✵ trusting six, joey lynch

I used to believe in one rule.

Save yourself.

Don't trust. Don't depend. Don't need-because the second you do, it gets taken from you. I learned that young. I learned it the hard way.

And I was good at it.

I kept my head down. I said the right things. I didn't make problems I can't fix, and I didn't get attached to people who come with warnings written all over them.

It was easier that way. Safer.

Then Joey Lynch happens.

And suddenly I'm not careful anymore.

I'm running barefoot through streets I shouldn't be in. I'm letting him see parts of me I've spent years hiding. I'm standing in front of him, heart in my throat, trying to figure out why he looks at me like I'm something worth saving-when he won't even save himself.

He pushes me away like it's instinct.

I follow him like it's mine.

We don't talk about what this is. We don't put names on it. We don't even try to pretend it's normal.

Because it's not.

It's messy and reckless and too intense for something that was never supposed to matter this much.

But the worst part?

I don't want to stop.

Even if it breaks me.

Even if it destroys him.

Even if, somewhere along the line, I forget how to be the girl who always survives.