The skin around Roxy’s eyes is green and her eyes themselves are feral with something unplaceable. They’re always like that now. She can’t actually remember the specific point where they changed, but she remembers that there was a time where she was normal and not quite dainty but definitely something with more innocence than she held now.

Loving is the well worn mistake of her youth, she had told her. Letting them eat her heart and gorge until they were full and warm with candy red. She told her, once, in the middle of the night (I was too trusting. I was a kid. The things she-) and ever since then Diane had stopped pushing to hear what happened to Roxy.

It starts like this: she’s hungry for more sustenance than food can offer. Silent pilferage provided where milk and honey and the sweetest ambrosia failed to fill the meter of dark empty pooling within her. She eats it all in silence with her back against her door so that no one can get in. Diane likes to think she understands it, to a degree.

The answer is wolves. Her family is a pack of the things. Ruthless hunters are her parents - leaders of only themselves. Lone wolves in the best sense, the keenest sense, the type of alone where the helpless flock to be guided by but has space for only one. It must be a gene, because she too is alone in this sense. She adapted to the sting of independence while her sister spiraled into volatility and and reliance on all but self. Her mind screams domesticated and burns the hollow of her chest like the first shot of tequila on a summer night.

Diane supposed that Roxy was of an older dictation of a wolf. Rarely outwardly concerned with anything outside of her pack. She again supposed, while Roxy gripped tightly onto her sleeve as they walked, that she was part of that pack now.

“I think,” Roxy said slowly, “I’d like to go in.”

“Mm.”

She leads Roxy to her apartment. Her gaudy, enough-to-scare-suitors-away apartment. Her parents were inspired by the Palace of Versailles, and the only thing remaining untouched was Diane’s room and her little sister’s, Debbie.

Roxy groaned and slipped her arms around Diane’s waist in the elevator, pressing her head into her shoulder. They hadn’t seen each other in months and she was admittedly starved of the type of attention that Roxy gave her. The type of intimacy they had wasn’t anything she had experienced before.

“Game of Thrones ended so badly.”

“M’yeah?” She knew she didn’t watch it, but Roxy’s opinions formed on how cute the female characters are were always humorous. She untangled herself from her to leave the elevator. Somehow, her hands were constantly ghosting around her, fingers hooking on belt loops and sleeves and anything else she could form a handle out of. She used to tease her about her handsy tendencies but when phrases like safety person and abandonment issues came up in her google searches anything other than encouragement tasted like bile on her tongue.

“I just want everyone to be happy, I guess.” Roxy hums in agreement.

“Happy endings are the best.”

Diane unlocks her apartment door and knocks it open with her hip. Roxy immediately takes off her shoes and latches herself back onto Diane, weaving her hand into hers with expertise.

They sit together on the couch and become a creature of eight limbs. The briskness of the day dissipated in the warmth of their entanglement. The two sat like that for a bit on their phones and whispering to each other when Debbie walked in the living room.

“‘Sup losers.”

She squeezed herself into the far end of the couch. Roxy tapped her thigh a few times with her feet while Diane held Roxy closer to her.

“Cool socks. Are those.. taco dinosaurs? Are we in 2013?”

“Yo shut up, they’re cool.” Diane said.

Roxy nodded in agreement.

“Never said they weren’t. Damn Diane, what’s gotten into you?”

Diane shrugs because, really, she didn’t know. Roxy was quick to show her something on her phone.

“Look at this.” She pressed her screen close to her. “This says I’m a psychopath.”

Diane squinted at the screen and saw the personality test, one from idrlabs. Sure enough, it read in bold black letters “Psychopathy: 94%”. She snorted. Sure, she believed some of the dumb tests had worth, but this was nothing more to her than some psychology major’s self entitled drivel.

“Well, at least you’re not a machiavel.”