The girl sat in silence, legs folded beneath her, tucked into the farthest corner of the couch like she didn’t want the fabric to know she was there.

The office around her was sterile. Quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t come naturally—it was designed. Everything in the room was soft gray, muted beige, calming tones that screamed “nothing to be afraid of here.” But fear didn’t care about color palettes. It lived in muscle memory, in the way her shoulders stayed tense even when the room was 72 degrees and safe.

Across from her, the therapist sat with a practiced patience. A notepad rested on his knee, pen hovering like it was waiting to sketch a map through her brain.

He waited thirty seconds before speaking.

“How was your morning?”

She didn’t answer.

He nodded, as if silence were progress. “You’ve been consistent with sessions. That’s good.”

Still nothing.

“You’re still drawing?”

A beat passed.

“No.”

It was barely audible, but it was something.

Dr. Merrill smiled softly, like he’d just been handed a puzzle piece. “Why not?”

She stared at the bookshelf behind him.

“I just haven’t felt like it,” she said.

No mention of the last time she drew. The thing that appeared in her notebook. The petals. The mirror girl with no eyes. She wasn’t going to give him that.

“Can I ask you something?” he said gently. “Do you think this is helping?”

That pulled her eyes down, just for a moment. She gave a quiet exhale that could’ve been a laugh if it had any life in it.

“No.”

He smiled again. But this one looked a little more tired.

“Would you like to schedule the next appointment?” the receptionist asked as she walked past the front desk.

She didn’t answer. Just walked straight out the door.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

That Night

The light under my bedroom door was too bright. Even with my eyes closed I could still feel it.

I stared at the ceiling and counted how many bumps I could see in the plaster. Some were shaped like mountains. One looked like a cat’s paw. I wondered if the people who built this house ever imagined a stranger would lie awake beneath their shitty drywall, trying to make sense of her life by turning the ceiling into constellations.

There was a knock. A soft one.

“Kathryn?” my foster mom called through the door. “We’re eating dinner now, honey. You’re welcome to join us.”

I didn’t respond right away. Then, loud enough to be heard but flat enough to not invite follow-up:

“I don’t care either way, I guess.”

A pause. Then her footsteps walked away.

I hated that I made her hesitate. I hated that I noticed.

Later, I pulled my sketchbook from under the bed.

I didn’t want to. My chest was already tight. I was already sweating, even though the AC was on. But it was like my hands moved before I could stop them. My fingers opened the cover.

A flower.

Pressed between the pages.

Black. Velvet-soft. Real.

A Black Dahlia.

I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t put it there. I hadn’t left my room since therapy. No one could’ve come in without me hearing. I should’ve felt scared. I didn’t.

I felt… watched.

I opened to a blank page.

I told myself I wouldn’t draw. I wouldn’t even touch the pencil. I just wanted to look. Just a glance.

But somehow my hand moved. The pencil slid from the cover sleeve into my fingers like it belonged there.

I blinked.

A figure stared back at me from the page. A woman. Pale. Elegant. Her mouth was full of petals, like she was chewing them. Her eyes were two perfect voids. She held a knife like it was a purse strap.

I dropped the book.

My hands were shaking.

No. I didn’t draw that. That wasn’t me. I didn’t even remember doing it. I didn’t choose it. But it was my style. My lines. My pencil pressure.

My name.

I shoved the sketchbook back under the bed and curled up beneath the covers, too hot, too cold, heart going crazy in my ribs.

I didn’t draw that.

I didn’t—

I closed my eyes.

And in my dreams, I saw her again. The girl with the black mouth.

And she smiled like she’d been waiting for me.

Today had been a rough one. Miles had to skip the first day of highschool because he had gotten food poisoning.

Miles had gotten out of bed to look for any food he might find.

The kitchen had a weird smell.

Not a bad one—just… processed. Artificial. Like something pretending to be food.

Miles stood at the counter, pouring cereal into a chipped bowl with mechanical precision. He hadn’t bothered to check if the milk was expired. Didn’t matter. It was texture, not taste. He chewed, swallowed, and stared out the window while the spoon hung limply from his fingers. His mom said the view was “gorgeous”—a wide lawn, a row of trees, a street that curved out of sight.

It looked like any other place they’d moved to. Dull. Quiet. A new fake stage with new fake props.

He finished eating and washed the bowl because that’s what you’re supposed to do. He didn’t like the way people looked at you if you left dishes in the sink. Their faces got all tight and pinched, like it physically hurt them to see a dirty plate. So he cleaned it, dried it, put it away.

Not because he cared.

Because it kept things moving.

The clock ticked. He waited for it to hit the hour before heading upstairs. Another rule. Don’t get up too fast. Don’t seem anxious.

The stairs groaned under his weight, but he didn’t flinch. Just walked steady, like someone who had a destination and wasn’t just buying time until he could be alone again. The hallway was narrow, lined with framed stock-photo smiles his mom never replaced. Every time she unpacked, she made a home for them before she made one for herself.

