ｃｈｒｙｓｓｉｅ

ｅｄｍｕｎｄ

Grayson wiped the evidence of his crying away from his face. It was disgusting.

He felt bile rise in his throat.

Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

He was disgusting.

Shakily, he planted his hands on the marble of the sink basin, then forced himself upwards.

He wasn't weak. He didn't cry.

He didn't think about things that made him feel.

Stepping out of the bathroom, he saw Chryssie in the bedroom, reading a book. There was a sad look on her pretty face, as there often was.

Grayson couldn't help but worry.

Flowers had the most innocent, delicate sort of beauty. However, those that were used to warmth and sunshine did not bode well in the dark. They wilted and crumpled, the colour draining out of them, stolen by shadows, until they were nothing but a memory.

He didn't want that to happen to his Chryssie.

He thought himself selfish when he looked closer at her - an angel of light, trapped in the cold confines of his stygian refuge.

She liked to look through the window, he recalled. Sometimes she'd press her hands up against the glass, as if she longed to leave, to be free. Yet, for the most part, she was sweet with him.

Him, her captor.

Him, a monster.

He wished, suddenly, that he could be as innocent and naïve and unknowing as she was. He wished that he could be like her - soft and kind and loving.

But at the same time, he knew that that wasn't possible.

She didn't seem to notice him looking at her, which was all for the better. After all, his eyes were still a bit red from the traitorous tears that had slid down his face.

He shook off the heavy feeling that accompanied sadness, then walked past the bedroom, trying to ignore the thoughts going through his head.

He could almost imagine her voice.

'Grayson, don't kill, it's not right. Grayson, I love you. Grayson, if you really love her, you should let her leave.'

At the last suggestion, he crushed his fist together, banishing his mother's voice from his mind. He didn't care who suggested it to him. Chryssie couldn't leave him like everyone else did.

Though he was always up for a bit of a compromise.

~

When Chryssie stepped outside for the first time in days, she felt free.

She couldn't really even believe that Grayson was letting her go out - after all, he had kept her in his house like a bird in a cage, and last she checked, he had no intention of ever letting her see the light of day again.

But there they were, standing outside amidst a flurry of white flakes.

He had told her that she could go outside explicitly because of the snow - which she found a bit suspicious, but nonetheless, it meant that she got to leave.