i was just trying to do the right thing.

          “   AM I BAD AT THIS?   ”    question escapes before he can take the time to properly evaluate thoughts.    it’s a weight that’s been pressing against ribs with each steady,   quickened thump prompted by the entirety of the situation.    the uncertainty,   the lack of confidence.    and he can’t help but wonder.    “   no hard feelings,   i promise.    just uh  —–  so i know.   ”

in some ways the petite young girl reminds her of her when she first arrived at litchfiled.    (  asking one of her now good friends that she had read you weren’t supposed to ask questions of the sorts.  )    the edges of faint coloured lips slowly curl upwards into a small smirk,   eyes squinting in the slightest as her head cocks to the side.      “   so do i find out now or later that i shouldn’t underestimate you?   ”

            SACCHARINE      SMILE     EDGED     ONTO   A      DISEASED    PALETTE.        cerulean   hues   daring   to   capture   the   image  painted.     SWEETNESS    drips   past   a   roseate   tongue      ,     fictitious   in   its    assault.         ❛      i     ADORE     those    shoes     !!      ❜    

                                                                                               ☼   @secretswathed  ☼

SHE HATES FAILING.    hates letting people down.    her of all people know what it’s like to never receive the justice they are in such desperate need of,    and it’s evident in the young girl’s voice    —    her entire demeanor and there’s no stopping the sigh that falls from kate’s lips or the way her brows pull together,    the palm of her hands laying out flat against the surface of the metal table.    kate knew the ins and the outs of this case    —    read it from top to bottom  /  back to front    —    and every way possible.    because a young girl was missing    —    completely vanished without a trace,    and as time went on    —    more pieces to the puzzle started to appear    —    though,    nothing that would indicate alison dilaurentis was even alive.    no,    most of what had risen just made things more confusing    —    showed that a lot of people wanted the young girl gone and majority of what was revealed was to do with the blonde’s four best friends,    one of whom kate was now sitting before.

“   look—    aria,    we’ve gone in every possible direction.    gone back and forth and scraped through every detail of the night she went missing and the days leading up to her disappearance.    but it’s been over a year and we don’t have anything new.    we’ve done everything we can    .  .  .    i’m sorry.   ”      her last words leave a bitter taste in her mouth    —    one that has her wanting to dig her fingernails into her skin and claw out her insides.    because she’s heard those exact words - still remembers the day they wrote off her mothers murder as nothing more than gang violence and that was that    —    never to be touched again.    even though she had no justice    —    at least she wasn’t stuck wondering if her mother was alive or not,    it made her feel for aria    —    made her want to continue searching for her lost friend.

the  ache  of  unbecoming.     of  growing  upwards  and  outwards  beyond  the  restraints  of  retention;   of  cowered  flanking  and  lips  gnawed  bloody  biting  back  the  bile  to  match.     unmarked  on  the  surface   —   the  same  allure  of  dusk  and  cream   /   loss’s  charcoal  rot  her  own  secret  burden  to  bear.     and  so  she  walks  on,   unsteady  on  fawn  limbs,   unaided  to  glide  gilded  halls;   the  taint  of  grief  aphrodisiacal  to  rapt  masses   —   flies  to  the  rust-cast  of  her  crown.     she  acts  with  guilt.     its  hand  in  her  hair,   necrotic  in  her  lungs.     the  relief  that  flared  from  a  daydream   (  loosened  shackles,   the  demise  of  aphrodite  )   knotting  loose  ends  around  her,   rooted  bathyal.

     a nod comes next; an uncertain little bob of a besotted head that only seems to find its confidence halfway through. it’s an unconscious pattern that she draws out for herself with fingertips that lose their trembling with the more skin that they graze. there are shaky fingerprints left behind on the wrists of girls and far more steady ones on the necks of boys and it’s unclear to daisy just why the latter have always come easier but there is something about the way that colour seems to bloom across soft curves in a betrayal of whatever composure might linger at petalled lips that is nothing short of enthralling.  “ sure. with feelings. or, like, just not as a one-off, i ‘spose. ”

      Another laugh rises up the hollow of her throat. “Is that really such a SURPRISE?” she murmurs, nose nuzzled into the crook of a velvet neck. Spencer is softened down to the bone, hardened edges finally giving way within the cocoon of Aria’s embrace. “I always thought you would be the one to figure it out f i r s t.”

3AM  SENTENCE  STARTERS  /  ACCEPTING!

it  arrives  like  winter;   without  fanfare,   with  biting  chill  and  the  ebony  shroud  of  stillness.      woken,   tugged  from  midnight’s  grasp  by  the  tether  of  her  spine   —   arching   /   born  anew;   only  cold  sheets  in  greeting,   no  lingering  warmth  to  bracket  slender  limbs  around.

       “   aria   !   i know you’re not interested in the thought of throwing high school parties but   —   i’m in   desperate need    of help    !    won’t you reconsider,   for me    ?   i promise it’ll be fun   !    “

@secretswathed   /   sc.

“   you’re just  …  a baby.   ”      only one day into this riot and the amount of fresh faces piper was seeing was unreal.   just how engrossed in the small group of friends she’d made here had she been?

@secretswathed.