soothing motion. “Mam and Dad are busy with Yvonne’s baby and Denise’s wedding preparations. Kyle bought a canary yellow Ferrari that doesn’t fit in his garage. Oh, and we are doing our very first Sligo concert next year. We haven’t figured out a name for it yet.”

“Sligo concert. That’s incredible.” Her lips curled against his chest. “After performing across the globe, you’re finally bringing it home.”

“Bringing it home,” Brandon repeated. “Hey, that’s a great name. Pentoniac: Bringing It Home. I should send that to Louis.” He looked at her face to find her slipping into a doze again, her breathing heavy and laboured. Lines of fatigue and gloom were etched on her face, but even in her indisposed state, her unkempt beauty made him smile, bringing to mind a song he had written for her. He started humming to himself.

“There’s something in the silence

I never used to feel…

There’s something about knowing

That tells you this is real…When you’re close

All I know

I don’t want to let you go…”

His smooth, dulcet voice filtered through her drowse, stirring up emotions she had been battling for days.

“Hello happiness,

Tell me where you’ve been

I missed the sound of your voice

I missed the touch of your skin…

It’s no secret I’m

not who I used to be,

Anyone can see

You’re the difference in me…”

A sniffle from her made him look down again. “Are you alright?” he asked. Isabel sucked in a painful breath.

“I’ve never heard another voice like yours,” she croaked. “You have so much soul.”

“And do you know the secret? I’m thinking of you whenever I’m singing, and whenever I close my eyes and see your face, the emotions come pouring out. You’re my muse.” He held her hand between tender fingers, kissing each knuckle. “You’re the strongest person I know, but even the strong need rest. Your music, your degree, all your dreams will mean nothing if you’re not well enough to enjoy them.”

She tried to pull back when Brandon sought her lips. “I’m sick, my breath isn’t great,” she warned. He moved closer, undaunted.

“I practically live with four lads who’re still figuring out the concept of deodorant.” His lips grazed hers. “And besides, I smell nasty when I’m hungover and vomiting, and you still kiss me.”

Holding her chin, he pressed his lips on hers, almost breathing new life into her. She clutched his shirt, her eyes brimming over.

“I don’t want to spend any time in Wimbledon,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I love being here, on my own, feeling normal and capable. I don’t want anyone smothering me with concern.”

“I know.” He held her tight against his body, his own eyes watering. “You’re doing so well on your own, but you also have to remember to take care of yourself and give others a chance to take care of you. But most of all, you need a break. A real break.”

He smiled, wiping off an errant tear from his cheek. “Listen, I’m going to book you that bus trip you saw somewhere… you know, the one that tours all the stately English homes and gardens. You’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

Isabel was surprised to learn that he even remembered that conversation from months ago. “It’s more like a tour with a group of pensioners,” she responded. “But they put you up at these quaint, vintage hotels.”

“That’s your kind of thing, right? You can go by yourself or take Elsa for company, if you like. Just imagine. Cream teas, roaring fires, maybe even a murder mystery or two.”

“You’re terrible,” she chuckled, her temples mimicking the vibration.

“Terribly useful, you mean.” He leaned over her, an ambitious glint sparkling in his eyes. “You can get ideas for our family home in Sligo before we meet the architects. We need a proper castle, don’t you think? Your music room will be bigger than this entire flat.”

Her heart soared at the thought of the home he was planning to build on the five acres of land his father had gifted him on his eighteenth birthday. “I don’t need a castle, Brandy. I could live in a cardboard box and I’d still be the happiest person because I have you.”

“But I want my queen to have a castle fit for her. I’m designing it, but I’m only a culchie, and you’ll find out what the aristocracy did right, so you can come back and help me design the most beautiful house in Ireland.”

The most beautiful house in Ireland. The idea made her smile in her drug-induced gaze. “Will you stay with me tonight?” she implored. Brandon smiled again.

“Tonight, tomorrow, the whole week, until you get tired of me.” He kissed her, igniting joy in her heart, the heart that had once been shattered and afraid. “I love you, Izzi. Let me take care of you, because you’re everything to me.”

The knock on the front door made her flinch. “It’s the food,” he said, slowly extracting his arms. “Don’t force yourself to remain awake. I’ll be right here.”

Her eyes closed as he left the bed to answer the door. In that moment, wrapped in his warmth, her world felt infinitely brighter— a reminder that amidst the chaos of life and lingering darkness, there was light. Soon, she would recover, and they would reclaim their lives. Until then, she would hold onto him fiercely, grateful for the gift of the present, and the love that was her shield against all storms.