If only it were that easy to let go of hate. Just relax your face.

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.

...the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.

It seemed she was in a cathedral—if, that is, the earth itself were to dream a cathedral into being over thousands of years of water weeping through stone.

...and she felt the words come from some iron place within her that hadn't existed an hour ago. She didn't speak loudly, but there was such a change in her voice. Coming from that iron place, it was heavy and true; it wasn't persuasive, or desperate, or antagonistic. It just was.

Alas. I am not an option.

It was sadness, lostness, and the worst thing about it was the way it seemed like a default—like it was there all the time, and all her other expressions were just an array of masks she used to cover it up.