He didn’t love her.

Not in the romantic sense of the word.

They’d only known each other six months. Not nearly enough time to fall in love, not really at least.

Even so, in that short time, she had become one of the most important people in his life.

In his darkest days, in the pit of scorn and loathing that he had secluded himself in she had been the one to coax him out. With her tittering laugh and the bumbling cadence of her words, she had charmed him from its depths. She had been the first person to ever look at his morbid art with a look of wonder, a look that he could never score from his memory. Blue eyes twinkling as they looked on a star of bone, pale fingers wrapped around it as if it were some sacred treasure. It was only natural that he would, in turn, look at her the same way. That he would wish that his creation could be his own tattooed and calloused hand twined between her delicate fingers.

She’d become his guiding light with those small gestures, leading him further and further from his self-imposed turmoil. In the following weeks, as he stumbled after her she led him towards an entire sky filled with stars, filled with hope. Towards friends who embraced him not simply despite his shortcomings but because of them. Friends who truly loved him and made him feel that perhaps Monroeville wasn’t so bad.

She had been an effervescent swirl of color in a monochromatic world that wanted to tear them and all of their friends down. Deep in his heart, he knew that without her there was little chance they would have come together as they had. With her open heart and boundless kindness, she had tied them all together and laid the foundation for something that was greater than all of them.

Even when he was locked away in the familiar cells of solitary he felt her presence in the hope and sense of warmth that she had given him.

Now, standing among a throng of people, standing with his friends, he had never felt so desolately alone.

All around him her name was on everybody’s lips. It cascaded through the auditorium, out into the halls, and in every room of the blasphemous prison that was Monroeville. He couldn’t bear to say it, he couldn’t bear to think it. If he did it somehow made it true, it lent credence to Director Blackthorne lies that she was…

How could she have just wandered off? How could she have just accidentally gotten out? Fourteen times, fourteen times Ben had made an escape attempt and only managed to get over the gates once. He had been found within three hours and summarily tossed into confinement. How could she have simply flown under the radar? How many times had he asked for her? How many times had all of his friends?

Mason…

Sophie…

Eli…

Lili...

Beside him he heard sobs, the quiet defiance of a single no, and the sounds of his own feet as he turned and left refusing to utter a single word. He couldn’t bear to be around them right now. He couldn’t bear the thought of breaking in front of them or watching as they crumpled and fell to anguish

Someone stopped him, Ben didn’t recognize them, his brain had ceased all function that was not directly related to getting to his safe haven. The man’s lack of scrubs marked him as some sort of therapist. “Hey there, I heard that you might be having a hard time with everything that’s going on. Someone said that you and that L-”

“Don’t say it,” his words were quiet, a desperate plea rather than the command it was meant to be.

“I know it's tough and that you don’t want to talk about it right now. Just know that my office is always open if you ever change your mind. She was a good kid. Lu-”

The sentence died there. The therapist’s jaw freezing and the flesh about his chin and cheekbones beginning to writhe. Panic replaced the genial look he’d had as his hands went to his lips, frantically feeling his mouth. His lips peeled back revealing the poorly fused together remnants of his teeth. A muffled cry rang out as the man dropped to his knees. The boy couldn’t hear her name said one more time.


Ben stepped around the flailing figure and walked into his room, closing the door behind him. The orderlies would be coming soon. He didn’t care. He was tired of caring, he was tired of hoping. Tears stung his eyes as he looked at the wall directly before him. Stars of bone and paper and clay clung to it in a poor mockery of the night sky. In it there laid an unfinished question.

“Will you b-”

There was no more reason to finish now. He’d gotten his answer. Ben slumped to the floor, his back against the door and his hazel eyes trained on the tile before him. He could hear the cries now.

“Help! He can’t breathe! Ben! Ben did it.”

He promised her that he’d behave. He’d tried. With all of his might, he had tried. From time to time he’d have a slip and every time she gave him that same exasperated look. Would she have done that now? Was there any point in trying to keep that promise anymore?

He hugged his knees to his chest as he unconsciously seized control over his starscape. Bone oozed down the wall and slithered towards his gaunt frame. It coalesced together, forming the rough outline. It was the strongest memory he had of her. It was the moment that he knew that he wanted to be by her side, to be with her.

Before him sat a perfect caricature of Lucy Lovelle, the ivory of his bone a near perfect match to her porcelain skin. She sat there, upon the edge of the roof, a star in her hand, and an absolute look of wonder on her beautiful face.

And Ben...

Ben looked at her like he always did. Like she was the only star in the entire night sky.

He didn’t love her

He didn’t love her because he’d never had the chance to.

He couldn’t love her because now he never could.