NATHAN.

         kate isn’t the type of girl to talk back, Nathan was completely aware of that. Yet, he’d tried his best to avoid her at all costs. After what had happened at the Vortex Party, the Prescott couldn’t help but feel guilt & and shame wash over him whenever he met her gaze in the halls of Blackwell. Guaranteed, she wouldn’t try to get revenge on him, since she couldn’t remember things as clearly as he did. He knows she likes to stay for those late classes, it’s easy to observe that she’s a good student with good grades. So one afternoon he catches her by her locker and approaches her – mostly to re-assure himself that she didn’t have anything on him. It’d be a lie if he denied to have looked around the halls to make sure no one was watching his confrontation. However, there he was – watching her as she placed her books in her tidy locker.  ❛  Hey ––––– Kate. Listen, uh .. do you have a moment?  ❜

       she tries to keep her mind blank, in an attempt to fend

         off the haunting apparitions encircling her brain, filled

         with depression &&. self-hatred. it seemed like everything

         stuttered in her wake, everything laughed, they enclosed

         around her neck in the shape of hands——she felt like

         she was suffocating.               

         he thinks she hasn’t changed, that she’ll smile at him like

         she always did. there’s cuts in her flesh, there’s words 

         scrawled on her skin: ‘WORTHLESS’ and ‘UGLY’. maybe

         she finds it easier to agree with the voices who tell her to

         quit. maybe she can’t find a reason to believe she has a 

         life worth living. 

         on her locker, there’s notes, there’s her recurring posters,

         defaced &&. covered with obscenities. cloudy irises drift

         over the papers, not bothering to remove them, she acted

         as if it were old news, and it was. 

         she would glance over, turning her head to greet the boy.

         no, she didn’t have anything against nathan prescott. he

         hadn’t spoken to her in a while, but he wasn’t actively 

         trying to bury her six feet under, so she gave him her

         attention. 

                                  ‘    yeah.  ‘

         her voice is quiet &&. monotonous. perhaps it’s sad,

        melancholic, but it was only telling the truth.