"You can't stay with me."
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AT PRECISELY 2 A.M., Diana sat in the park and gazed up at the night sky. She had dreadfully realized that with each passing night, the stars shone less and less brightly.

"I'm going to be stuck here forever," she whispered. She meant it quite literally. After all that she had done, she was trapped. If not in this cursed town, then in the cursed mind of hers.

"Well, so am I," Luke said back, although for completely different reasons. He was trapped by the responsibility for his family, trapped in the small town only to serve others. "Guess we'll be stuck together forever."

To Luke, the night was just like any other night with his midnight beauty. He was in a light mood and hadn't realized the seriousness of his promise.

But in Diana's cursed mind, all she heard was lie lie lie lie lie.

Nobody could know what she had done.

"You don't understand," she breathed. The visions that haunted her, the voices that screamed at her... How could he understand when she didn't even understand it herself?

Help me, she wanted to say.

I didn't do it on purpose, she wanted to cry.

I just want it to stop, she wanted to scream.

She was losing her mind. The voices just kept talking over each other.

"Well, it seems I have forever to do so," he said softly.

Diana stepped away from him. Forever. Yet another promise meant to be broken.

"You'll leave eventually," she spat. "You'll leave when you find out."

Luke didn't understand the nonsense she was spouting. His eyes filled with confusion at her harsh tone. All he wanted was for her to look at him the way she did before. "I would never leave you," he promised dumbly. "I lo-"

The words caught in his throat.

"What?" Diana suddenly yelled. "What were you going to say?" Her green eyes flashed under the night. "What were you going to say? That you love me?" She threw her head back and let out a twisted laugh, spitting out the word she so despised once again, "Love."

Her hands gestured wildly in the air before coming down to pull at her hair. The world around her seemed to spin as the lines in her vision began to blur. The voices had gotten louder.

Ignoring the pounding in his heart, Luke threw himself into the madness. He saw the flames in her eyes, saw the desperate cry for help. And although every rational bone in him told him she was poison, he gladly let himself be compelled by her.

So he gripped her wrists, trying to stop her movements before she hurt herself. Her crazed eyes met his and he felt those electrifying green eyes completely consume him.

He pulled her to him, feeling her body tremble against his.

"Fuck love," he said as he looked at her intensely. "Who needs love when we have forever?"