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“Maybe that’s why he left you.”

The slap was sudden and loud in the heavy silence that followed. Then, the laughter. A terrible sound that filled the dark. I knew then I should have kept quiet.

Her smile stretched impossibly wide.

I tried to move, but she sat on top of me, her hands around my throat, her nails cutting into my skin. She pressed me against the mattress.

This wasn’t the first time, and if I lived this time, this wouldn’t be the last one either.

“I’m your mother.” She screamed and then laughed. “You will not talk to me like that, boy.”

I hadn’t been a boy in a while. She made sure of that.

She grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the headrest. Once. Twice.

“You’re a monster,” I shouted.

“And I am still your mother, boy.”

I woke up, panting, drenched in sweat. No. No. It was only a dream. It was only a—

“Why won’t you leave me alone, mother?”

“Never. No matter how many times you kill me, I’ll always be here, boy. Right here. Right in your head. I promise.”

Gritting my teeth, I stood up and pulled on my pants, climbing down the stairs. The house was quiet, too quiet, and in the silence, the voice in my head was too loud.

“You will never kill me, you useless bastard. You’ll never get rid of me.”

“I will. I will. I will.”

“When your gardenias die…” I hummed, walking through the dark, blending in with the shadows. No one knew I was here; no one saw me, heard me, as it had always been.

I was a ghost, invisible, unseen. And they would walk around me, over me, under me, and still miss me.

Only the voice… in my head knew where I was. Where I would be.

Valentina Delgado.

She had my mother’s skin, soft and perfect. And a smile that seemed too beautiful to be true. She had my mother’s guileless eyes. And she was twenty. My mother was twenty when she first tried to kill me. Before that, she had always been careful.

I wondered if she fucked men for money, as my mother did.

They lied. They all lied.

My mother was the biggest liar of them all.

Gritting my teeth, I stared at Valentina’s little apartment. The light was off in her room. She must be sleeping, and I’d make sure she would sleep permanently.

Wait for me, Valentina.

I was moving toward the tall apartment when something caught my eye. I would have missed it too if I hadn’t been careful.

I saw the navy car that sat idly by the pavement. So dark that it blended into the shadows. I looked past it at the two figures standing by the wall. There, but not really there. Invisible, pretending to be strange ghosts of the night.

“No…” I backed away, stumbling through the dark until I was running. Run, run, run. Until my mother’s scream filled my head. It grew and grew, and my lungs grew small. My throat burned. My chest tightened.

No. No. No.