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Everything slowly began to rot—muffled with mold and smell of decay. It was just a matter of time before everything snapped.
What was the point of living if everything would've become nothing but ashes. It hurt more than wounds would heal, thus they opened over and over again—never fully sealed with honey wax.
This was a different kind of pain, the one that stayed and filled the void of emptiness with many emotions that she couldn't handle. She didn't know how too, thus since the girl learned how to walk, the words echoed from elders that she was meant to be strong in this world, no space for showing the way pain painted her insides.
She stopped wondering why babies cried when they were born, perhaps moments of their future flashed before their eyes as they saw light for the first time—perhaps then and there they knew about drowning in society's words, hidden meanings cutting through skin like more than just paper-cuts.
"You okay?" that is the question, isn't it? It always was and it always would be an enigma to her. What was the right answer to that oh so painful question that people asked casually as if it meant nothing whatsoever.
She ignored Mitch's question—her grey dull eyes focused on the road in her peripheral vision. He cleared his throat, shifting slightly in his seat to avoid the stubbornness knotting in his stomach.
Katlin pretended not to hear him.
"Katlin,"
"—It's Cat" she corrected.
Only he called her—and continued too, with the name that brought back demons from the past. But it was oddly comforting the way he said it, his tone rasp and cracking whenever he spoke softly—thus his voice was too low for its own good. The name seemed cursed, or perhaps it was just her.
"You okay?" he repeated, the scent of lavender seeped in between them, carrying the voice form the back of his throat, an albescent chiaroscuro of an artist with a prospective not meant for others to know— just as Mitch didn't want feeling vulnerable around people, he didn't want to let them know that he cared.
"Don't pretend you care—"
He was quick, interrupting her.
"—I do" Mitch said immediately, for which Katlin raised her eyebrow, leaving a pain above her brow. Wind running down her spine like waterfalls, then she sighed "Why ask?" he knew she wasn't okay since the first time he saw her broken eyes the day of the fire—but at least he saw some of her emotions.
