Aleah's POV
I was a devil now.
Not in the way people imagine — horns, fire, chaos. No, I was quieter. Sharper. A slow-burning thing that didn't explode but eroded.
Mysterio looked at me like I was an alien, like he didn't recognize what stood in front of him. And he was right — I had changed. I wasn't the soft girl who once clung to kindness like a lifeline. I wasn't waiting to be saved anymore. I had stopped looking for lifelines altogether.
But one thing about me never changed.
My poetry.
The notebook still lived beneath my pillow, filled with the unspoken things. Words I could never say out loud because they made me human, and being human meant bleeding. And I couldn't afford to bleed anymore.
I kept writing — verses that sounded like lullabies but burned like confessions:
I kiss her like a question,
but hold her like a lie.
If I loved her softer,
would she still survive?
Yes, I'm hurting Yasmin. Slowly. Intentionally. And still, she doesn't break. She clings to me with wide eyes and trembling faith, like I'm something sacred — like I'm the girl she used to know.
But I'm not.
I should stop.
But they didn't.
They didn't stop when I cried in bathroom stalls. When Ivy smiled behind my back with her new best friend. When Sage knocked me down with his silence and smug indifference. They didn't stop. So why should I?
Ivy left me. She doesn't even look at me now. Just walks past like I'm part of a life she outgrew.
Sage? He remains what he always was — the devil dressed in sarcasm, smirking from shadows, trying to drag me down every time I rise. But I see through him. He's broken too. He just calls it control.
And me?
I miss me sometimes.
The old me. The soft me. The kind girl who believed words could heal and love could be enough. But that girl didn't survive.
Roses grow thorns for a reason — to protect what's left.
And I am one.
I am broken glass — and I finally understand.
It always cuts.
But sometimes, that's the point.