and he took me to the river where he slowly let me drown
She has never met anyone else quite like herself.
She has certainly never made anyone else like him.
He doesn’t know how to soften. He certainly doesn’t know how to meet her where she is and there is something like fear that grips at her chest if she was able to fully understand it. Instead it threads through her heart until she can barely breathe; her lungs clench in her chest and her pulse stutters in her throat.
His question catches her off-guard though and her surprise is visible.
Her delicate features warp a little and her black eyes widen but she doesn’t step back or run away like she probably should. Instead she remains close to him, even when he closes the distance and touches her. Even when her heart stammers and tells her that she should put some space between them.
“I don’t have anything to say,” she lies, because she has entire worlds spinning in her chest. She has entire galaxies that spit under her tongue and that she dreams of every night, but she knows that they are small and silly things—certainly too silly to ever cough up and admit to the hellish boy before her.
She just frowns and looks down at the ground beneath her.
Wishing that she could be anywhere but where she is.
“Despoina,” she whispers, hoping that if maybe she says it quietly enough he won’t hear her sad, strange name and she won’t have to repeat it and she certainly won’t have to hear him say it back to her.