She always grew out her wavy hair, never wanting it to be short. She brushed it every night with an immense amount of care.

Her favorite Disney movie was The Little Mermaid, and she wished she could be a mermaid princess too.

She loved being in the water, and could swim for hours. It’s reached the point where her own family calls her the mermaid when bragging to their friends about whatever insubstantial accomplishment she’d fulfilled recently.

Sometimes, when she’s swimming, it feels like her legs become one single limb and it’s almost like she’s breathing in.

She doesn’t even think twice about going back to how she was, even when her family cries for her to come back.

He has this neck. Absolutely eye-catching. He has a habit of scratching the side of it, stretching it as he does and it makes her breath catch.

Reality can try

To scathe you

leave a mark

Make you feel the lingering ink stains of frustration

And it can succeed

Can cover you permanently.

And if the ink stains were thick

Encompassing all of you

No more skin to be seen

Would you not have to

Look between the cracks

To find the great reality?

The cover is the obstacle

What’s hidden is the outcome

And reality flounders.

Paradox.

At fourteen, he hated everything and everyone but the smaller hands.

At seventeen, he hates himself for finding a new set of small hands to fit in his own.

At fourteen, he stood beside a smaller figure, thinking the owner of the tiny hand in his was as good as it would get for him.

At seventeen, he stares at the girl with the overbearing dreams and wonders if he’s one to judge.

At fourteen, he’d been hit and burned and scarred countless times by his “father” for being a waste of valuable resources.

At seventeen, he’s brought into the empty home with the desolate rooms and the girl can only apologize for her lack of food.

At fourteen, he locked the smaller hands into their bedroom so they wouldn’t have to see their big brother receiving a cigarette burn to the wrist.

At seventeen, he stands beside the girl as she locks them both away into a private hub where nobody and no piece of information can get in or out.

At fourteen, he was determined to keep his brother safe, never mind his own dreams.

At seventeen, he’s already found the reality of his dream and how it was borderline horrific a majority of the time.

At fourteen, he refused to acknowledge the rush he felt during music class until an up-and-coming music producer from an unknown network decided to take a shot on him.

At seventeen, he refuses to acknowledge his background.

At fourteen, he hated everything and everyone but the smaller hands.

At seventeen, he hates himself for finding a new set of small hands to fit in his own.

At fourteen, he used to stare into wide eyes soaring with dreams every time big brother was around.

At seventeen, he stares into eyes that comfort him and almost embrace him when he scathingly tells them of all he has done, the hands he abandoned, the privacy he no longer has, the polar feelings for the people whose devotion brought him so far. For his face for becoming the deciding factor of whether he’s worth it or not.

At fourteen he was another person’s hope.

At seventeen, he can’t pinpoint a single shred of hope in his strenuous life. Until he knows her and feels accepted and understood by her for everything he himself is. It makes him think it might not be so bad to become accustomed to newer hands within his grip. But he realizes it’s a lie because one ten-minute drive away is his childhood life complete with a person he desperately aches to see but knows wants nothing to do with him.

At fourteen, he was heroic.

At seventeen, he’s merely a coward. 

“They say the beginning of togetherness is supposed to be a gleeful experience. Attached to the hip, unaware of other entities. They don’t feel that, or they don’t know if they do.” 

The days that follow are turmoil, utterly. Everyone acts no differently at school, speaking of shoes on sale immediately after. But they dare to pretend that they cared by making his locker a memorial, and Drew has to swallow bile every time he walks past it.

Until the day he walks past and sees that someone had written, in bold black ink, “But you can’t hate the dead, so you worship it instead.”

Listen to this as you read.

“Identification of him happens without her being conscious of it. If he enters the room she’s in she swears she can feel his presence like she’d felt his skin.”

                The bed was their castle, his house their kingdom. All to themselves, they took command of it all by taking advantage and doing nothing. Sleeping was their first priority; the comforting close proximity wasn’t a commonality for them yet. It was still a luxury they intended to enjoy to their fullest capacity.

There was a boy at the park, slouched on a bench, eyes never leaving a single figure running around aimlessly.

“The very things that make you, your thoughts … they’re slowly becoming my everything, alright?”

“How do you know if I’m telling you them? What if I’m changing them or lying?”

“Then I guess this is trust. I have no way of knowing if what you’re telling me are your actual thoughts. So I trust that you are. Because letting me in on the one thing you can say is wholeheartedly yours is a privilege, I know it’ll take quite a bit for you to trust me. However I think me putting my trust in you is one way to getting to know your heart and where it lies, and that’s through your thoughts.”

“You’ve backed me into a corner now. I’ll feel guilty about lying.”

“So don’t lie. Just tell me honestly how you feel in return.”

“What if I’m fearful? What if I’m afraid of causing pain?”

“If it’s to me, it isn’t any of your concern. The pain would be worth it. If it’s to you, the answer is simple; it won’t be on my account.”

“Are you sure? The thoughts I have … they’re bad. Most of the time they’re really, really bad and I really can’t help it.”

“They’re still yours. For that reason I want to know, if only to take some of your burden off of your shoulders and onto mine. That way we could go through it together.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”