It only predicted the inevitable. Because the truth is, it’s exactly that. After spending so many years with people like that, eventually, the hunted learns the way of the hunter and forgets the innocence of what it is to be prey. It’s not a nice truth, or one I necessarily like thinking about.
But it’s true.
I don’t even know if I remember what innocence feels like anymore. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped being scared of the monsters and started learning their language. And yet, a part of me thinks this could have all been avoided. Ifhehad just stayed.
Will.
It doesn’t matter how many times I try to convince myself that it wasn’t his fault. Every time, I reach the same conclusion. Because he left. Because he never cared enough to come back or check on me.
To seewhohe left me with. Sometimes I doubt if my brother ever loved me at all. If he was even capable of it.
That thought alone makes me sick.
When I finally reach the bathrooms, I shove the door open and lock myself in a stall. I lean against the cold metal, trying to steady my breathing, but it only gets worse. My chest tightens, the walls press in, like all of the oxygen has been sucked away, and I feel like I’m suffocating.
Trapped. Trapped in my own mind. Trapped bythem. Byhim.
I force myself out of the stall and splash cold water on my face. The icy shock stings, but it’s not enough to make the achestop. I don’t look in the mirror—I don’t bother. I know what I’ll see. A mess. A failure. Someone barely holding it together.
They’re going to kill me.
He’s going to kill me when he finds out.
I grip the sink, my knuckles pale, my face even paler. My hands tremble so badly I can barely hold on.
And all I can think is that I don’t want to feel this anymore.
What would it be like to feel nothing at all?
So when I go home—and everything falls apart, like it always does—it won’t matter.
Because I’ll already be gone.
Kai
Three years ago
The room is beige. Beige rug. Beige curtains. Beige walls. All of it faintly perfumed with lilies someone left on the sideboard days ago. They’re wilting now.
I’ve been sitting in this pose for at least fifteen minutes—elbow back, spine lifted, shoulder out. My shirt is open just enough to look “seductive” but not excessive.
Their words, not mine.
I don’t mind. I don’t really feel anything anymore when I’m being looked at.
The photographer’s shutter clicks, and he adjusts his lens again. He doesn’t say much.
Victor is by the window, not even pretending to check his phone anymore.
He watches me.
His gaze travels—first to my face, then down. It doesn’t linger long in one place. Just enough. Enough for me to know he’s counting things.
The line of my neck.
The dip of my collarbone.
How far the shirt falls open when I move.
