He might love her.
The way death loves to take holy things. Or the way he should've been taught to love himself.
She's what he grew up wanting and didn't even know.
Instead of letting the feeling come and swallow him whole:
Like ash, like when he looks at the sky and imagines it breaking apart, like what he used to believe, he scatters and fades and feels the scar, ugly and jagged, right over his still-bleeding heart.
He'll cut it out before he ever shows her how it rots.
