Father forgive me; for I wasn't good enough

                  Persephone’s probably more than a little bit broken, but that doesn’t hinder her from much. She’ll tell it like it is, and then smile. Sometimes-–sometimes, like just now, there’ll be a moment where she can’t just smile, when memories hit like PTSD and she’s paralyzed with fear, but she rides it out.                                                               It fixes itself eventually.                                      She’s not even going to think about the nightmares she gets. She’s not. Right now, everything…is a little better. He’s not pushing her on it, which is nice-–probably mostly because he doesn’t want to talk about it, either. Joey had his own demons, it seems, and they were both going to go about…respectfully. Which is good.          She wouldn’t mind if he wanted to talk, though.                      But Perse got the feeling he didn’t.                               With an eye roll in his direction, she opens the bags, pulling out cartons of chicken and broccoli, and rice, and whatever the hell else he bought.                                                   “I asked for dinner, Joey, not breakfast and lunch, too. I hope you plan on heavy eating.”                             There’s a grin on her lips as he sits, and she hoards the cartons for a moment with a laugh.              ”You’re ridiculous, threatening to eat my furniture. Worse than the cat that sometimes lives here.”                      She spaces them out on the table, pulling out the plastic forks, and grabs the carton of broccoli and chicken. She’s so excited for food, it’s almost funny.                            ”You have hands, don’t you? Get it yourself, punk.”

                 Sure, he has his own problems to worry about, especially the whole-- Let's move in to Joey's apartment and leave the parents alone to the four bedroom house. Which isn't bad, it's just stressful-- two girls and one guy with four dogs isn't the best thing in a one bedroom house. That's why he's with his parents, but, it's not that bad. He's just really tired and Chinese food with her is just the way to ease his headache.

           He's not up for discussion,              even with the slightest problems.

     He watches her through squinted eyes, she rolled his eyes at him? Great, he's hungry, like, really hungry and she's taking forever and a thousand years to bring the food out.  

   Now it's his turn to roll his eyes at her.

              "It's just rice and chicken,                with some noddles--               I haven't eaten all day."

     He squints at her again, she's doing this on purpose.

      "Sometimes?  You know what-- just give me my food, please."

         He's sure his stomach hates him for the neglect of food but now it's all on Persephone.

    She's something else-- who calls Joey a punk? 

         Persephone. 

  He let's out a grunt, taking his food without a word as he watches from the corner of his eyes her relax, he's enjoying this-- even if he's not saying anything. He bows his head in silence, folding his hands for a few moments before he looks over to her.

"I can’t stop caring and I won’t stop caring, Joey. Because you are worth everything to me. I don’t know why I feel this way about you but I do.  I wanna be able to make you happy, have the stupid little arguments, take care of you when you’re sick. I wanna go on stupid roadtrips and stay in bed all day with you, I want you to let me in because I’ll let you in if that’s what it takes. I want to know that while things won’t ever be perfect or fixed again —-we could have our own chance at being happy." Her voice had broken halfway through the sentence but still, she continued. "I’m not everyone, I won’t leave you Joey — I won’t. All I want to do is love you, I would never hurt you, not ever." 

  Hannah's crying-- and it's his fault, he doesn't know how to stop her from.. crying. Yet, he doesn't want to leave her here drowning in a puddle of tears-- but he has too.

   He doesn't face her, he keeps his back towards her because he knows he won't be able to live with the fact that he's breaking her apart, her words stayed in his ears and repeated themselves as if it was a broken record over and over again. He swallows down any emotions he has left, if any and turns to face her last time before he walks away from her.

        He looks at her,         taking in her features--         she wants him,         he wants her            but, he knows

                                  { he doesn't D E S E R V E her. }