My breath catches in my throat. It’s not possible.
“I thought that was just stupid stuff kids did.”
He shakes his head. “I know it was Adam behind it. And this song—this name—it isn’t random. It isn’t meaningless.” His voice drops. “He wiped out an entire rival fraternity. Alone.”
“Alone.” The word doesn’t register right away. “You mean like …” I hesitate, searching for something that makes sense.“Like that movie about the man who killed everyone with a pencil?”
He doesn’t smile. “Adam did it with his hands.”
I let out a long exhale and lower my eyes, pretending I can’t believe it, while in fact I do.
I know what he is.
He’s a killer, and I don’t get to soften that. I don’t get to pretend it’s a rumor, a story, or something exaggerated by people who wanted a monster to point at.
He killed them, sure. Hell, he killed my mother.
The worst part is that I understand it. Not why or fully, but the fact of it doesn’t shock me the way it should.
This is who Adam is. Or at least part of who he is.
And still, when I think of him, that’s not what comes first.
I think of the way he watches me, or when he measures the room for threats. The way his voice drops when he talks to me. The way he stays.
I should be repulsed, I know. I should pull away before this corrodes something inside me.
Instead, I feel torn in half.
Because the man who kills is the same man who protects. The same hands. The same restraint. The same silence.
And knowing what those hands have done doesn’t make me want to run. It makes my chest tighten with something close to fear, and something dangerously close to wanting. Something familiar.
I hate that I don’t know where the line is anymore.
I hate that I’m standing on it, balancing, telling myself I’m still in control.
Adam is a killer.
I know that.
And I don’t know what it says about me that I still want him anyway.
I still believe he’s the asshole I thought he was in the beginning. He still pisses me off more than I dare to admit, with his cunning smirks and spiteful attitude. Yet I still see the man I thought he was when I first saw him.
Someone I want to be next to.
Someone who wants to be loved and is tired of asking for it.
Someone like me.
Fucking idiot!
What the hell was that? Cry like a little bitch in front of her—yeah, that’ll make her stay. Fucking moron.
I bet she’s out there thinking, “Damn, what a mess.”
Or worse, she’s feeling sorry for me.
