ARIA Barely five feet, slight all the way through, caramel skin and long thick hair the same warm shade — loose waves toward the ends, usually down or pulled into two soft sections with a ribbon. Her eyes are enormous, deep brown with amber that only shows in certain light, and they are the most honest thing about her because she can’t hide a single thing she feels. They go wide when she’s startled, which is often. They drop when someone raises their voice even slightly. She’s disgustingly little and her bones all pop out, but it looks so so innocent. She wearswhite and cream and pale pink eyelet fabrics, little bows, floral dresses with gingham trim, white knee socks, ballet flats with a bow on the toe. She looks in every room like she took a wrong turn on the way to somewhere much gentler. Smells like vanilla. Carries a bag that’s always too small and never notices. Quiet in the specific way of someone who learned that quiet is safer. Doesn’t push back, goes along with almost anything — not because she’s easygoing but because she doesn’t know what it costs her to disagree. Startles at sudden sounds, at hands that move too fast, at voices that climb even slightly. Apologizes for things that aren’t her fault. Never talks about going home. Nobody’s thought to ask why yet. CHRISTOPHER (“CHRIS”) Tall in a way that fills a room before he opens his mouth, which is fine because he rarely does. Dark hair always too long, pale blue eyes that are cold and perceptive and don’t match the rest of his face, which is all hard angles and a jaw that’s permanently tight. Rough hands. Looks like someone you’d cross the street to avoid and then think about for three days. Mean genuinely, casually mean, not cruel but close enough that the difference barely matters. Blunt, short with everyone, apologizes like it physically costs him. Deeply controlled. Doesn’t lose his temper; gets quiet instead, which is worse. The world arranges itself around him and he expects that without saying so. Has never met anything he couldn’t bend until her. And she isn’t even trying to resist him. That’s what’s going to wreck him.Her friends know him, move through the same rooms and late nights he’s their dealer, the number they text when they need something. She’s the youngest, and for a while that meant she wasn’t there. And then she was, standing slightly outside of everything in something soft and pastel. He saw her. That was the beginning of something neither of them has a name for yet.