Page 28 of Death Kiss

Steam swirls around the small bathroom, and I stumble to the sink, looking at myself in the mirror. I almost wish it had steamed up, but the glass is made not to. Fogging myself would be a kindness I’m not afforded. Kat loves it, but I hate it.

I stare at my reflection, seeing what I always do when forced to look at myself. Scars. Marks inflicted on my flesh by others. Whether for money or for their pleasure. Ugly pink notches cover me, maybe not head to toe, but there’s no part of my body without one.

When Kat looks at me, she sees a survivor. I nearly believed it with the way she loves me. Nearly. But I see broken. Defective.

Undeserving, mostly.

The tattoos do what they can, but the black ink can’t hide the knotted skin. At points, I think it makes it worse.

I feel guilty that Kat has to fuck this.

Kat is soft flesh and a sweet face. She lights up a room. I’m like a stain that only looks worse when her light shines on it. She might not see it, but her parents do. The people who stare when we walk through the supermarket do. I might not hear their thoughts, but I feel them.

What’s someone like her doing with someone like him?

She’s so pretty; look at his scars.

I hate it most, because I think the same. If I hadn’t stalked her, she’d be at work now, not up to her tits in corpses. The well and my dad’s body would be a footnote in her past and not the thing that might upend her whole future.

My breath is too fast. My reflection blurs ahead of me.

Gripping the white ceramic hard, I try to let the crushing pain of what I am pass. Kat’s due home, and I can’t let her see me struggle. I need to stay solid so she doesn’t fall apart.

Ashworth sits in his house, eating dinner like he doesn’t have a worry in the world. Like he hasn’t caused scars, both visible and hidden, that follow people like me into their future and wreck everything.

The world feels like it’s crushing my skull. Like it’s all pushing in until something splinters.

I can’t protect Kat like this.

But I can’t stop either. Ashworth and the others will haunt me until they’re all gone. Or Sam will.

I’m gasping for air when Kat comes home, her voice raised as she talks on the phone.

Fuck, I don’t want her to see me like this, but I can’t move. It’s like my body’s made of stone.

‘I just need time,’ Kat says, frustration tainting her words from the other room.

Her keys drop onto the counter, and I hear her kick off her shoes.

‘I don’t care what you think of him. Or me. You’re my parents; this is something you can do for me. Just hold on a little longer. And if you can drop from the asking price just a little and maybe take it off any inheritance⁠—’

There’s a pause, and my knuckles turn nearly as white as the sink. If it weren’t for the well, we could tell them to take a flying jump off a short cliff.

Another sign of my failure.

I can’t even protect us from them.

‘I love him.’ Kat’s voice is loud and harsh.

It’s all too much. A wave of pain rolls over me, and I clench my teeth until I can’t take it any more.

My fist meets the mirror with a loud crash, pain searing my knuckles. Pain that surprisingly releases the pressure in my skull.

I can breathe again, and gulp in deep lungfuls of steamy air.

‘I have to go,’ Kat says, appearing a moment later at the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light. ‘Oh, Liam.’

Her eyes meet mine in the spider-webbed mirror, and that’s when I notice the scarlet. Shards of glass stick out from my knuckles, blood dripping into the sink.