When Alyssa finally came back to school, Bruno never got the opportunity to talk with her again. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, she would simply fall through the shifting gaps in the crowd and vanish, Bruno looking onward as she seemed to retreat back into her old life. Rumors spread fast, but everyone still only whispered the worst behind her back.

Worst of all, she never showed up again to write music alongside Bruno. And that’s how it went on for months as the winter wore off and bloomed with rosy petals until they fell in the fall.

Finally, Bruno showed up outside the window, knocking while he saw her diligently scribbling on her table, the pencil quickly moving back and forth while her head was still lowered. She turned over her shoulder and cracked open the window.

Bruno was breathless with both anxiety and anticipation as he climbed in, chest heaving. “Alyssa,” he choked out, barely able to stop himself from crying.

She didn’t say his name but wrapped her long arms around him while he buried his face into her shoulder, crying. Remaining apathetic, she tried her best to comfortingly rub his back.

“You’ve been avoiding me this entire time, and I…” he swallowed for a moment, pulling back while his hand floundered desperately in front of him, “and I feel like I dreamt it all. Like you never cared about me.”

“Of course I cared about you,” she said, her contralto voice strained and husky at the edges. She paused for a moment and grabbed his hand, checking for any long-term injuries. After the incident, she gave him some money to get it checked out, and that was the last of it. She rolled his hand over, rubbing her fingers over his scarred knuckles and feeling the callouses on the tips of his fingers. Her eyes dropped down towards his shoes, noticing the new gray pair. “You got new shoes. I liked the old black ones more. I thought they fit you.”

Bruno looked at her for a moment, blinking unsteadily before quickly withdrawing his hand. “That’s all you have to say to me? That you liked my old shoes more?” He stepped up to her and balled his hand before throwing it against her chest. He repeated it over and over and over again tears spilling out of his face. “Is that it? Is that all I was to you?” He was shouting now and collapsed to the floor, wiping his face.

“My parents are home,” she reminded him, looming over him while he cried at her feet. “I think it’s best if we pretend we never knew each other.” She looked over her shoulder and pursued her trembling lips.

He wiped his tears with his sleeves before standing up. “Are you just going to give up everything you love? Did you quit music, too?”

Alyssa only nodded, her far-away eyes looking black, staring far beyond where Bruno was standing. “I need to focus on my duty.”

Bruno’s body shook in front of her, whether it be with rage or shock or desperation, and he pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it in front of her before shoving it in her face, and she quickly realized it was the piece she wrote him. “Does this mean nothing to you?!” He cried, his hand trembling and barely able to hold on to the paper. “Are you really going to quit? Just like that?”

“You should think about your future more, Bruno. Music is a tough career in a world like this.”

The corners of his eyes were pink and desperate with tears as he brought the paper to his chest and looked at it for a moment. His face suddenly hardened, and he looked straight at Alyssa’s hazy eyes as he tore up the paper into scraps. He crumbled it up into his hands before throwing it into the garbage bin underneath her desk.

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“At least I’m going to do what I love, Alyssa. You couldn’t say the same for anything you do.” He said the words which spite in every word as he looked at her, and his shoulders heaved up and down with every sob. “You’re a coward.”

Alyssa’s lips parted for a moment but her face remained the same. She walked up to her bedroom door and opened it. “You can leave through the front door. My parents are on the other side of the house, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself by going out the window.” She tried to reach out to him, but he quickly swatted her hand before he walked out.

He looked behind him for a moment as if he wanted to say something, but he turned back around and walked off.

“Goodbye, Bruno. Take care of yourself.” She whispered the words when he was too far to hear them, and she watched him walk down the steps and out the door.

Gently shutting her bedroom door, she slid to the floor, burying her face into her hands. Her eyes suddenly burned and her nose stung, her vision blurring from the sides between the tears moved to the middle, threatening to spill over. She brought a hand to her face and felt the tear on her fingertips, staring at it before wiping it away on her clothes.

“I really am a coward,” she muttered, suddenly hating the way her body sat in her skin so much that she could only tear out of it with the skin around her nails, feeling the stinging pain as she pulled further and further up her fingers, unable to stop the bubbling, unbearable disdain that welled up inside of her suffocating skin.

She put her bleeding fingers between her supple lips, sucking on the blood while she stood up and sat back down in front of her desk. She picked up her pencil, her foot accidentally brushing up against the trashcan on the floor, and she continued her homework.

Not long after, she heard a knock on her window. She quickly changed her facial expression to one of neutrality as she turned around, seeing Morrigan’s smiling and joyful face in the window. Alyssa opened the window as everyone flooded in, including Bruno, and Morrigan’s animated voice filled her room. Alyssa looked up at Bruno for a moment but he only stared at the ground, at his gray shoes.

“I had an announcement!” Morrigan declared, sitting on the large rug beside Alyssa’s bed. “Okay, I’m going to…”

Alyssa got out of the bathtub, pulling the plug as the water tumbled into the drain and into some unknown resting place. She wrapped herself in a towel. The vanilla candle had been burning for a while now, and although she could no longer smell it, she was left with the nauseous feeling of abnormality that candles always left. The way they suffocated the room with their melting smell and left her wondering what air smelled like.

She blew out the candle, relieved by the sudden smokiness that wafted into her face before the vanilla returned. It didn’t feel this suffocating on that day with Bruno. She was never able to replicate it no matter how cold it was or how much she filled her room with memories of him.

Drying herself off, Alyssa stared at her inflamed skin in the mirror. She prodded at it, the way it stuck to her bones no matter how pruned it became, the way it sagged and was etched with every mistake she made, every blemish, every scar every bruise.

Finally, Alyssa asked herself something. Could Morrigan be a reason to keep on living? Is Morrigan the chance for me to live the way I want, not in a world that takes more and more from me without giving back?

She stared at herself again in the mirror, waiting for one of them to speak up.

No.

Because no matter what happened in the future, she was still Alyssa. Whether that meant giving up her safety for her friends or her sanity for her family, she would never receive. She would never get.

She threw on her clothes again to hide her skin, and jumped at the sound of the bellowing front door. “Coming!” She shouted in her exalting voice as she ran down the stairs, flinging open the door.

“Morrigan, Elizabeth! Let me get some food and drinks set up for you two,” Alyssa said, flashing a warm smile as the two headed in while talking to her about the fundraiser.

She could only give, never get. Because this world would keep taking.