Because I saw my face on a documentary reel and didn’t recognize who I’d become. Because every time she says “I’m grateful,” another lock slides back somewhere. Because I loved her. That’s the part I can’t sand off. She turned me into a witness and a weapon. You don’t sleep much after you realize you liked being both.
THE WATCHER:
Say her name.
NORTH:
Shae Halston.
THE WATCHER:
Say yours.
NORTH (long pause; vocoder hums):
I wasn’t just her guard.
[Silence pulls taut.]
NORTH (quiet):
I was the man who loved her.
[The synth undercurrent spikes, then smooths.]
THE WATCHER (soft):
Did she love you?
NORTH:
She loved what I opened. Doors. Narratives. Veins.
THE WATCHER:
What do you want from this interview?
NORTH:
Not absolution. A bruise on the record. Something future believers have to step around.
Segment 11 — “The Things We Don’t Air”
THE WATCHER:
There are details we won’t publish. Names that don’t change the shape of the story—only add blood. But tell the listeners this: you’re not the only one who got close.
NORTH:
No. There’s a producer who thinks he’s different because his lens doesn’t blush. There’s a podcaster who thought proximity could launder guilt. There’s a cop who wanted to be the kind of man his daughter could brag about. There’s me.
THE WATCHER:
She used you to stage legal insanity?
NORTH:
She let the right people overhear the wrong things. “I can’t sleep.” “Sometimes I see things.” “I lose time.” She tried on symptoms like sweaters—whatever made the judge comfortable enough to call her “treatable.”