His bedroom door clicked shut behind him.

And finally—he could stop pretending.

He leaned back against the door and exhaled, slow and soundless. His room was still mostly in boxes. The bed was made, the blinds were drawn, and there were no posters on the walls. Blank. Clean. Comfortable.

Miles stepped over a half-unpacked duffel and opened his notebook. Not a journal. Nothing emotional. Just notes. Observations. Faces he’d seen at the gas station, people from the moving truck, a grocery store cashier who blinked too much. He wrote it all down—names, colors, patterns, inconsistencies.

They all blended together.

People never surprised him.

They lied. They smiled. They talked too much about nothing.

And when they cried, they looked around to see if anyone was watching first. Like even pain was performative.

He tapped his pen against the paper.

School started tomorrow. Another round. Another place. Another flood of people saying the same things, doing the same dances, running on the same loop.

He didn’t plan to be invisible this time. He was done trying to shadow his way through hallways.

He was going to throw a party.

It was the kind of thing people remembered. It didn’t require intimacy or effort—just noise and alcohol and a bunch of warm bodies crammed into a too-small space. That’s what people liked, right? Noise and light and excuses to touch.

He didn’t get it. But he could do it.

Miles closed the notebook and slid it under his bed.

The sun outside had started to dip low, casting orange streaks through his blinds and cutting hard lines across his walls. He stood there for a moment, watching how the shadows shifted as he tilted his head.

Then, faintly, he smiled. But it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Morning light spilled through the half-closed blinds, washing everything in a tired grey. The warmth of it didn’t touch her. Not today. Not after that dream.

Kathryn’s eyes blinked open, and for a while, she just stared at the ceiling. There was no rush to move, no desire to start the day. Her pillow was damp from sweat, or maybe tears—she couldn’t tell. In the dream, she’d been standing in the middle of a vast, empty field, strange dark flowers growing like weeds around her feet. Their petals were velvety and wide, deep as ink, with curling edges that looked bruised. They didn’t sway in the wind. They watched.

She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t even confused. She just stood there, still and blank, as the petals slowly folded inward and bled down the stems like open wounds.

She didn’t bother brushing her hair before dragging herself out of bed. The mirror in her room got only a passing glance. No makeup. No effort. No point.

Downstairs, her foster mom tried—like she always did. “Would you like to eat breakfast with us this morning, sweetheart?”

Kathryn stood at the base of the stairs, rubbing her wrist absently. “I don’t care either way, I guess.”

Her foster father looked up from his coffee with a tired smile. “You doing okay? You didn’t say much last night.”

She didn’t respond. Just grabbed her bag and walked out the door.

The bus ride was as loud and claustrophobic as ever. Chatter, squeaking brakes, thumping footsteps—each sound felt like a pinprick against her skin. She kept her eyes low as she walked down the aisle, past kids who flinched or turned their shoulders away. One girl even stood, gripping the metal bar rather than sit in the empty spot beside Kathryn. She saw it. Felt it. But it didn’t sting. It was a relief.

She hated being touched.

Instead of focusing on the moving scenery outside the window, her eyes drifted to her wrist. She hadn’t even noticed what she was doing until the stinging hit. A faint scratch bled in a precise curve. Then another. She watched, detached, as her nail dragged again, slowly carving a shape. A petal. Just one. Neat. Quiet. Controlled.

When the bus jerked to a stop outside the school, she pulled her sleeve down and walked into the building.

Class was a blur. The smell of cheap floor cleaner and paper, the dry heat of the radiator, the way her desk wobbled slightly whenever she shifted her weight. It all blended together.

Until someone touched her.

It wasn’t much. Just a guy trying to grab the pencil she hadn’t noticed fell off her desk. His hand brushed hers—light, accidental.

In less than a second, her grip had snapped over his wrist.

The boy gasped, eyes going wide as the pressure increased. He tried to yank free, but her grip tightened instead. She could feel the strain in his tendons, the sudden panic in his shallow breaths.

“K-Kathryn, hey—I was just—sorry!”

The words registered slowly. Kathryn blinked, like waking from a nap. Her hand released him with the same detachment she’d used to grab him in the first place.

The classroom had gone quiet. Eyes were on her. She hated that.

“Just… don’t touch me,” she said flatly, voice low, monotone. Then she turned back to her notebook.

Inside, she felt the pulse still thudding in her hands. Not from adrenaline. Not from fear. Just… pressure. Like something deeper had shifted without warning.

She looked down at her notes.

A flower.

Drawn right there in the margins without her even realizing. The petals were wide, almost sharp at the edges, and stacked in tight, overlapping layers. The kind of bloom that looked like it belonged in a funeral arrangement, dark and heavy and somehow wet.

She closed her notebook and waited for the bell, staring out the window.

The sun was out, so why did it feel as if the abyss in my mind was growing?