Chapter 5 #2
The thought is a poison. Or did I make her leave? Did I push her out of the door to save the only piece of light I had left? Or did I leave her?
I can’t remember. The pieces don’t fit. The edges are jagged and don’t line up.
The memory flickers.
Her hands in my hair. Her voice counting—four, five, six. The hum of the quiet place. The sound of the priest’s shoes behind me—that rhythmic, terrifying clack-clack-clack.
The rosary in his hand. The way his thumb pressed to my lip, soft, careful, checking for the silence he demanded. The way I press to hers now. I am becoming the thing that broke me, just to keep the only thing I love.
The way I begged him not to leave me.
Or maybe I begged her.
Or maybe I begged myself to wake up from the dream that wouldn’t end.
I drag the chain tighter around my fist until my knuckles split, the skin popping under the pressure. The chapel door slams. The echo of it is deafening in my skull.
Or maybe it never closed. Maybe the door has been open this whole time and I’ve just been too afraid to look.
I can’t tell which memory is mine. I can’t tell which one is real.
I press my lips to the scar on her ribs.
“You promised you’d keep me.” Her breath shudders, a broken, weeping sound. “You promised you’d save me.”
The words are a mirror. I don’t know who is saying them anymore. Is it her? Is it the boy in the basement?
I drag my thumb over the faint line of her scar like I can press the memory back into her, forcing the skin to remember what the mind chose to lose.
“You told me if I was quiet enough, he wouldn’t pick me.” My throat locks. My chest caves. The air in the room feels like ash. “You told me I’d be safe.”
The chapel burns behind my eyes. I see the orange glow, the flickering shadows on the saints’ faces. The ash. The smoke. The sound of him screaming—a high, thin sound that didn’t sound like worship at all.
Or maybe I was screaming.
Or maybe it was her, standing at the edge of the fire.
“You told me the quiet place would keep us safe.”
But I’m still there. I’m still in the fire. I’m still in the dark. I never left.
The quiet place isn’t a memory. It’s a lock. It’s me. It’s her. It’s both of us, pinned together by a chain that was forged long before I bought this one.
I press my lips to her throat.
“I kept you now.”
I bite down, hard, until she gasps, until she claws at my shoulders, until I know she’s here, tethered to the pain. Until I know she feels me.
“I’ll keep you this time.”
I don’t know if I’m keeping her safe. I don’t know if I’m the hero of this story or the monster under the bed. Or if I’m keeping her caged because I’m too weak to stand alone.
I don’t know if I’m protecting her from him. Or from me. Or from the world that let us both happen.
I don’t know if I saved her. Or if I never did.
But I know I won’t let her leave. Not this time. Not again.
I drag her closer until there’s nothing left but the sound of the chain and the weight of her breath. Until our bodies are a single, tangled knot of muscle and iron.
“You won’t forget me,” I whisper. “You promised.”
Her breath stutters in my lap, her ribs trembling under my hands like a bird with a broken wing. Her pulse is fluttering against my thumb, a frantic, wild thing—not sure if she wants to run or stay.
She’s not sure.
But I am.
She’ll stay. She’ll always stay. She’ll stay because I will make myself the only world she knows. She promised. Even if she forgot. Even if she forgets again.
I drag the chain tighter around my fist, winding her closer until the cold metal bites into her skin, until I can feel the tremble in her legs, until I can feel the weight of her tears even though she hasn’t let them fall yet. I can feel them building behind her eyes like a flood.
“You don’t remember,” I whisper, my voice low, steady, but shaking inside—a hollow reed in a storm.
She shakes her head.
She always does. It’s her only defence.
“You always forget me.”
I press my lips to the scar on her ribs, softer this time, a lingering, aching touch, like I’m apologising for something I’m not sorry for. I’m apologising for the cage, but I’m not sorry for the capture.
“But I don’t forget you.”
My fingers drift up to her mouth, my thumb pressing under her lip, dragging slow, tracing the shape of something I’ve touched a thousand times in my dreams.
“You told me to be quiet.”
I can still hear her voice when she said it the first time. The way it sounded like a secret we were keeping from God. Or maybe it wasn’t the first time. Maybe it was the hundredth. Maybe we’ve been doing this for centuries.
“You told me if I was quiet, he’d leave me alone.” My breath hitches. “You said the quiet place would keep me safe.”
I press my forehead to hers, eyes squeezed shut, dragging the chain tighter. Locking her down. Locking me down. Trying to keep the timeline from slipping through my fingers like sand.
“You said you wouldn’t leave.”
The words loop.
You said you wouldn’t leave.
You said you wouldn’t leave.
You said you wouldn’t leave.
But she did.
The chapel burns behind my eyes again. I feel the heat on my face. The smoke in my lungs. The scrape of the rosary beads against my palm—the wooden cross digging into my skin.
I see her—
I see little her—
Standing at the chapel door. The light from outside is so bright it makes her a silhouette. Was she leaving? Was she watching me go? Was she already gone?
I can’t tell.
The memory glitches. The light turns to blue static.
I don’t know if I was the one who walked out of the fire. Or if she did. I don’t know if I stayed in the basement. Or if I ran. I don’t know who locked the door and who was left inside.
I drag my nails down the chain, sharp, scraping the skin off my knuckles until they burn, until they sting, until they feel like now. I need the pain to tell me where I am.
“You left me,” I whisper, but the words taste wrong. They taste like a confession.
Did she?
Or did I?
I press my lips to her temple, my breath breaking against her skin like a wave hitting the shore.
“You left me,” I say again, but this time, I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything but the metal in my hand.
Did she leave me? Or did I send her away to keep her clean? Or did I leave her there, in the memory, while I grew into this thing?
The memory snaps.
The chapel door. The quiet place. The rosary in my pocket. The sound of him breathing behind me—that wet, heavy sound of a man who thinks he’s holy.
I press my teeth into her shoulder until she gasps, until her breath catches, until she claws at me like she’s trying to hold me here in the present.
“Say you’ll stay,” I growl. It’s a command. A plea. A prayer.
Her voice cracks, tiny and fragile.
“I’ll stay.”
“Say you’ll never forget me.”
“I’ll never forget you.”
“Say you’ll keep me this time.”
Her breath stumbles.
But she says it.
“I’ll keep you.”
The words lock something inside me. Something sharp. Something soft. Something that hasn’t breathed in years.
I crush my mouth to hers, desperate, savage, breaking apart at the seams.
Her hands clutch my shirt like she’s anchoring herself to me. Like she’s afraid I’ll vanish too. Like she realises we are both ghosts in this room.
She should be.
Because I don’t know if I’m here. I don’t know if I’ve ever been here. I don’t know if I’m the one who stayed or the one who escaped.
But I know I won’t let her leave me again. Even if she already did. Even if we’ve done this a thousand times before. Even if I’m the one who walked out and left her with the ghost of me.
I’ll keep her this time.
I’ll lock her so tight she’ll forget what it feels like to breathe without me. I’ll make my heartbeat her only clock.
I’ll keep her.
Even if I have to break her to do it.