4 parts Ongoing I used to think the worst thing a place could do was keep you.
Never taught me different. It lets you choose-and then makes sure the choice chooses you back.
By daylight I work the door at Afterglow, a club of glass and iron and music that keeps its own kind of time. By night I count breaths, watch the mirrors, and pretend the soft diamond of salt over my heart is just an old scar. I don't say the word for what I can do under my breath. I don't look too long at the water. I don't answer when the ticking starts.
Once, there was an island that ran on names, ledgers, and the right song at the wrong hour. There was a boy who arrived like a reflection and loved me the way a snare loves a sparrow-beautifully, relentlessly. There were rules disguised as jokes, games that tasted like devotion, and a crown that was really a lie if you listened closely enough. Mercy wore resin. Truth tasted like iron. And every wish I whispered came back with teeth.
Now the past keeps surfacing-through windows, through music, through the mouths of strangers who don't know what they're asking. I wanted quiet. A pause. Something that didn't bleed me. Instead I got choices, and the kind of love that uses your yes as a lever.
If I go back, it won't be because I'm brave.
If I stay, it won't be because I'm safe.
Either way, the mirror is already looking.
