He looked for me, she tried to kill me.
The two things sat next to each other in my head like they belonged together, like they were part of the same sentence, and I couldn’t make them separate again. My pulse got louder. I could feel it in my throat, in my wrists, even in my fingertips where they rested uselessly against my knee. It didn’t stay steady, it jumped, skipped, came back harder.
I became aware of the knife again, because it pressed into me when I shifted my weight, just enough that it reminded me it wasthere. I almost reached for it. Because it was the only rational reaction I could come up with.
It’s fucked up, isn’t it?
Have you ever had that moment where you realize you could’ve done something before you even knew you were going to?
Yeah… I sat there, in his living room, surrounded by things that were clean and expensive and taken care of, and I felt like something had split open inside me without making a sound.
Shattered is too simple of a word for it, it was messier than that.
Like something had been holding everything together without me noticing, and then it just let go without warning, with no control over where the pieces went. I thought, I actually thought it, and that’s what stained me: was she right? Because look at me.
Look at where I ended up, look at the things I’ve done.
Real things, things that don’t leave once they happen, and now I was sitting there. In his house, with a knife pressed against my back, listening to him talk about how he tried. And all I could think of was, maybe she saw it.
Maybe she knew.
Maybe it wasn’t madness, maybe it was fear, real fear.
The kind that doesn’t come out of nowhere, the kind that recognizes something before it even has a name. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands hanging between them like I’d forgotten what they were for. I stared at the floor, didn’t trust looking at him, didn’t trust what might happen if I did.
Would it have been better if she had succeeded in killing me?
That thought didn’t even hesitate, it came straight through everything else. I let out a breath that didn’t feel like mine, because the answer came just as easily.
Yes.
I would’ve missed all of this, I wouldn’t be sitting there, I wouldn’t have done any of it, none of it would exist. I swallowedhard, my jaw tightening again without me noticing until it hurt. I would’ve been… nothing, and honestly, that felt easier. That’s the worst part, I think. Not so much the thought itself, but how right it felt. Like it settled into place better than anything else had so far. My life, I don’t even know how to say it without it sounding wrong, but it felt like a long accident. Something that kept going when it shouldn’t have.
And look at me now, little Ghost.
I’m here, exactly where she thought I would end up, exactly what she was afraid of, and I can’t even say she was wrong.
“Rowan.”It took a second before I reacted to it.
Like my name had to travel through something thick before it reached me. I blinked, once, maybe twice. My eyes were still fixed somewhere lower, not really seeing anything, just fucking stuck. When I looked up he was already watching me. I don’t know what he saw exactly. Something in my face must’ve changed, because his expression… there was something in it that made me want to look away again, but I didn’t. I held it, even though it felt wrong.
“So…”my voice came out uneven, thinner than I expected. I cleared my throat, tried again, slower this time.
“She tried to kill me… while I was still inside her?”
I didn’t dress it up and even though I had just read it, it sounded ugly out loud. He just nodded, and I hate how much that did. I exhaled, but it didn’t feel like relief. It just left my body and didn’t make space for anything new. My chest stayed tight, like something was sitting where it shouldn’t be. He started talking again, broke the silence and everything that tried to take shape in it.
“Doctors believed it was a form of psychosis after the birth,”he said carefully, like he was stepping through something fragile.
“But it didn’t start there, not really. She had… difficulties before that. I just didn’t understand how far it would go.”he paused briefly, like he was checking himself, or maybe checking me.
“She told me things early on. Small things, but enough that I thought I understood the situation. I didn’t see the full picture, not until it was already too late.”
I dropped my gaze again.
The floor was steady, at least that was something. My vision didn’t blur, but it felt like it might if I didn’t focus on something simple. The lines in the wood, the way the light hit it, anything that didn’t move. Because inside, it didn’t feel like there was enough air. I took a breath, deeper this time, or tried to. It stopped halfway, my lungs didn’t fill properly. I could feel it, physically, like something was pressing inward, not letting it expand the way it should.
Another breath.
