Persephone sat next to her mother's corpse, wondering where it all went wrong. Lucas hadn't contacted her for months now — she scanned her history, seeing a slew of text messages from her, but his last one had been sent October 10th: 'Don't worry, Pers. Let's just think about next summer'.

Her calls never went through, texts never seen. What happened to him? What happened to her? Her father? Her mother?

With her back against the wall, her head lolled over to her shoulder as she looked blankly at Terry's dead body. She was dead by the time Persephone came home a few hours ago. After a long day of school and hands-on training and her part-time job at the stupid supermarket, she thought she'd find Terry drunk. But instead she found Terry hanging from the ceiling, a simple note laying at her feet: 'I'm sorry'. Was that all people could give her any more? Half-answers, leaving more questions. Or was she such a burden and waste of time that people felt okay abandoning her left and right? She'd at least expected it from her parents, but from Lucas?

She'd been trying to convince herself that everything was all right on his end. Maybe he lost his phone and contacts and didn't have a computer and just somehow, someway, could not talk to her at all. But it all seemed like excuses; excuses to dump the chick with baggage. Baggage like Terry's… But Persephone had something greater than Terry: she wasn't a coward. She wasn't going to kill herself and abdicate everything else in her life. She was stronger than that. Stronger than her useless mother who left without a goodbye, stronger than the rope from which she cut her down, stronger than the floor Terry's lifeless body flopped onto, and so much stronger than the apathy Persephone felt during the act.

If only they'd never left Louisiana. Even if her father had died and Terry had killed herself, at least she would've been with Lucas. Maybe then she wouldn't be sitting on the floor, staring at the social media feed on her phone. She took nothing in, only scrolled for the catharsis. The more time passed without tears, the more she felt like a monster. She didn't want to cry, nor did she feel the need to. An emotionless monster, that's what she'd become — that's what her father turned her into, or perhaps she was born this way; a sick joke, regardless. Maybe that's what she was to everyone around her: a sick fucking joke.

She lost herself in memories and fantasies of Lucas. For hours more she sat there, thinking about his eyes, his smile, his voice, the way he made her laugh and love and feel, pleasure from their sex, pain from their arguments, tenderness at his touch, the always present fear of losing him — she relished in it all. At least she was human around him.

She wound up calling the police eventually. Even with evidence so clear, she was taken in for questioning. She answered with no emotions, largely just 'yes' or 'no'. Due to her strange behavior, she was evaluated by a psychiatrist so everyone involved could put the case to rest. Though declared of sound mind — her testimony credible — her psychiatrist also found her emotionally disturbed and dissociative. What else was new?

She had Terry cremated and didn't host a funeral. College continued after winter break. Most people didn't know about her home life, instead treating her as normal: by avoiding her. She scowled a lot, didn't engage in conversations, and stayed away from people.

All of her free time she dedicated to studying. College's end of the semester drew nearer. Just a couple more years and she'd be done with medical school — her degree was practically in her hand. But that didn't make her happy. She hadn't been happy for eight months now, at least. She forgot what it felt like. But it was easy to focus on school now that she had nothing else in her life — no hobbies, no friends, no family; just classes, work, grocery stores, studying…

She lost the house. Instead of going on the waiting list for another, she stayed at homeless shelters and went to the library on her days off-campus.

When she sat in the crowded gymnasium or out in the rainy spring nights freezing to death, she let her imagination take her back to Lucas. She was getting good at it — her fantasies became more and more vivid in her mind. Maybe she was just losing it but those nights where she and Lucas reunited were some of the best nights of her life. Holding hands, sitting in the sun, getting married, having a family; all the while, her troubles would melt away. She'd become deluded enough to imagine herself going back to Louisiana, seeing everything had been absolutely normal there. Never once did she try to rationalize why Lucas had stopped communications, never once did she even bring it up. She was too damn happy about seeing him to care.

Therein lay her solution: gather up all her money and take the old, uninsured car to Louisiana. She wasn't sure what she'd find whenever she'd arrive, but whatever it was would be better than what she had. The drive from Baltimore to Dulvey would be almost 20 hours and over 1,000 miles, but she felt ready to face the trip. The day after her finals, she refused to wait for the results and ventured out. The finals had been easy, she'd surely passed, though her job was not as set in stone. She ghosted and would probably be fired. But they couldn't fire her if she never came back.

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