into the blue 🖤 campbell bain

"he fixes me with wide, curious eyes, - far too intense for his own good, or perhaps even mine.

"dorothy."

he looks at me a while longer, as if it's up to him to decide whether the name i've used all my life fits. finally, he shakes his head.

"can i call you dottie?"

i blink at him, taking in his strange, overly-exuberant face in the dim television light. "who says i want you to call me anything?" i ask him.

he smiles at me, looking simultaneously kind and condescending, as though i've missed something huge. "no one," he says. "but i'll have to call you something, won't i?" "

-

in which an american girl in a scottish asylum finds herself entangled with the manic boy in her wing.