#demonival

❛❛          𝕎ℍ𝔼ℕ          𝕐𝕆𝕌'ℝ𝔼          𝕐𝕆𝕌ℕ𝔾  ,          they          assume           you            know          nothing  .          ❜❜

   the girl is suddenly stopped in her tracks. the road continues in front of her, but a sign to her right shows compassion, a glowing meant to catch her eye. as it does its job, she's sat there holding in a breath, mouth hanging open in astonishment.

   she's never heard those words before. a reassurance designed to hold her like a mother would, like a home should. see, she never had either of those. once too young to even realize that what she had was a home before it was moving onto the next. phoebe looks to the woman in front of her, not knowing whether to smile or shed a tear or do both.

   ❛      i'm sorry.      ❜    she excuses her silence. ❛      i've just never heard that before. all of my concern has just always been with others. i guess i forgot myself.      ❜

it’s like drawn to like.     she knows it in her bones,     until the words echo down in her marrow.     the familiar vibrato of softening words sting her too.     like plucking too roughly on her heart strings and leaving it trembling.     scarlet wishes she’d heard it when she were younger,     and more impressionable too.     perhaps it would have changed something.     

with hands clasped and resting comfortably in her lap,     a reassuring smile spreads across pale features and she continues,     ❛     phoebe,     this is a safe place.     you take as much time as you need to process things.     ❜

   ❛      i can't tell you anything.      ❜ it's not that he can't, it's because he doesn't want to. marlon stands against the gate the surrounds his old home hoping to pose as a blockade in between her and the building behind him.    maybe acting like the history it holds on the dirt is not of any knowledge of him will deter her away from being nosy.

   any more nosy than she needs to be.

   his leaning is not to look cool, but he hopes it can make him seem collected.    harvesting in his insides for years is a history he is trying to forget, but things like her keep popping up.    ❛      i don't know what happened here.      ❜    he goes ahead and lies anyways.

❛     if you can’t then the house can,    other things can too.     ❜     she doesn’t pick up on his blocking,    or why.    blame the fact that ghosts are a lot more willing to tell their secrets as opposed to the living.    moving in closer,    she musters every single drop of reassurance and empathy she can.    but does it work?