23. Jayson
JAYSON
I know what it’s like to wake up choking on your own breath, drenched in sweat, heart pounding like a war drum in your ears. I know what it’s like to stare at the ceiling and wonder if you’re still alive—or if you’ve just landed another layer of hell cleverly disguised as survival.
Nightmares don’t just visit me—they live inside me. They’ve made a home in my bones. Set fire to my memories. And somehow, they still have the audacity to demand gratitude for the trauma they leave behind.
I’ve had my fair share. More than fair. Every day of my life since that night—the night—has been a slow, crawling nightmare. And the ones that come when I close my eyes? They don’t fade when the first light breaks through the fog of night. They just wait their turn.
That’s why, when I hear her scream—raw and terrified and ripped from the core—I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I move.
My feet hit the hallway floor before my brain catches up.
The house groans around me, old wood and older secrets, the walls still thick with the silence of a decade I spent avoiding this place.
I haven’t stepped foot here in ten years.
Not since I walked out and left my grandmother with her memories and the ghosts that cling to every inch of this estate.
I never intended to come back. Swore I wouldn’t, not unless it was to bury my father.
And now he’s dead.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
If he hadn’t drunken himself into an early grave, I wouldn’t be here now. I would’ve kept my word, let this place fade into oblivion, a bad dream I dragged myself out of. But blood drags you back. Death cracks open doors you meant to keep locked forever.
Nina—my grandmother—was the only light in this place. I missed her more than I let myself admit. She was soft where my father was jagged. Compassionate where my father was cruel. I never understood how such warmth could birth something so wicked.
He’s the reason I left. I had to, before I became him. Before I liked becoming him. So yeah. This house holds more than furniture and faded wallpaper. It holds every version of me I buried.
And tonight, when I kicked open Keira’s door and saw her crumbling under the weight of her own nightmares, I felt all of it resurface. The violence. The helplessness. The shame. The guilt.
But I’m here. She’s here. And for some reason, the silence between us feels less suffocating when I’m beside her.
I lie down at a distance. There are no words. I don’t touch her. I’m just here beside her. Close enough to be a presence. Far enough not to startle her.
And for a long time, she just breathes.
Eventually, her body shifts. Tentative. Like a sleeper reaching for the sun.
She rolls toward me, curling in, her forehead brushing my shoulder like she’s not even conscious of it.
Like I’m gravity and she’s done fighting it.
Her breath warms my shirt. Her hand rests just inches from my chest. And I freeze.
Not because I’m afraid of her. But because I’m not used to being wanted.
Not like this. Not for comfort. Not without demands.
Not without it costing me something in return.
She doesn’t ask for anything. She doesn’t even wake up. But that one touch—that quiet little nudge into my space—cracks something open inside me. The vault I’ve kept locked for years. The part of me that remembers softness. And it terrifies me.
I lie there staring at the ceiling while she sleeps against my side, wondering how the hell a girl with eyes full of ghosts managed to make a dent in the monster I’ve spent my whole life trying not to become.
I don’t move. I don’t fall sleep. I just stay. Because for the first time in a long time, I’m not guarding my own demons. I’m guarding hers.
The next morning, I stand at the kitchen counter, my hair still damp from the shower, the glass of orange juice in my hand cold against my palm.
The room hasn’t changed much in the years I’ve been away.
Same wallpaper, yellowed and curling at the edges like it’s too tired to keep pretending.
The same cracked tile beneath my boots, grout long since darkened with age.
Nina must’ve scrubbed this place within an inch of its life, but the years still cling to it, stubborn and loud.
She’s done a hell of a job keeping the house standing without changing a single damn thing.
And maybe that’s the problem, because in maintaining everything the way it was, she’s also held on to the ghosts.
And not the kind you talk about in stories.
The kind that settle in the bones of the walls, that breathe down your neck when you’re alone. The kind you don’t outrun.
My father moved out years ago, but that never made it easier to walk through this door. The possibility of seeing him again—of hearing that voice, that laugh—was enough to keep me away, no matter how much I missed my grandmother. It wasn’t worth the risk.
Now, standing here, I can see what she tried to do. Nina, with her fragile grace and iron will. She didn’t renovate—she preserved. As if by clinging to the past, she could rewrite it. As if refusing to move forward could somehow make the memories kinder.
But this house doesn’t forget.
The air still holds that same tension, stretched tight like a held breath. There’s a silence here that doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels expectant. Like the walls are watching, waiting for something to snap. And maybe they are.
Because this house was never just a home. It was a stage. And violence played out in every room.
It’s in the corners, in the faint stains no one talks about, in the way the light doesn’t quite reach the edges. It’s in the heaviness that presses down on your chest when you stand too still.
This house remembers what we did. And I do too.
Nina sits across from me, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea, just as beautiful and youthful as she’s always been. She watches me like she always has—like she sees straight through the bone and blood and fury. Like she knows what I don’t say.
The silence between us is comfortable. Old. Familiar. You wouldn’t guess that we hadn’t seen each other in a decade.
I hear the pitter patter of soft feet as they tap down the hallway. Then I feel it. Hesitation. Caution.
Keira steps into the kitchen like a girl walking into the lion's den. She wears an oversized cardigan, sleeves swallowing her hands, her gaze darting toward the floor, then to me, then back down again. Her hair is a little messy, her expression sheepish, like she’s waiting for someone to tell her which way to go.
I lower the glass from my lips and just look at her.
I hadn’t noticed until now—until the daylight hit her in that cardigan two sizes too big—how pretty she is.
Not in the obvious, magazine kind of way.
But in the haunted kind. In the way her pain clings to her skin like it belongs there.
In the way she carries herself like someone expecting to be punished for taking up space.
She’s not just beautiful. She’s haunting.
“Juice?” I offer, holding up the glass.
She hesitates for a second. Then nods. That same timid, ghost-of-a-nod I used to give when I was too proud to ask for comfort and too desperate to reject it.
I pour her a glass and slide it across the counter. She takes it carefully, like it might bite her. Her fingers brush mine. Warm. Soft. Real.
Nina watches all of this with that unreadable look she wears when she knows more than she lets on.
Keira takes a sip. Doesn’t meet my eyes.
She lingers near the edge of the table like she doesn't know whether to sit, stand, or run. Nina pats the chair beside her, and Keira slides into it like it’s a trap. But the way she exhales—quiet and trembling—tells me she’s relieved someone took the decision out of her hands.
I drain the last of my juice and set the glass down.
“I have to go out for a bit,” I say, pushing off the counter.
Keira looks up, and there's something in her eyes. Something between panic and disappointment. I see it, but I pretend I don’t.
“You're safe here,” I say, voice low, steady. “Nina won’t let any monsters in. ”
Behind me, Nina lets out a sharp snort, lifting her mug like a salute. “That’s right,” she drawls. “I only let them out.”
It earns a huff of breath from Keira. Almost a smile. Not quite, but close. Her lips twitch at the corners like they’re remembering how. It hits me harder than it should—how something as simple as not being afraid can feel like a win.
She tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes darting up to mine. There's gratitude there. Something softer, tentative. And I can feel the walls inside me shifting, just a little. Dangerous.
Too fucking dangerous.
I nod once, then turn my back on both of them before I let the moment get its claws in me. Because if I stay—if I let myself sit across from her, if I let her look at me like that a second longer—I’ll do something irreversible.
Like let her in.
And I don’t know which of us that would ruin more—her, with her broken pieces barely glued together, or me, with mine buried so deep I don’t even feel the cracks anymore.
I walk out before I can find out. Because I’ve seen what happens to the things I care about. And I know with everything in me that I won’t survive another loss.