She wanted to die.
He wanted to live.
•••
A hand grabbed onto my wrist, yanking me back just as the train rushed past, before I'd even had time to comprehend whether or not I'd carry out the action. I stumbled back into the person's chest, my hear...
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The world had never seemed more monochrome until the red river of blood began pouring out from Romeo's nose.
The drops of blaring red engulfed the greys and blacks of the arrows; his ghostly white skin became adorned with rubies, painting him as a sketch of agony; the cerulean blue of his lips seemed to fade in contrast with the vibrant vermillion dripping off the curve of his lips. It flooded down his neck as each inch of his skin seemed to surrender to the scarlet stream, weighing down his hoodie as the material quickly began to stick to his skin, clogged with the incessantly flowing blood.
I didn't know what to do.
"Cass... I'm gonna need you to stay calm okay?" Romeo spoke gently, breaking from my hold as he widened the proximity between us. He held a hand to his nose, pulling away to see the abundant liquid dripping from the palm of his hand before his eyes flicked back up to meet my worried ones. "Just breathe for me, okay? Keep breathing, okay Cass?"
Fumbling, he wiped his bloody hand on the dry part of his hoodie as he passed me his phone with trembling hands. "I need you to call Theo for me, okay?"
I nodded, immediately retrieving his phone as my hands began to tremble, some of his blood still on the phone as the uncomfortably warm liquid seeped into each small crevice of my skin. With my fingertips tainted crimson, I tapped mindlessly on the screen, my eyes unable to leave Romeo as the blood continued flowing, the scarlet sea unending and persistent in its waves, crashing:
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"I get these every so often Cassie, don't worry," he began to explain, removing his hoodie to reveal the plain white t-shirt underneath it. Bunching up the material in his hands, he held the hoodie to his nose in an attempt to conceal the ruby red floods streaming down his face. "Nosebleeds aren't a new thing for me, that's why I need Theo so we can figure out a way to solve this, okay?"
Seconds, minutes, hours passed before the phone began to ring as I nodded in a stunned daze at Romeo's futile explanation. 23:26PM. I was too fixated on the deep red that continued pouring, streaming out from his nose, waltzing through his soaked hoodie and dropping from the material, plopping onto the grey arrows below us, steadily going:
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Romeo lost his footing for a second and I instantly rushed to his side, helping him to lean his back against the metal railing as he slowly slid down, his legs outstretched in front of him when he abruptly collapsed onto the floor. As I stood panic-stricken, Romeo sent me a weak smile while he motioned for me to sit down next to him, trying to console me as I stared bewildered at the bloodshed before me. "I'll be okay, Cassie; it will be okay."
The blood slipped down his sodden hoodie and found its way onto the skin of his neck, covering the blue tint of his translucent skin with a vermillion hue. Unending, it dipped into the uncharted areas of his collarbone, soaking his white shirt with a barely audible:
