Gonna do ombré on Tuesday!

After

Before.

#littlered rides again

“We could do it, you know.” Alyx looked up from the sketchpad in her lap. Just as she though, Loki’s green eyes had already been on her. “Run away. Nobody could find us.” She smirked and looked back to her drawing, shaking her head. “Silly notions, I know…” She grabbed another one of her pencils and went back to her sketching. A few minutes of silence passed, not an awkward silence, but one where two people are content enough to be together, not doing anything. The silence was interrupted, though, by the shifting of fabric and feet on the floor. He knelt down beside her as she looked up once more, her aqua eyes meeting his. “It’d be quite an adventure, wouldn’t it, Alyx?”

“You remember the beginning, right? How you were so hesitant to trust me. Now look.” Alyx smiled up at Damon, a smile tugging at the older man’s lips, her aqua hues meeting his icy ones. They were in the clearing, the place they had first met. Where it had all started. Hands intertwined; after all this time, they’d finally admitted it. “Whatever comes…I have your back, Damon. No matter what.”

To This Day (my version)

theprincessofthewaves:

When I was a kid, moving around was normal;
all military families did it.
By age nine, I was used to it, but that’s when it changed.
We moved to the place my mom grew up.
I had high hopes, I was still relatively innocent to the world at that point; though not completely naive.
5th grade, new school, new friends, and an adventure just waiting to happen.
I just wish someone could have told me just how hard this “adventure” would be.
It was great at first, I had friends, I fit it!
But then I let it slip that I was
different.
I told people about my ADHD and suddenly
I was a freak. Cast out and made fun of.
6th grade, I was diagnosed with a cocktail of severe depression and anxiety.
In 7th grade, my cousin told a lie that had
serious repercussions.
That just gave the kids more ammo.
By the time 8th grade rolled around, I wanted to kill myself.
I didn’t want to go to school because that place had become a battleground
where I kept losing.

It never stopped.
All through high school, and it only got worse.
The names got more profane and the kids, more violent.
The worst part is, no one in that school did a damn thing to help.
But I learned to fight back, to stand up for myself
because no one else would.
When graduation rolled around, there were no teary goodbyes.
Just relief. Pure relief. I thought I had finally escaped.
In a way, I did.

But to this day,
those memories still haunt me,
the words still ring in my ears every time I look in the mirror.
To this day,
I’m a basket case of human emotions,
amplified by the fact that my brain doesn’t quite work right.
A mix of scars— seen and unseen, and prescriptions to keep me sane.
To this day,
all I can see is that crying 9 year old girl
who lost hope much too young.
To this day,
I can’t think of myself as beautiful
no matter who tells me I am.

Because words do hurt. More than a broken arm.
They stay with you, creating doubts and fears.
No matter how strong you are.
Words. Hurt.
I am almost twenty years old and I’m still plagued by those words from so long ago.