So instead I tilt my chin up. Just a little.
Not defiant.
Not scared.
Just… tired.
Tired of the half-truths. Tired of patching holes in my memories with duct tape and denial. Tired of waking up in someone else’s version of the past.
“You said I left you there,” I whisper. “That night. In the church.”
He doesn’t answer.
Not right away.
And that silence is louder than any scream he’s ever pulled from me.
I step back.
Just one step.
But he follows.
One step closer, until we’re toe-to-toe, his breath brushing my lips, his stare pinning me in place like a nail through paper.
“I did.”
He says it quiet.
Flat.
But I see the way his jaw tics. The way his fingers curl like he’s holding something in.
“But you didn’t tell me what happened after,” I say.
Still barely breathing.
Still clutching that phone like it’s the only thing tethering me to the present.
His gaze darkens. Shadow blooms beneath his eyes. And when he speaks again, it’s not smooth anymore. It’s cracked. Like something broke behind his teeth.
“Because you didn’t want to know.”
“Try me.”
He closes his eyes.
Breathes in like he’s about to confess.
But then?—
He smiles.
No, hesmirks. That crooked, broken,Damienkind of smirk that saysif you want the truth, you’ll have to bleed for it.
“Tell me something first,” he murmurs, voice low and sharp. “When you were locked in that asylum with your pills and your white walls and your therapist who said you were hallucinating—did you ever see moths?”
The blood drains from my face.
