It looks old, worn, steeped in despair. Sharing a room with it feels like sharing space with an executioner’s block.
It isn’t salvation. It isn’t escape from my father. It’s something far more twisted.
The longer I stare, the more it seems alive. Waiting. Beckoning. Every thread a chain. Every stitch a nail in the coffin.
I can almost hear the fabric whispering promises of suffocation. Of erasure. Of silence.
My stomach twists, bile rising. My hands dig into the mattress until my nails ache.
Finally, I reach beneath my pillow. My last secret. My last fragment of hope. A scrap of paper, folded so many times the edges have softened, hidden in the lining for weeks.
The address Trey gave me. His handwriting.
I hold it to my chest like scripture, like oxygen.
I was born in a prison, but Friday, they’ll bury me in it.
Not if I run first.
I tuck the paper and my ID into my cardigan pocket. The only pieces of myself left.
The dress looms. The candle dies.
I curl on the bed, eyes open to the dark, and whisper into the silence.
“I’m coming, Trey.”
Not because I believe he’ll save me. Not because I believe in fairy tales.
But because he gave me one thing no one else ever did.
A door.
A choice.
And tomorrow night, I’ll walk through it.
Chapter seven
Trey
Snuff – Slipknot
“Mac, honestly… I blame you,” Chace says, dead calm, like he’s the one suffering as I walk into the apartment, the elevator announcing my arrival.
Mac’s curled against Logan on the couch, “I accept zero responsibility for your terrible cooking habits.”
Logan’s smiling, quiet, watching them go back and forth like he’s been waiting for this.
“How can you say that? It’s science.” Chace waves a hand, like the word itself settles it. “Higher heat, less cooking time. No need to leave it for ages to prove. Simple. Logan, get your woman in line. She’s arguing with me about science, bro.”
I can see by the flare of Mac’s nostrils that she’s about to blow.
“Fuck right off with that shit. Baking is part science, sure, but it’s also art. Instinct.” She elbows Logan. “Right, baby?”
His smirk falters for half a second as he glances between them, but he still gives her what she wants. “You’re right, angel.”
“See? Baby’s got my back.” She squeezes him, hard enough that he grunts.
