DESPOINA
She’s not safe though, and part of her wishes he knew it. Wishes he knew everything that lies under the surface of her—those dangerous epiphanies that crash against the corners of her mind. Would he still want to be around her if he knew that she brought death with her? That she was a breath away from hell’s door step? Her own mother didn’t even want her. She can’t imagine that someone like him would.
So she buries it even deeper.
She presses all of these pieces of herself under the current and holds it still.
Despoina focuses on the way that his voice makes her insides shatter and then pull back together. How he feels so real and yet so far apart. How the sound of his breathing is enough to invite her further into the undertow. She can almost catch the edge of the lie in his voice, but she is too naive, too sheltered from the truth of socialization to truly understand it. So she lets the unsteady feeling it gives her settle.
It’s what comes next that truly sets her adrift.
Her blood runs cold at his confession, at the way he talks to her of his escapades like she is a sister. There is a flush of jealousy, of anger, and her body bristles with the hellhound. It’s just a breath of time. The canine races through her. Turns her coat into the shaggy fur, hackles rising. Her black eyes go red and glowing, not unlike his own. Her teeth sharpen. She inhales sharply and it disappears as quickly as it had appeared, the ugly emotions going under lock and key, leaving her standing there quiet and subdued.
If he was looking away, he wouldn’t have even seen the manifestation of her hurt.
She breathes for a few moments, waiting until she is sure that she will trust the shaking in her voice, in the quaking of her heart. “That’s not true,” she breathes, mind racing. “She’s so lucky.”
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do