all rush and blush

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

Seneca hadn’t fully comprehended the message when confusion knit her brows together while fear wove through her chest, her body reacting seconds before her mind did. 

She had laid claim of her favorite table (ground floor, back right corner, one of the coveted tables nestled amongst vintage stained-glass lamps casting patterns of purple, yellow, and green against the deep wood floors) a mere two hours prior and had promptly settled against the back of her chair and began procrastinating; an open book in front of her (ignored, naturally) and her for you page gleaning all her attention. The notification had caught her eye somewhere between a Taylor Swift conspiracy theory and another trendy edit of becoming That Girl, boasting bold letters and a hyperlink that she clicked without thinking. 

Meet me in 10. The usual spot. Her thumb hovered a mere centimeter from the screen, idling momentarily before pressing send, letting the text fly with a subtle swoop. It had been months since she had started this game, a figurative cat’s cradle; guilt weaving itself around her fingers, always a moment’s hesitation before pulling at the string. She worried for the day the hesitation would leave her entirely, already that moment had become truncated in comparison to the pause it used to give her.

The familiarity of the path her patent loafers beat, along with the setting itself, softened the bite. Seneca had picked the spot purely for the poetry, a facsimile of a ruin while she ruined her life. The drama of it all kept her actions from feeling too real, more like a script she had stumbled into, discovered the costume fit, and stepped into the part with ease. There’s a Taylor Swift song in there somewhere, she hummed to herself, the whisper of a smile replacing the mask of guilt she had been wearing.

[zahara davis, she/her + cisfemale, 20] | well of course you’ve heard of [seneca quinn-taylor], right? they are a [first] year student living in [osler house] taking [undeclared] at rye university, and as per the blinds, they are like [sipping bourbon from a teacup, viewing the world through a rose-hued filter, silk ribbons knotted around wrists], but that may just be because they know [redacted].