Page 73 of All the Things We Buried

Her arms were bare. The wounds had closed, but the scars remained. I could still read the words she had carved into her skin. I compared them to the handwriting on the bodies I buried in the garden.

They were not the same. This was not the cult’s work. This was hers. What she saw. What she did to herself. All of it came from her.

The eighteen missing children had all been sons and daughters of cult members. I gave them peace. I buried themin the backyard. There were eighty-four members in that cult. I hunted each one. I killed every last one.

I sealed their corpses behind the basement walls, left them to rot beside polaroids of the horrors they created. Torture. Cannibalism. Rituals where children were currency.

They were monsters. They were murderers.

And I felt good ending them. I spent two years soaked in blood and rage, doing it all for her. To protect her. To make sure no one would ever touch her again.

But now that I see her, something soft wakes inside me.Why?

After everything. After all the rage I carried. After all the people I killed.

Why do I still feel this?

But she chose Troy. Of all people, she chose Troy.

How could she? After everything I did? After everything I sacrificed?

That was the betrayal.

She gave herself to someone else. Let him hold her. Let him love her. Let him take what was mine.

But her heart. It always belonged to me.

Maybe she wanted to be loved too, just like I did. Maybe she hoped I was still alive. But I needed her to have closure.

To mourn us. To feel the burn of loss. To break her. And then to come back into her life and play with her, play with her mind.

I didn’t do it because I had no choice. I didn’t do it because I was bored. I did it because I wanted her to feel my absence before she ever felt my presence.

This was the real me. Raw. Unfiltered.

A broken man. An angry man. The kind of man who never had time.

A man who always chose himself first.

A narcissistic asshole painted in red flags.

And if she wanted to love me, then she would have to loveallof me. Not the image she kept replaying in her head every time she closed her eyes.

Not the boy she thought I was. The man I became.

I promised I would break her, because I knew her better than I knew myself.

And when I make a promise, I always keep it.

I leaned in, my fingers barely grazing her cheek as I moved her dark hair aside. I saw a bruise under her eye.

He hit her.

He fucking hit her.

My jaw locked. Something in me cracked open. I wanted to punch the air, punch the walls, destroy everything, because I hadn’t been there to stop it.

Hadn’t been there to protect her.