Page 16 of Catcher

Let it freeze everything inside me solid, so I don’t have to feel any of this.

I brace my hands against the tile, head hanging forward as the water pounds against my neck, shoulders, and back.

But it doesn’t stop it.

Nothing does.

Because now the memories are clearer.

Sharper.

Her hands on my chest were small, soft, and trusting. The way she looked at me was like I wasn’t broken or already six feet under.

My fingers curl hard against the tile. Then my wife is there again, but it is not a memory this time. A ghost. Her face. Her voice. The life we were supposed to have. The life I lost, the life I buried, and now I’ve gone and tainted it.

“You piece of shit,” I repeat, louder this time, my fist slamming into the tile. Pain shoots up my arm, but it doesn’t even come close to touching what’s inside me.

Because the truth is…

It wasn’t just about Ruby.

It was about me.

About the emptiness.

The silence.

The constant, gnawing void I’ve been drowning in for years.

And for a few hours, Ruby filled it. And that realization hits like a gut punch. She didn’t deserve what I did to her. Didn’t deserve to be something I reached for in the dark to feel less alone. Didn’t deserve to be dragged into this mess.

My jaw tightens.

I growl, shaking my head under the freezing spray.

It meant nothing.

Because if it was, if there was anything real there…

No.

I straighten myself slowly, forcing my breathing to even out. Not because I feel better, but because I’m shutting it down, locking it up, and burying it deep where it belongs. Because that’s what I do and have always done. I know exactly what I am—damaged, broken, a shell. A walking reminder that nothing good lasts, that everything eventually gets taken.

I ruin things.

I destroy them.

Anyone close to me pays the price.

I won’t let that be her.

Ruby doesn’t belong in my darkness. She doesn’t belong anywhere near the shit I carry around every day. She’s too soft, too bright, too alive, and I’d drag her straight into the same nothingness I drown in.

So yeah, hurting her?

It was for her own good.

That’s what I tell myself.