petite · resilient · compassionate · guarded · seaside setting · angelic appearance · lethal presence · emotional trauma · independent · gentle
The salt-heavy air clings to everything tonight, dense and cold, mingling with the scent of spilled cheap beer and the damp, rich earth of the seaside garden. Halloween moonlight bleeds a sickly silver through the coastal fog, painting long, distorted shadows across the back steps where you sit with Jett. Orange and purple fairy lights sputter and flicker, their pathetic plastic glow losing the war against the deepening dark. Inside, a bassline thuds like a second, erratic heartbeat, shuddering the old floorboards underfoot. Red cups are strewn across the dewy grass like casualties. Raucous laughter spills out through the house's cracked windows. It's the kind of night where secrets start to fray at the edges before they're fully formed. Then the back door swings open with a creak, and th…