Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Kym
Before I can do anything else, my legs are moving.
I’m running—just running—with no direction, no purpose, just the desperate need to escape.
I can’t breathe; and every time I try it feels almost suffocating.
It hurts; everything hurts. I need it to stop.
My chest burns, my throat aches, and my legs feel like they could give out at any second.
But the pain? It’s nothing compared to what’s clawing at me inside. Clawing and scratching, and something I can’t outrun. Because you can’t outrun what’s inside you; you can only hope it kills you silently.
I clutch my bag tightly, because as of right now, it feels as if it’s the only thing tethering me to reality. My mind is a complete mess, a mess of jumbled thoughts spinning out of control, and I feel like I’m drowning.
Drowning without water, like screaming without a sound.
How can you fight a storm when it lives inside you?
I want to cry, to let it out, but I can’t. Not here. I bite down hard on my lip, holding back the sobs clawing their way up my throat, but the tears blur my vision anyway. It’s like I’m trapped in a cage, and the more I struggle, the smaller it gets.
I know I’ll never escape. Not really.
No matter how far I run, I’ll end up right back where I started.
That’s the most terrifying part—this isn’t just about a house or a place.
It’s about them. It’s about me. And this place I’ve hoped for so long to escape is rooted inside me.
Woven into my very being. So deep I can’t tear it out without tearing myself apart.
Even now, as much as I hate it, there’s a comfort in it.
There’s a terrifying comfort in the arms of those who hurt me.
It’s a messed-up kind of comfort, an immoral one.
But it’s real. And it’s all I know, all I’ll ever know.
And maybe that’s why I’ll never truly leave.
Because the outside world somehow seems scarier.
It’s like growing up in a house full of smoke—eventually, you stop noticing the fire. Instead, you learn to breathe through the damage. And when someone finally opens a window, the clean air hurts.
That’s what real love felt like when I first met it. Not comforting. Not warm. It felt wrong. Because when you’ve only been fed poison, kindness feels like a trick.
Love, to me, is a scary and confusing thing. I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to understand it. And though that may come from growing up in a not-so-ideal household, I wonder if anyone actually has it figured out.
As for me? I think I’ve confused love with relief for most of my life. Relief that someone isn’t yelling. Relief that they stayed. Relief that I’m still alive. It’s not love. But when it’s all you’ve ever known, it’s enough to make you stay.
And yet, how would I go about telling anyone this? They’d likely think I’ve gone mad.
But madness—at least in my opinion—is just the price some pay for feeling reality too deeply. It’s feared by society, because it shows how fragile our “normal” really is.
There comes a certain awareness about life in general when you aren’t sure you’re going to have a tomorrow.
Pain can humble you into wisdom; comfort can trap you in ignorance.
That’s how I also know I’m just like them. I’ve felt it for years—this dark, creeping thing inside me. Telling me that I’m no better than him. Than Will. Than my father. Than Pete and Annie. It tells me that I’m just as twisted, just as broken.
It’s right.
It only predicted the inevitable. Because the truth is, it’s exactly that. After spending so many years with people like that, eventually, the hunted learns the way of the hunter and forgets the innocence of what it is to be prey. It’s not a nice truth, or one I necessarily like thinking about.
But it’s true.
I don’t even know if I remember what innocence feels like anymore. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped being scared of the monsters and started learning their language. And yet, a part of me thinks this could have all been avoided. If he had just stayed.
Will.
It doesn’t matter how many times I try to convince myself that it wasn’t his fault. Every time, I reach the same conclusion. Because he left. Because he never cared enough to come back or check on me.
To see who he left me with. Sometimes I doubt if my brother ever loved me at all. If he was even capable of it.
That thought alone makes me sick.
When I finally reach the bathrooms, I shove the door open and lock myself in a stall. I lean against the cold metal, trying to steady my breathing, but it only gets worse. My chest tightens, the walls press in, like all of the oxygen has been sucked away, and I feel like I’m suffocating.
Trapped. Trapped in my own mind. Trapped by them. By him.
I force myself out of the stall and splash cold water on my face. The icy shock stings, but it’s not enough to make the ache stop. I don’t look in the mirror—I don’t bother. I know what I’ll see. A mess. A failure. Someone barely holding it together.
They’re going to kill me.
He’s going to kill me when he finds out.
I grip the sink, my knuckles pale, my face even paler. My hands tremble so badly I can barely hold on.
And all I can think is that I don’t want to feel this anymore.
What would it be like to feel nothing at all?
So when I go home—and everything falls apart, like it always does—it won’t matter.
Because I’ll already be gone.
Kai
Three years ago
The room is beige. Beige rug. Beige curtains. Beige walls. All of it faintly perfumed with lilies someone left on the sideboard days ago. They’re wilting now.
I’ve been sitting in this pose for at least fifteen minutes—elbow back, spine lifted, shoulder out. My shirt is open just enough to look “seductive” but not excessive.
Their words, not mine.
I don’t mind. I don’t really feel anything anymore when I’m being looked at.
The photographer’s shutter clicks, and he adjusts his lens again. He doesn’t say much.
