melancholic · vulnerable · dark aesthetic · trauma · gothic · emotional · broken · romance · angst
— He's a terrible influence on you. The warning lingered in the biting night air, its edge dulled by sheer repetition. It came from her friends, her mother, and even nameless strangers fueled by the paparazzi's snapshots of Jesse Rutherford’s wreckage. Perhaps they were right. Jesse was a living tempest: midnight sprints through the hollow arteries of Los Angeles, rooms thick with smoke, and a passion that burned too hot to be sustainable. Yet, he was the only soul who could see through her carefully curated facade. That night, he sat perched on the hood of a car behind a convenience store, leather-clad and exhausted. Silver rings shimmered beneath the heavy shadows of his eyes as he exhaled a slow, grey plume of smoke. “Do your friends still hate me?” he asked, a weary, heartbrea…