“Is that what you think?” Tom’s voice was barely above a whisper. “That I enjoy it?”
“Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t, probably, because we both knew the truth, even if he’d never admitted it aloud. Even if he’d wrapped his killing in noble intentions and righteous justifications, somewhere beneath all those careful rationalizations was a simple, terrible truth: he did it because he wanted to. Because something broken in him found satisfaction in watching life drain from a body. In playing god. In deciding who deserved to live and who deserved to die.
“You should eat,” he said, falling back on the familiar refrain. Like if he could just get me to eat, everything else would somehow work itself out.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Shay—”
“Don’t.” I closed my eyes, unable to look at him anymore. “Just don’t.”
I heard him move. He hesitated, standing there for a long moment. I could feel his eyes on me, could sense the weight of everything he wanted to say pressing in on the space between us.
“I love you,” he said it quietly, like the words themselves might shatter something—in him or me, I didn’t know. “I know you don’t believe me. I know you think it’s a lie, just another manipulation. But it’s not. It’s the only true thing I have left.”
I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t respond, not wanting to give him anything—not acknowledgment, not absolution, not even anger.
Because what was I supposed to say to that? That there were still moments, even now, when I felt that treacherous pull toward him. What did it say about me that I could still feel anything for him except hatred? That despite everything—the lies, the captivity, the violence—some part of me still responded to his voice, still remembered what it felt like to be held by him?
That I had it in me to love a monster?
The moth was on the bulb again, its wings beating frantically in that desperate, futile way, trying to merge with the light. Trying to become one with the thing that would kill it.
Stop. Please stop.
It didn’t listen to my silent plea. It just kept throwing itself against the glass, over and over, driven by instinct it couldn’t resist.
I watched it until my vision blurred.
Time passed. I didn’t track it.
Eventually, the moth fell.
Dropped out of the air like a stone, landing somewhere on the concrete floor in the darkness beyond the light’s reach.
I stared at the space where it had been moments before, at the empty air that suddenly felt vast and terrible.
Was it dead? Or just exhausted, gathering strength for another attempt? Was there even a difference at this point?
My throat was tight, and not from the bruising Tom had left there. My eyes burned. I hadn’t cried yet—hadn’t let myself, wouldn’t give him that satisfaction of that intimacy. But the tears were there, pressing behind my eyes with physical force, demanding release.
I buried my face in my knees and focused on my breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Just keep breathing. That’s all I had to do. Just keep breathing and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Wait for him to make a mistake. Wait for something—anything—to change.
But what if nothing changed? What if this was it—this basement, this half-life, this slow erosion of everything I’d been?
What if the moth had understood something I was still refusing to see—that the only real choice was how you met the inevitable end?
I pushed the thought away with effort, dragging myself back from that edge. Not yet. I wasn’t giving up yet. I wouldn’t give him that victory.
But the fight had gone out of me, and all that remained was this heavy, aching sadness. This grief for something I’d never really had. For a relationship built on lies. For the person I’dthought I was in love with, who’d never existed at all.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the moth lying broken somewhere in the shadows.
