Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Brian’s Loneliness
Brian O’Conner sat on the couch, the dim glow of the TV flickering in front of him. Mia’s voice drifted from the kitchen, muffled by the sound of running water as she scrubbed the dishes. The house felt quiet—too quiet, in fact, given the chaos that had been his life not long ago. He had tried talking to Mia, tried connecting, but she wasn’t having it.
“Brian, I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d said earlier, her tone sharp, her eyes distant. And just like that, another door slammed shut between them. It wasn’t like they fought, exactly. There were no screaming matches or thrown objects. Instead, the silence was suffocating, a slow suffocation that had crept in over the past few months.
His eyes lingered on the empty space next to him on the couch. It felt strange, seeing the spot that should have been filled with Mia. He used to feel like she was his anchor, but now she seemed so far away, lost in her own world, unwilling to meet him halfway.
He reached for the beer bottle on the coffee table, twisting off the cap before taking a long, drawn-out swig. It did nothing to ease the gnawing feeling in his chest—the loneliness that seemed to wrap itself around his ribcage like a vice, squeezing tighter with each passing day.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. He hated feeling like this, like an outsider in his own life. He loved Mia. He did. But the connection between them had frayed, worn thin. It wasn’t even about the physical distance—though they hadn’t touched in what felt like forever. It was the emotional distance. Mia had become a shadow of herself, and he was left grasping for something real, something that wasn’t slipping through his fingers.
Tired of the quiet, Brian stood up and walked toward the kitchen. Mia didn’t even look up when he entered, absorbed in the task at hand. He leaned against the doorframe, his eyes tracing the contours of her face, the way she had her head tilted as she scrubbed at the plates, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low, almost hesitant.
She didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge him. The absence of her usual warmth cut through him like a knife.
“Can we talk?” he pressed, trying again. “I know things haven’t been easy lately, but I—”
“I’m fine,” she interrupted, cutting him off with a short, clipped tone. “Just… leave it, Brian. I’m not in the mood.”
The words hit him like a slap, and for a moment, he stood there, dumbfounded. He’d been trying so hard, putting in all the effort he could, and this was the response he got? It was like trying to talk to a wall.
He exhaled sharply, forcing himself to step back. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, turning on his heel and walking out of the room. He didn’t even bother to look at her when he left.
Back in the living room, Brian sank into the couch again, the silence closing in on him once more. He pulled out his phone, scrolling absentmindedly through the screen, flipping from one app to another. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt truly seen, truly understood. Not since his time with Mia, anyway.
His fingers hovered over the screen, and for a moment, he wondered why the hell he felt so restless. His life was a fast lane of adrenaline and high-speed chases, but here, in the stillness of his own home, he felt like he was in park.
A random thought popped into his head, a desperate idea. He’d seen an ad earlier, something about a new texting app that promised anonymity—a chance to talk to someone without the weight of expectations or history. He didn’t even know why it appealed to him so much, but in that moment, the temptation was undeniable.
Brian didn’t think twice. Well that was a lie, he did, he looked back toward the kitchen for a moment.
He opened the app store and downloaded it. The app’s interface was sleek, clean—no face, no names, just usernames and short bios. Perfect. No one had to know who he was, and he didn’t have to know who they were. Just two people sharing a moment, a conversation. Maybe that was all he needed to escape the suffocating silence that had taken over his life.
He created his account quickly, choosing the username CallMeBullet without a second thought. It was a nod to his past in Florida. He didn’t want to think too hard about it. Just wanted to be and feel… anything but this.
As he finished setting up his profile, he paused for a moment, staring at the screen. The profile photo was a photo of his arm gripping his stick shift during the night. Nothing that was too revealing, just simple.
His bio was simple as well: Love fast cars. Just here to talk. It wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t looking for anything more, not really. He just needed someone to talk to, someone who wouldn’t shut him out, who wouldn’t look at him like he was broken. Maybe that was too much for an app? He’s never done this before, it almost feels like a low.
Brian clicked upload and waited. Then spent almost an hour scrolling through bullshitted messages, nothing standing out to him. He was getting bored pretty quickly, ready to deactivate the entire account too.
A few moments later, after he was looking through the settings on how to delete the account, his screen flashed with a notification.
AmericanMuscle: Nice car in your profile pic. Classic, I see. What else you got?
Brian smirked at the message. Classic. Yeah, that sounded about right. Goddamn him for easily getting swayed by someone who wants to talk cars. He typed back quickly.
CallMeBullet: I like to keep it old school. I can appreciate a car with character.
It wasn’t much, just the start of something small, but for the first time in a long while, Brian felt a glimmer of something—something that wasn’t disappointment or rejection.
And for tonight, that would have to be enough.