Kallias Evermore and Newt were inseparable-until Kallias's careless words destroyed everything. When a rumor about Newt's sexuality spread, Kallias confirmed it, leading to Newt being sent to a brutal "troubled teens" camp by his parents, which left...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Do you think we'll ever make it out?" She had asked. I still remember her voice when she said it. It was weak, like she didn't believe that she would ever make it out alive. Oh, how I wanted to prove her wrong.
"Of course we will. We're not bound to be stuck here forever, Mal. We will leave this place someday." I had answered, though I was uncertain too.
"Newt—"
I hesitated. Breathed in, then out. Shakily, with no trace of steadiness in me. "I don't know. I'd like to believe we will, but—" I paused. I remember looking at her face as I said that. Seeing her features stiffen, her jaw tightening. Not from anger, no. She was trying to hold back her tears. She always was. "I'll find a way."
"Find a way?" She scoffed, like she wasn't fighting tears just now.
"Exactly. Do you think I'll let you stay here? If it was just me, I wouldn't care. I'd even rot in here too, probably. Not you though. You have to make it out. You are too bright for this hell." I smiled, trying to lighten up her mood. It didn't work.
"I know what happened yesterday."
My throat had tightened, looking at her once again. "What?" I had choked out, my voice coming out in a hoarse whisper.
"I wanted to stop them. I swear I tried. But—"
"No, no it's not—" I paused, my eyes, wide as ever, darting on her face. "It's not your fault. You know that."
"Do they do that often?"
"No," I said, pausing for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Maybe."
She didn't say anything else. She didn't have to. I knew we both were going through it, but neither of us has energy, nor the will to speak about it.
・・・・・⟢
I knelt at the edge of the dirt like the world had cracked beneath me, like the ground itself was holding back all the weight I carried. The name carved into the stone—Maliah Selwyn—was a sharp cut through the silence, a quiet that stretched far beyond the edges of the graveyard. It was too still, too empty. The air tasted like regret and something older, something heavier I couldn't shake.
Her name wasn't just letters. It was a life. A light that had been swallowed whole by this cold earth, a story that ended too soon, a voice I never learned how to truly hear. I reached out like maybe the dirt could whisper back, maybe the roots tangled beneath could remind me of what was lost. But the silence held firm.
I remembered how she laughed—soft, like a secret almost too fragile to be caught. How her hands trembled when she tried to hide it. How she was always the quiet in the storm, the steady when everything else fell apart. And here I was, kneeling like a coward, left behind with nothing but the ache of a name and the ghost of what could have been.
