Conrad Fisher couldn't keep his eyes off of Natasha Conklin because of the way she carried the heavens in her eyes, like one of those old Greek tragedies. As the girl accepted her third solo cup of beer from the boy managing the keg, his pulse was too quick, too loud. Echoing in his ears, in his bones. His heart was in his throat, choking his words, bloodying his breath. His gaze was in the air, trapped and longing, as he watched the girl's wild eyes, slightly insane. He had fallen in love with the way she carried an overload of compassion, which must've cost her something in a world so cruel and twisted. A flower of melodrama in eternal bloom.

          And he watched as a boy, far from sober, sauntered towards Natasha, throwing his arm around her shoulder as she turned to him, recognition flooding her face, hallucinating his halos and holiness when he clearly possessed none.

          "You got a boyfriend back home?" Conrad could hear the drunken boy overwhelming Tasha with questions, the poor girl looking around frantically. She raised her eyes, and they halted on Conrad, imbued with the purity of a midmorning. Virginal eyes without earthly experience.

          "Yeah, she has a boyfriend." Conrad appeared next to her, metaphorical knives aimed at the ineffably pretty neck of the now confused boy. His voice was close to a dark lullaby, onyx armour in his eyes. The boy rushed off with a rapidly beating heart.

          "So, boyfriend, huh?" Natasha teased shamelessly. And the girl saw visions of kissed limbs and bitten mouths, hungering teeth and intertwined limbs.

          "Oh, yeah, just to get him to leave, you know?" She nodded in false understanding. Not wanting to dwell on the thought more than she should, Natasha turned her hazy attention to the bonfire around her. However, she could only think of a million better things she could be doing than people-watching on a beach full of strangers. Divine feminine energy, sun-glossed with sea salt clinging to her skin, Tasha was surrounded by entangled bodies and the strong scent of beer. And as if the situation couldn't get any better, Tasha saw Belly and Steven quarreling from the corner of her eye, moments before her sister fell, a facefull of sand greeting her. "Since when is Belly here?" The girl asked this question to no one in particular, but Conrad standing right beside her shrugged in response.

          Natasha Conklin's aura was esoteric. September girl full of divine feminine energy, hair whipping in the wind that cut down along the beach. And it was no wonder that Conrad Fisher hid his long-lasting crush because mentally, physically, emotionally, she would be his end. Muse, he would have fought the fates for her, constantly masking his head-churning love under a cowardly disguise. I'm in love with your sister.

          "Hey, Connie." A fawn-eyed girl stole their attention, her skin was in between dark and fair, braids framing her face, falling down her back neatly. She seemed to be ethereal, a marble nymph with angelic eyes and unearthly lips. "Oh, moved on already?" Her voice, on the other hand, was hostile towards Natasha. A garden of black and red agonies.

          "Nicole, this is Natasha." This was the girl that Conrad had told her so much about, his date to the last debutante.

          "Cool. Let's go out sometime, then." Inside Natasha Conklin, something seethes, feral animals clawing at her ribcage. Fragile, unholy, ravaging. Rage, like a prayer, unanswered, ricocheting inside her skeleton endlessly. Isn't all rage this ugly?

          "I'm good, Nicole." He took Tasha's hand in his before drawing her away from the strange girl. He touched her as if she were overripe, forbidden fruit, his fingers grazing over her skin with delicate precision. Even when the two parted ways, Conrad leaving to get another drink and Tasha merely wandering, she could feel the remnants of his grasp, veins full of ice while hers were boiling.

          "Hey." She made eye contact with a boy, about her age. He had unruly, dark hair and the softest eyes. Forget stardust, he was iron, blood nothing but ferrous liquid. Iron filled his heart and flowed through his veins, waiting to be forged. He was holding his phone and an empty red solo cup in one hand. "Are you good? You look lost." He said this with the utmost compassion imaginable, and Natasha laughed, the darkness around the two shimmering with clouds of his gilded blood.

          "Just waiting for someone, but thanks for asking." Natasha held out her hand, introducing herself, and the boy took it almost too fast. And Tasha almost wondered if she should warn him not to underestimate her ability to turn him into ruins, shatter his soul. Not to look into her eyes because he would witness a world burning, wild shadows dancing in fire, in mad mourning, in death. Because nothing with Natasha Conklin ever ended poetically.

          "I'm Miles." She smiled at him shyly. He was stunning, almost crafted from the gods themselves. Something about him screamed ancient ruin, thunderstorms. And wasn't friendship its own miracle? The finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?

          "I've actually never been surfing." Miles admitted as they made conversation, and Natasha's eyes widened in shock as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, almost ashamed. "You've lived in Cousin's your entire life and you've never gone surfing." Her jaw was slack open, staring at the boy. He had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise. He felt familiar, solid and safe. Natasha wanted to cling to his shirt, bury herself in the warm curve of his neck.

          Miles Monroe was a radiant life, and Natasha Conklin didn't bother to push him away because he smelled of cheap beer and Tom Ford's Noir which she craved with every straining beat of her rotting heart. He was nothing like Conrad Fisher. He didn't pretend, and he surely didn't demand her unconditional love. Maybe Natasha was drunk, but the way he sweet-talked her felt the exact opposite of August rain. The best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. An odd, uneven time.

          "Yeah, maybe you could teach me sometime." And Natasha smiled at the thought. But their meeting was cut short by the sound of yelling, and Tasha spun around, twisting like a sunflower at the sound of Conrad's voice. He was eruptive and vulgar, and Natasha was quite choked with tenderness for him.

