The Ghost Who Loved Me

Content note: this scene references self-harm.

On the night I climbed to the edge of the rooftop to end it, someone caught me.

Skin drained white. Hair black as if soaked in rain. Lashes lowered long over a pale face. And eyes strangely, unbearably sad.

He didn't look like he belonged among the living. The edges of him blurred like thin fog, and where his feet met the rooftop, he cast no shadow. Still, I couldn't look away. Not out of fear he was simply too beautiful. Precarious as a shard of broken glass, quiet as a corpse drowned in moonlight.

He came toward me, slow. "Sorry I'm late." A cold hand closed around my wrist. Late? I'd never seen him before in my life. "I've watched you cry for two hundred and seven days." His hand was cold as ice and yet, somehow, I couldn't pull away. "From tonight, I'll keep you safe."

After that night, the ones who had tormented me began to meet strange ends. One by one. Horribly.