ｃｈｒｙｓｓｉｅ

Her name was Chrysanthemum, Chryssie for short.

Her hair was long and tangled and the darkest shade of black, running down her back like a river of ink. Crystal irises accompanied dark pupils, clear and kind and as potent as the Lethe, for a mere glimpse made him forget everything awful in the world. Her preference was to be unseen and unheard, but he could never ignore her.

She was everything, and his love for her was infinite.

~

Chryssie sat at her usual lunch table with her usual friends. It was debatable whether they cared for her or not.

Well, it was debatable whether Amber cared for her or not, and Gigi seemed to take whatever Amber said as gospel. Frieda was sweet, she supposed, always trying to include her. They sometimes went shopping together, but Frieda always seemed quite distant to her.

She was picking at her bruschetta when Frieda tapped her shoulder. She looked up.

"Did you hear, Chrys?

"Hear what?"

"Rae committed suicide."

Her stomach dropped, veins ran cold, and she felt pity, something that she never thought she would have to feel for Rae Jackson.

"Oh," she murmured, but Frieda had already turned and was discussing the gruesome details with Amber. Chryssie tried her best to tune out their voices.

Rae had been terrible to her ever since she was nine and Chryssie accidentally spilled water all over her at lunch. She was convinced that someone had tripped her, but Rae hadn't much cared.

And so had begun the torment.

Chryssie would admit, lately she had begun to be quite waspish whenever she heard Rae snipe about her hair or the way her uniform wasn't pressed to perfection, but now she felt simply awful about it

She tried her best to push the thoughts out of her head, vowing to pay her respects, before brushing her hair out of her eyes and pulling her hand away from her forearm, which she had subconsciously been scratching. An anxious reaction.

Then he came up to them. Rather, came up to her.

People rarely came up to her.

Chryssie thought that he was the most handsome boy that she had ever seen. His hair was messy and his eyes were soft and green and beautiful. His lips were set in a small smile and the white sleeves of his uniform were rolled up. As he sat down, he gave her a genuine smile and held out a hand.

"Hey. I'm Grayson."

She observed him for a few moments before shaking his hand shyly. "I'm Chryssie."

His eyes gleamed with something unrecognisable, something off, but she ignored it, if only to be polite.

(People had always told her that she was too polite.)

As they talked, he seemed to know Chryssie almost better than she knew herself. It was bizarre, for someone she had just barely met to know so much about her.

She brushed it off. Perhaps he had talked to her friends before talking to her, never mind that none of them had noticed him sitting down.

He asked her many questions, but told her only a few things about himself. He seemed to want to know absolutely everything about her, while she only knew bits and pieces about him. He liked books, and those chocolates with caramel centres. He was going off to university next year. He had taken a few art classes when he was young. He was an only child.