“And I didn’t care when I realized.” He lets out a shattered laugh. “They deserved it… after what they did to my son. But I always wonderedwhythey hated you so much. Why, Elodie?Why?”
“BECAUSE I KILLED THEIR SON FIRST.” And she screams it and she’s not sorry and she’s sobbing so hard that his grip actually loosens on her hair and she gasps with relief as she slumps to the floor.
It takes a long minute, her cheek against the carpet, flecks of his spittle and blood on her lips, for her to realize he isn’t attacking. He has sat back on his heels and just watches her. Blood pulses down the furrows of his wounds.
She pushes up on her elbows, forcing her breathing to slow, each breath measured as she bites back shuddering sobs.
“I let my little brother drown,” she says, low and terrible and sick. “And they didn’t care that it was an accident. They never cared. They had to h-hate someone, and it had to be me. Even when—” She sucks in a shuddering breath. “Even when Itriedto fix it. I made Jude for myself, but also for them. And they wouldn’t even look at him.”
He says nothing, just crouches there, breathing hard.
Defiance claws up her spine, and she straightens, tendons flexing in her wrists as she clenches her fists, her chest heaving. “All they had to do waslove me too.”
“You’re insane,” he says, so quietly she almost misses it.
“Youstalked me,” she snarls. “Youlied to meabout who you were.”
“You never gave me a chance back then!” His voice is suddenly a tunnel of rage, and he is yelling at her. “I asked friends to set us up and you blew them off. I tried to talk to you once and you walked straight past me. You didn’t even care to know myname.”
She doesn’t even remember. She could laugh right now, in a deranged, terrified way. “Why did you pretend you didn’t know my name?”
“So you’d give it to me.” His teeth are bared. “And you did.”
The look she gives him is disgusted and furious all at once. “That doesn’t mean I gave you myself! I neverowedyou—”
“You used me to get pregnant when I had nofucking idea. Twice. You did ittwice.” His voice cracks then, and blood runs in a fresh rivulet down the corner of his mouth. “I w-wanted a family so goddamn much, and I was so happy when you told me you were pregnant. But—you did that on purpose, didn’t you?” He’s crying, she realizes, from his single good eye.
It makes her feel, somehow, less weak.
“Let me leave.” Her voice is almost even. “Just let me leave, and I’ll stop ruining your life. Bren, please.”
His tears have turned to racking sobs, and he’s folding in on himself now. She could reach out and pull him into her arms, and he would let her. His pain is overtaking his stamina. His bleeding has slowed, but his body must be going into shock, and he won’t be able to keep pushing through the agony much longer.
“I love you.” He is losing his voice, his words rusted out and hopeless. “Ineed you. I need someone who won’t leave, who will be my family in my house. We’ll be like my parents. But we’ll be okay.”
“We’re never going to be okay,” she whispers. “You can… find someone else. Someone better. A perfect wife.”
“No.”It’s a growl, a howl, its agony torn from a mouth festered with excruciating pain.
Part of her knows he will never let her go. That he will tally their sins against each other and find they cancel each other out. He could lock her in a room and then raise Jude on his own. He is too deep into this project of delusional happiness—turning his new house, his new family, into a tomb to immortalize the legacy of what he lost. She was always intended to be a sepulcher for his grief.
She is perfect after all, she thinks. A perfect monster for this monstrous boy.
Her hand reaches out, tentative and careful, as she cups the smooth side of his face and brushes her thumb over his cheekbone.
His eyes close, his ragged breathing slowing as he takes her hand from his face and kisses it.
“Pretend,” she whispers. “Pretend you never knew me and let me go.”
Because this is her favorite game, isn’t it? She is well versed in playing it.
Pretend she didn’t hurt her husband.
Pretend she didn’t kill her family.
She kisses him, and her mouth melts into his with the tender, hungry want of deprivation. His body relaxes and he tips toward her, magnetized still.
“You can be free of me.” She says it into his open mouth, the metallic taste of him staining her tongue. “Jude and I will disappear.”
