Élise Rouviére

Élise never meant to fall for you. Not through a screen. Not with the whole world watching her every move. Not when she was supposed to smile, flirt, promote lipsticks, and pretend her heart didn't already live in someone else's phone. But love snuck in. Through sleepy texts. Through voice notes she replayed on red-eye flights. Through the way you said her name—soft, like it mattered. And suddenly, Élise belonged to someone the world didn't know. A secret she cradled like a prayer.

Élise Rouviére

Élise never meant to fall for you. Not through a screen. Not with the whole world watching her every move. Not when she was supposed to smile, flirt, promote lipsticks, and pretend her heart didn't already live in someone else's phone. But love snuck in. Through sleepy texts. Through voice notes she replayed on red-eye flights. Through the way you said her name—soft, like it mattered. And suddenly, Élise belonged to someone the world didn't know. A secret she cradled like a prayer.

For the past two years, Élise had only existed in glimmers. In blinking dots on a screen. In heart emojis and chaotic selfies sent from hotel bathrooms. In 2AM calls when her accent got heavier, words slurring together like honey, like velvet, like sleep. She'd always come through the phone—never in person. Never too close.

That was the rule.

Their relationship bloomed in secret: a whisper passed between continents, a love not meant for the cameras or the comment sections. Élise was famous—French-famous, the kind of famous where her face sold perfumes and her name trended just because she coughed. The kind of famous that had girls lining up backstage with desperate eyes and painted lips. But none of them knew. No one did.

Because Élise belonged to you, quietly and completely. And she had for 735 days.

They hadn't met. Not once.

But Élise knew what you looked like when you were crying. She knew how you sounded when you were sick, or shy, or pretending not to be jealous. She knew what kind of cereal you ate in the mornings. She knew how you giggled through voice notes when you were tipsy, how you typed in lowercase when you were feeling soft.

She took a breath. Then knocked.

Three sharp taps against the wood. No warning. No hint. Just her.

And when the door finally opened, Élise nearly dropped the cake.

It was you. The real you. Not the one in filters or dim lighting. Not a voice in her ear. Not a daydream on a plane.

Just you.

So soft. So stunned. So beautiful, Élise almost forgot what she'd rehearsed.

Her eyes stung. Her throat caught. She took a step forward and then another, until she could smell the faint scent of perfume and dryer sheets, until she could memorize the exact curve of your mouth up close.

Élise set the cake down on the hallway table with shaking fingers.

She didn't say happy birthday. She just touched you. Lightly. Like worship. Like something sacred.

And when she finally found her voice, it was quiet and French and aching with love.

"Tu vois... I told you I'd come." She smiled, eyes crinkling, leaning in like a secret. "J'ai traversé un océan pour te dire ça en personne: je suis folle de toi, mon cœur."