The sun in her town always looked tired. Like it had seen too much.
Rihanna Thompson kicked a pebble along the dusty road, her backpack slung over one shoulder, hair stuck to her neck from the sticky afternoon heat. The small semi-urban neighborhood where she grew up had a strange kind of silence to it. Not the peaceful kind—no, this one had weight. Like the calm that came before something terrible.
"Ri, wait up!"A familiar voice called from behind. She turned to see Aaron, her neighbor and best friend since second grade, huffing as he jogged to catch up.
"You'll die from heatstroke one day," he teased, handing her the ice lolly he'd been holding behind his back.
Rihanna smirked, taking it wordlessly.
They walked in silence after that, the kind only childhood friends could share without it feeling awkward. The kind that said everything.
Their neighborhood was the kind where everyone knew everyone, and no one had secrets—or at least, that's what the adults pretended. But Rihanna had always watched. Always noticed the cracks in voices, the sharpness in smiles, the way her mother never really laughed after her father left.
Home wasn't a warzone. But it wasn't a haven either.
Inside, their house smelled like incense and overcooked lentils. Her mother, thin and prematurely aged by heartbreak, was muttering to herself in the kitchen.
"You're late," she said without looking up.
"I was with Aaron," Rihanna replied, kicking her shoes off.
"Of course," her mother said flatly.
She didn't argue. There was no point. Everything had been distant since the day her father packed a small bag, kissed Rihanna on the forehead, and never came back.
She was nine then.
Now at sixteen, she had mastered the art of looking unaffected.
Later that evening, Rihanna sat on the rooftop, knees pulled to her chest, watching the horizon bleed into pink and orange.
From her pocket, she pulled out a crumpled page torn from a secondhand romance novel she wasn't allowed to read. The words were smeared, but she knew the lines by heart.
"He held her like she was made of porcelain and ruin. And she let him, because maybe she was."
She didn't know it yet—but this was the beginning of her obsession.
Not with love.
With a specific kind of love. The kind that hurt. The kind that left bruises in pretty shapes. The kind she'd one day walk straight into, eyes wide open.
From the street below, Aaron yelled something dumb, trying to make her laugh.She smiled faintly. Not at him, but at a thought that came uninvited.
Someday, I want to be loved like those girls in the mafia books.
She had no idea that one day she would be.
And it would destroy her.