Michael II

Stepping into the backyard it had been years since she’d ventured into, her childhood somehow had never felt further. Despite the midnight sky bearing down on her with the weight of hot, stifling tar, she never felt more naked than she had stumbling down the sheared grass hill. Part of her was so sure the last few weeks had been a strange hyper-realistic fever dream. That she’d wake in a hot sweat on Vincent’s chest. She would have fallen asleep under the sheets on a particularly hot night. Nightmares had plagued for hours that had felt like days until she finally shook from its fugue… Yet the further she delved into what memories of Michael she had always thought insignificant, the more it made sense.

He had been there for all her major events; her first day of school, her social debut, her graduation… he’d congratulated her engagement before her own father had—though Bradley had seemed rather smug in his own way. She’d been far too consumed in her t