          "What's your problem, man?" Conrad and the boy from the gas station were quarreling, raising their voices more and more by the second. "Give me my beer back, I paid for this." Natasha watched as the two boys snatched the glass bottle back and forth, both so close to making the first blow. Conrad's jaw was clenched, trying to stay civil as the boy taunted him, pulling on the delicate strings of his heart.

          "I'm so sorry, I have to go. That's my ride home and I'm kind of responsible if he ends up in the fucking hospital." She turned back to Miles. who nodded in understanding and followed the girl to get a better look at the commotion.

          "Cut it out." Natasha caught sight of Belly, attempting to pull them away from one another. Unsuccessfully, the girl got thrown to the ground once again, violently. For a second, Natasha wondered if she should help her sister, but an unknown boy rushed up to her before she could decide.

          "Belly." Conrad tried to reach her but instead got forcefully punched in the stomach. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He yelled but achieved nothing, getting beaten again. A crowd gathered around them, Jeremiah trying to jump in and help his brother. Natasha stayed by Miles' sides, grasping onto his bicep as if it were her lifeline. Her anxious heart was devouring her body, devouring her nerves, devouring her brain. Poison slowly filled her veins, every particle becoming slowly tainted until she couldn't help but do something about it herself.

          "Get your hands off him. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Natasha shouted over the commotion, over the mortifying ordeal of attention being drawn to her. But, truth be told, Natasha Conklin was absolutely shitfaced, and there was nothing else she could really do than yell until her throat dried up and nerves cooled.

          "Man, keep your bitch on a leash." The register boy sneered and this comment caught Tasha's full attention, but her meant-to-be snarky remark got stuck in her throat, only allowing herself a single breath as she awaited for Conrad's inevitable response.

          "What did you just say?" Conrad's eyes glistened with an unrecognizable, feral glare that Natasha had never seen before. His expression was trying to communicate something completely uncommunicable, to explain something inexplicable. He swung his arm, with strength that he didn't have merely seconds before, landing a powerful punch on the boy's chest as he coughed in strangling recovery.

          "Hey, guys, come on." Jeremiah pulled the two apart before the fight could escalate any further, just as the uncanny sound of sirens and flashing of blue and red lights flickered around the beach. The crowd dispersed, panicking. Miles carried Natasha away, against her screams to reach Conrad, holding her against his chest as he navigated them through the maniacal situation. Tasha relaxed in his comforting confinement, pointing out her car, and Miles walked her to the parking spot, his eyes never leaving the brunette.

          "Before I forget." Natasha took the boy's phone from his right hand, flipping it back around to unlock it with his facial ID, before opening up his contacts and adding her number. Because Miles Monroe was the first boy to ever show Natasha Conklin his thorns, and in turn she had shown him hands ready to bleed. The boy touched her and suddenly she felt a little less heartbroken, war torn. She wasn't sure exactly what heavenly peace was supposed to feel like, but in the moment, it felt a lot like the messy haired womanizer standing in front of her.

          "Call me." She climbed into the backseat of the car, where a knocked out Conrad sat propped up against the door. She got in, adjusting herself so that Conrad's head moved from the door to her lap. She ran her fingers through his messy hair, soothing him, as she did when he was younger with the summer flu. Jeremiah got into the driver's seat, mentioning something about Steven going home with a girl he met at the bonfire. Jeremiah spotted Belly talking to the mystery boy from the bonfire, but neither of these seemed to bother Natasha as she blankly stared out the window, watching the waning moon slowly sink behind the horizon. "Watch Conrad. I'll be right back." Jeremiah instructed Natasha before leaving the car.

          They waited in silence for a couple moments before Conrad spoke up. "Your eyes are beautiful." Natasha looked down, caught completely off guard. "They always have been." His eyes were closed, a small smile tugging at his lips, and the brunette was so sure he could feel the butterflies in her stomach. Just the simple compliment itself made her heartbeat increase like a metronome, and she tried so hard to conceal the blush rising to her cheeks. "Thanks, Connie."

          "And your hair is always so neat. Even when it's messy it looks amazing. And your makeup looks good even though you don't need it. And your dress. Fuck, I wish you hadn't worn it because every guy was staring at you."

          Natasha couldn't breathe. She refused to look at him, unsure of what to say. Surely, he was just drunk. But drunk words are sober thoughts. Susannah had taught her that and she had never forgotten to mention that Tasha was destined for one of her boys. Jeremiah or Conrad. Tasha always hoped it would be Conrad, and as the boy lay in her lap, half unconscious, her heart was quite literally beating out of her chest. Her throat dried up, her mouth glued shut, her mind concentrating on what she could possibly say. "Shut up, you're drunk."

          "That guy you were talking to. I hate him." He paused, mumbling something incoherent to Natasha's straining ears, the girl hanging onto every spoken word. "It's always been you, not Belly, not Nicole. Tasha ..."

          "Get in the car." Jeremiah's irritated voice scolded the girl and the boy got into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut. Belly got into the car a few seconds later, and Natasha caught sight of the mystery boy waving her goodbye before Jeremiah slammed the pedal, causing the entire car to jolt forward harshly.

          Natasha looked down at a sleeping Conrad, heavy breathing escaping his parted lips. She traced his jawline as he slept, fingers tracing over the constellation of birthmarks mapped over his skin. Her heart fluttered once again as a small smile graced his lips, all thoughts of Miles Monroe slipping away into sweet oblivion.