I didn’t say anything about it.
I stopped saying a lot of things around that time.
There was this web I kept walking past, don’t ask me how many times, I couldn’t tell you if it was days or weeks or if it was the same day repeating itself in slightly different ways, but it was always there. Stretched between two low branches, just off to the side where most people wouldn’t notice it unless they were looking for it. I always noticed it. It was anchored perfectly. Not symmetrical, spiders don’t care about that, but it was balanced. Every thread pulled where it needed to be, no wasted movement. It didn’t question itself; it didn’t second-guess.
It justwas.
And everything that touched it… stayed. I think that’s what got to me. Not the web itself, not even the spider, I barely ever saw it, but the fact that once something was caught, it didn’t matter how much it struggled. The more it moved, the worse it got. It wrapped itself tighter without even understanding how.
Zwierek started talking more. Or maybe he always had, and I just started hearing it differently, I don’t fucking know, but something shifted in the way his voice landed, like it didn’t justpass through me anymore, it stuck. Sometimes he’d sit too close, watching.
“You’re slower lately,”he said once, like he was commenting on something insignificant. I kept my eyes on the knife in my hand, didn’t even remember picking it up, if I’m being honest, and just… breathed. He leaned forward.“Elaborate,”I muttered.
“You take longer to understand things,”he said.
“Or maybe you just pretend you don’t.”That wasn’t even the worst part.
It was the way he said it, like it was already decided. Like I didn’t get a say in it. I looked at him then. Really looked. That scar in his brow had settled by that point, pulled the skin just slightly when he moved his face, like it was always there, reminding you of something you missed the first time around.
“You talk too much,”I told him.
He smiled. God, I fucking hated that smile sometimes.
“Only when you avoid answering,”he said. And then, just like that, his expression changed.
“You know what your problem is?”He kept talking, and it only made it worse.“You still think you’re something worth fixing.”
I stayed the same on the outside, but I felt something in my chest tighten.
“You think there’s a version of you that comes out of this clean,”he continued, watching me too closely, like he was waiting for it to land.
“Like if you just… survive long enough, it’ll mean something.”He tilted his head.“That’s pathetic.”
There it was. Placed exactly where it would hurt the most. And then, because he’s fucking sick like that, he softened. Like it never happened. Like he hadn’t just reached inside me and twisted something I didn’t even know was exposed. He leaned back, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed.
“Relax,”he muttered.
“You’re doing fine.”
Fine? I almost laughed.
I think I did.
I don’t remember.
You see what I mean, little Ghost? It didn’t make sense. None of it did. He’d cut into me and then act like he was the one holding me together, like I needed him to stay standing, like I’d fall apart without him. And maybe, maybe I would have. That’s the worst part. I’d start doing something and finish it without remembering the middle. I’d say something and hear it back from him later, like I hadn’t said it at all. Or like he had. That one bothered me more than I let on. I remember asking him something about it once. Not directly, I’m not stupid, but close enough.
“Do you ever feel like things repeat?”I asked. He didn’t even look at me.
“No.”
And that was it. I didn’t ask anything else, and he didn’t ask back either. Zwierek had always been the only one I could lean on, the only one I could rely on, but even that had started to blur. I still trusted him, of course I did. What we had ran deeper than blood. But the support that had always felt solid had started to feel unsteady.
Days kept folding into each other. The cabin felt different depending on when I looked at it. Same walls, same table, same fucking floor that creaked in the exact same place, but sometimes it felt like a place we lived in, and other times it felt like something we were stuck inside. Like it was holding us. Or just me. I stopped trying to decide. He brought it up again, out of nowhere.
“What now?”
I was sitting down, I think, and I remember the way the light hit the floor more than I remember how I got there.
