Okay. So. Feelings. Clearly, you slained yours in your mother's womb.

Because anything tenderhearted—

"Sooo, ever had a crush before?" She rolls it off a gentle hill. And you, "I'd spike my heart twenty times if I ever felt as alive as that," you shove it off Mount Thor's cliff.

"Wait, wait, what!" Her gasp rattles the window. "You’ve, like, never, ever? Not even a goth pen pal?"

Nothing else but your deadpan stare returns. Dead serious.

"Okay, okay, I’ll stop!" she chirps. Then droops against her pillows. Eyeing Mr. Teddy, thumbing his cotton-puffed paw. Like a kicked pup.

The four pillars of her bed, for the maiden time, feel wimpish under her stirs. Creaking per weighty shifts forward, reverse, and askewed squirms like the yard's rainclouds roosted into her cardiac, scaled its red-hued chambers a hundred pounds more sodden to just. Plunge. Shatter.

You give her a lengthy stare. Possibly—and most likely—dissecting the defeatist hunkering her shoulders. "How was that any relevant to "How does an orchid deceive male insects into pollinating it?"' Or not.

Pollination. Right. Study prep. Splaying notes in forensic fashion on her floral freckled duvet. Next Tuesday. Botanical quiz.

At the epilogue of her pity party—her lashes perk, converging sights. Your abyssal gaze drills holes.

And she thinks, as shallow breaths take residence, might that vacuity hold space for her? Amongst your talks of knives. And death. And... everything macabre.

"Just curious."

Can she be part of it?

“It’s just—we're roomies, aren't we? Don’t you think I should know about this stuff?"

Light up your world, too?

"And plus—" her hand gestures wildly. "I tell you everything! Remember Ajax? Ugh, what a disaster. I was basically throwing myself at him, and he's like, ‘Oh, cool sweater."'

She huffs, "Guys are so dense," tossing Mr. Teddy aside. Crossing her arms. “Not that you're any better,” her tongue fumbles.

Oh God. Pitter-patter. The rain mocks her. Pitter-patter. Did she just blow her cover?