That stopped me. His eyes didn’t leave mine.
“You did it,”he repeated.
“No one held your hand. No one forced you.”
“That’s not –”
“You grabbed it.”
My jaw clenched.
“You swung.”
My hands curled into fists against the ground.
“And you didn’t stop.”
“Don’t you dare try to hand that to me.”
Something in his tone shifted then into something serrated.
“You’ve spent your entire fucking life taking it,”he continued, voice cutting through the space between us, every word barbed, placed exactly where it would land the hardest.
“Standing there, letting him break you down piece by piece like it was just something you had to endure.”My chest tightened.
“You didn’t do anything,”He said.
“Not once.”I looked away. I don’t know why.
“Look at me.”
His hand came up, firm enough to force it, fingers gripping my jaw just enough to turn my face back to him.
“Look. At. Me.”
I did.
“You didn’t give him anything he didn’t give you first,”he said, each word slower now, more controlled, like he was making sure I couldn’t twist it into something else.
“You think that was too much?”I blinked a tear away from my eye and let it slide down my cheek.
“He deserved much worse.”
Something in my stomach dropped.
“Death?”he continued, almost amused now, but there was nothing light about it.“That’s fucking mercy.”
My breath hitched.
“If you wanted revenge,”he said, leaning closer, his voice dropped just enough that I had to focus to catch every word,
“You would’ve taken your time. You would’ve made him feel it. You would’ve –” “Stop.”
It came out weaker than I meant it to. But it still broke something, because hedidstop. For a second, everything went still again. Then something inside me gave. I turned my head away, breath catching wrong, something burning behind my eyes that I didn’t recognize immediately because I hadn't felt it like that in a long time.
“I didn’t –”My voice cracked, and I hated it.
“I didn’t –”Words didn’t come. Because there wasn’t anything that fit. Not for what I had done. Not for what I was starting to understand about it. Because the worst part was that he wasn’t wrong.