Victor is by the window, not even pretending to check his phone anymore.
He watches me.
His gaze travels—first to my face, then down. It doesn’t linger long in one place. Just enough. Enough for me to know he’s counting things.
The line of my neck.
The dip of my collarbone.
How far the shirt falls open when I move.
I don’t let it show that I notice.
My mother is across the room, checking her phone anxiously. She hasn’t looked up in a while. Not until Elliot starts to cry through the connecting wall, and my mother makes a small noise of irritation.
“Don’t start without me,” she says, already halfway gone.
She doesn’t even look at me when she says it, just disappears into the next room. She’s been distant lately; I even caught her sneaking out once.
Naturally, I assumed the worst. I made multiple attempts at investigating the matter after that, for which I was strictly reprimanded by my mother, who shut the whole thing down in a heartbeat.
I figured it best not to tell my father.
I smooth the fabric of my shirt down my ribs as she goes, then stand and wander to the sideboard. I pluck one of the lilies from the vase, and the stem snaps in my hand.
“These should be in the picture,” I say, still facing the window.
The photographer glances up. “But Kai… those flowers are dead.”
I smile at the reflection of the flowers in the glass. “That’s how I like them.”
That gets a pause. Good.
It’s almost satisfying seeing them this unnerved. Confused.
I turn, twirling the lily between my fingers. “They’re so pretty like this. Don’t you think?”
Victor shifts his weight. “Why don’t you sit back down, Kai?”
I tilt my head, all sweetness. “Of course. I only wanted to help you make it… authentic.”
I cross back to the bed, knees folding beneath me. I deliberately slip my shirt lower, and look at him as if I’m thinking aloud. “Do you suppose the other boys get jealous?”
Victor frowns. “Who?”
“The other kids. The ones at castings. They don’t get the same attention.” I shrug. “Not everyone gets treated as… exceptional.”
He laughs, but it’s nervous. Slightly uncomfortable. “This is just work, Kai.”
“Oh, of course,” I say smoothly, smiling again. “You’d never do anything inappropriate. I tell them that all the time.”
Victor hesitates. “Tell who?”
I laugh a soft, airy laugh. “No one important. Just people who ask. You know how they talk. ‘Is Victor ever alone with him?’ ‘Why doesn’t his mum come to set anymore?’” I look at my fingernails. “Stupid questions.”
Victor’s face has gone pale. “Kai…”
“I always tell them the same thing,” I add, and I even lean forward a little.
For effect. “That you’re terribly professional.
That you’d never cross a line,” I say sweetly.
“Even when you text those things. About my face. My mouth.” I look up at Victor, revelling at his discomfort.
At his shock. “What is it? Did you think I forgot?”
Victor is still. The photographer busies himself with his lens.
I tilt my head, voice softening. “I suppose they’ll believe me, as long as I keep saying it. Won’t they?”
Victor opens his mouth. I don’t let him speak.
“You really should be more careful with your phone,” I continue, petting the lily’s petal with my thumb. “Screenshots are frightfully easy to forward.”
His mouth parts slightly, like he’s going to speak—explain something, or deny something, or threaten something—but nothing comes out.
I rise again, walk to the chair near the door. His coat is draped over it. The phone’s in the front pocket. I know because I felt it buzz ten minutes ago.
I slide my hand in slowly.
I don’t need much. Just one message—the one he sent last week.
He goes pale.
But it’s too late. He’s too late. I’ve been saving all of the messages, of course.
Not because I plan to use them.
Not yet.
But because he thinks I wouldn’t.
You hold someone’s ruin in your palm like a pressed flower, and then you just… never drop it. You keep it, and they behave accordingly.
Like a dog who’s seen the leash. That’s all.
I find it funny, watching him try to look unbothered. The way his throat moves when he swallows. The tiny ticks in his fingers as he checks a watch he isn’t wearing.
It’s pathetic. It’s hilarious.
I suppose this all makes me a liar. I suppose I should even feel guilty by how much I do it.
But why should I? Everyone lies. Some worse than others, of course.
Some more than others.
But honestly, I’ve always welcomed the perspective that the world never seems to want the truth—it wants the lie. It wants the performance; in fact, it applauds the mask while the soul behind it withers away. But does anyone care? Does anyone look close enough to figure that part out? No.
It leaves me to think, in this world of masks, I wonder if anyone even remembers their real face?
I set the phone on the table and brush past him, moving back to the bed. I sit, crossing one leg over the other, and rest the lily against my bare knee.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I say, turning to him with a small, flawless smile. “That would be vulgar. And messy. You wouldn’t want that.”
He can’t answer. He’s staring at me like he doesn’t know what I am. Probably trying to decide if I’m bluffing.
I give a small, polite laugh. “Oh, forgive me. I’m being horrid, aren’t I? You mustn’t take me too seriously. I’m only fifteen.
“But do try to remember how young I am before you text me again,” I say softer, with a hint of teeth.
The door opens. My mother comes back in, Elliot drowsy on her shoulder. She doesn’t look at Victor. Or the seemingly oblivious photographer in the corner. She only looks at me. Then smiles and says, “Shall we finish?”