And that terrifies me.
—T.F.
Tahlia
Iforgot how light feels.
Not the artificial kind, not the bulb overhead that never flickers, never dims—just stays on like an insult, like a constant reminder that time passes differently here.
I mean sunlight.
The kind that doesn’t burn unless you need it to, the kind that warms skin instead of scorching it.
The kind I don’t know if I’ll ever see again.
There’s a clock on the wall, mounted in an ornate frame that probably cost more than my entire life before this.
Not that it matters anymore.
It ticked for the first few days, until I threw a pillow at it and knocked the battery loose in a fit of rage I barely remember. Now it just stares at me, dead and smug, hands frozen at some arbitrary time, like it knows something I don’t. Like it’s keeping a time I’m not invited to follow anymore.
The silence isn’t quiet the way silence should be.
It whispers.
His voice is still everywhere, embedded in the walls, woven into the very air I breathe.
“Toys don’t get to speak unless spoken to.”
“I like you better when you’re trembling.”
“You break so beautifully.”
Sometimes I press my palms to my ears and scream just to hear something that isn’t him—but even then, it’s still him underneath everything. Underneath my voice. Underneath my breath. Underneath my skin like he’s been tattooed into my DNA.
I want to hate him.
I do hate him.
But it’s getting harder to remember where the hate ends and the want begins, harder to find the line that separates the two emotions.
I’m scared of what that means because the mirror is still shattered, a spiderweb of cracks spreading from the impact point.
The chair is still in pieces, velvet torn and wood splintered.
And I haven’t spoken aloud in…
God, I don’t even know how long it’s been.
Not since I threw the necklace.
Not since I pressed my forehead to the cold tile and pretended I could disappear into it, become part of the architecture.
Not since he ran in here, tore the glass from my hand with that look on his face I’ve never seen before, and told me I didn’t get to leave him.
Not even in death.
And I hate him.
