When they were six and seven, when her eyes resembled emeralds that shone brightly against the lackluster of stone, he told her that one day, he promised he would kiss her. She shook her head and refused, but he kept his promises.
When he finally kissed her seven years later, her started to transform into something the color of olives, though they still gleamed the same light they always had. Even when tears started to form, even when she held him close and told him that she didn't want him to go, he merely gave her one of his pearly white smiles and twirled her around. "I promise," he whispered in her ear before they dragged her away.
When he came back, her eyes ceased to glistened hope and instead misfortune, but she still embraced him and cried into his chest. He merely grinned and spun her around. "I told you I would," he said.
When the ignorant woman read her name to the country, and when no one stood to volunteer, her eyes did not shine at all. Instead, her feet shuffled and her hands shook, and, unable to contain herself, she screamed. When the boy who stood next to her smirked, exuding confidence, her fate only become worse.
But then he came, holding her once more, telling her that he would get her out. Reassuring her over and over again until she felt safe. Then they jumped to her peril, holding hands the entire way.
But the moment the boy who had stood across from her died, he was not there with her, to comfort her, so she fell deeper into her pit of neurosis. She stood at the feet of Death himself, willing barely enough to keep on going.
As the water began to rise up to her neck, she managed to swim her way out of danger until she was the only one left in a horrible ring used for entertainment. So they rescued her, brushed out her hair and bathed her, simply to make her more presentable.
Then she saw him, the boy with the curly blonde hair and cunning smile. "I told you I would save you," he whispered as he held her that night.
Back home, when the water lapped over her feet as if to call her, out into the ocean, he sat beside her and restored her dreary eyes into gemstones once more. He put his hand over hers, watching as the fish flopped beside them and the smell of salt.
But still, he could not completely bring her back from the horror of death and loneliness, and inside her head, all she could see was the murder of her ally, his eyes full of fear as he hit the ground.
So she screamed, and though they tried to treat her, only his touch could bring her back to the present, back to the waves that were as much home to her as they were to the dolphins.
When they tried to pull the couple back in, the girl was saved once again, but not by him. By an old woman, who had "not much more to live for."
But as he survived, she was captured, the crimson liquid pouring down from her wrists like streams. The silver blade. The wooden handle. The grin on the man's face as he yelled things she did not understand.
As she slumped against the wall, she became acquainted with the screeches of other victims. As the weeks passed, all she could remember were the last words he had said to her.
"I'll come back. I promise you," he had said before they pulled him from her grasp.
After weeks, the grey-uniformed soldiers stole her and the rest of the victims. She now saw them, recognized them carefully. The spiky-haired girl, the one who refuses to drink water, and the blonde-haired boy who won a year ago.
When they arrived, she felt the same strong, familiar hands around her waist.
"What did I tell you?"
When he went away, the last glimpse she saw was his sly grin and the gleam of optimism in his eye. He made his general promise, and the girl believed him when she embraced the boy for the last time.
This time, he did not keep his promise. When they told her, she did not believe or understand them. When the words finally sunk in, she screamed and kicked, crying for her husband. She pushed and hit, and though they tried to calm her, none of them could succeed.
After a few days, tears started to form in her eyes rather than screams in her throat. She would not speak, or eat.
"Annie, for your child," they would say, referring to her swollen stomach. But, still she kept her mouth closed and shook her head, pushing the tray to the end of the hospital bed.
After a week, she took a bite of green bread, then another. And, slowly, she regained her health.
When the time came, she held their baby in her arms, cradling it as its blonde hair grew in and it opened its green eyes, the perfect son.
And, quietly, she whispered to both of them.
"I wish you got to see him."