In his mind’s eye, she drowns.

Do you knowthat naïve nymphet with her hair so wild? He whispers to the emptygrass, watches the words drift on the breeze.

Do you knowOphelia, he wonders to the wind, doyou know that gentle girl?

Apollo must have loved her so, the way the sunlight dapplesoff her dewy skin. Pan must have chased her once, seeing her wildness andloving it for all that it was. When pressed, she would burst into bloom, he wassure of it. She was on the precipice of potential, that indigent ingenuousthing—she was smeared with roaring violet, that loud and unforgiving color, butdulled by the dawn, painted over with gray and sealed in with innocence.

Lilac, in bloom.

She is still pink in youth, still dusky in dreaming. When shetouches the sky, it turns into twilight, shatters into a million lovelylavender pieces.

The world is crueler than what she imagines, he wants to tell her. The world will turn her hollow, trample her to pieces, pull her underneaththe tide, pull those iridescent bubbles of breath from her lungs. He is certain to take part when it happens.  

But in this light, as the sun kisses the waterwith open lips, he can wish her only the best.

“May I?”

His hands had found those heart-shaped leaves by the bank, hadplucked that not-quite open bud from its stem. The plant had bent when he pulledit, it clung like a child to its parent, had wanted nothing more than to spare itself fromhis abuse.

He paid it no mind. 

Without another warning, he leans in and tucks the flower in her hair.

Perhaps it is a bud of compassion, a burst of kindness— buthis hands are so careful not to touch her skin, his fingertips are so purposefuland calculated that it feels impersonal. At once, she realizes how closehis face is to hers and she flinches backwards, cups her hand over her hair wherehe barely grazed her, protects that immature little blossom from the world.  

That splash of color in her messy hair looks like a haphazard crown.She looks like a goddess who never found her way. 

“Keep it there for me,” he whispers, “do not let them takeit.”

And then, he is gone.