Chapter 31
Yeah.
And how the fuck are you supposed to process something like that?
Truth is, I couldn’t.
More than anything, I wanted to throw the papers across the room, crumple them up, stomp on them, burn them.
But instead I just placed them back on the table, my eyes hyperfocused on the corner where the paper had bent from my fingers pressing too hard into it.
Like if I focused on something pointless enough, the rest of it wouldn’t catch up to me.
But it did, of course it did.
It came in small pieces, things settling where they shouldn’t, connecting without asking me first, and I hated that, more than anything.
My stomach turned before I fully understood why.
It crept up, like something rising too close to the surface, and I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth just to keep it down.
I leaned back, then forward again. Couldn’t sit still.
The sofa felt wrong under me, too soft, like it was trying to hold me in place when I didn’t want to be held.
I could hear the room too clearly. The clock somewhere behind me, the ticking hurting my skull, a car passing outside, tires against the road, his breathing, mine.
Everything kept going, like nothing had changed.
He had been looking for me.
That thought wouldn’t leave. It didn’t even come with anything attached to it at first, just those words, sitting there like they belonged to someone else’s life.
He looked for me. I dragged a hand over my face, slow, pressing harder than I needed to, like I could push something back into place if I just… No. It didn’t work. Because right next to it, her. Not a memory, just the idea of her, twisted in a way that made everything else feel unstable.
She thought I was something, not just unwanted but wrong.
I swallowed again, but there was nothing to swallow.
My throat felt dry, tight, like it had closed up completely.
For a second I thought I might laugh. It almost came up, that kind of empty, hollow sound that doesn’t belong anywhere but still forces its way out sometimes.
Instead, it stayed stuck somewhere lower, turning into something else.
I thought no one wanted me. That had always been the truth I lived with, and it was perfect, because it was clean enough to live with. You build around it, you know? You take something like that and you make it make sense.
You tell yourself it explains things, why things happened, why you are the way you are. It becomes useful. And all of a sudden, that illusion broke. Because I was sitting in his house, his voice was still somewhere in the room.
I pressed my fingers harder into my temples, trying to stop the way the thoughts were stacking over each other, not lining up, just fucking piling. It didn’t help, because it wasn’t just that. It was everything. That’s what broke it.
He looked for me, she tried to kill me.
The two things sat next to each other in my head like they belonged together, like they were part of the same sentence, and I couldn’t make them separate again.
My pulse got louder. I could feel it in my throat, in my wrists, even in my fingertips where they rested uselessly against my knee.
It didn’t stay steady, it jumped, skipped, came back harder.
I became aware of the knife again, because it pressed into me when I shifted my weight, just enough that it reminded me it was there. I almost reached for it. Because it was the only rational reaction I could come up with.
It’s fucked up, isn’t it?
Have you ever had that moment where you realize you could’ve done something before you even knew you were going to?
Yeah… I sat there, in his living room, surrounded by things that were clean and expensive and taken care of, and I felt like something had split open inside me without making a sound.
Shattered is too simple of a word for it, it was messier than that.
Like something had been holding everything together without me noticing, and then it just let go without warning, with no control over where the pieces went. I thought, I actually thought it, and that’s what stained me: was she right? Because look at me.
Look at where I ended up, look at the things I’ve done.
Real things, things that don’t leave once they happen, and now I was sitting there. In his house, with a knife pressed against my back, listening to him talk about how he tried. And all I could think of was, maybe she saw it.
Maybe she knew.
Maybe it wasn’t madness, maybe it was fear, real fear.
The kind that doesn’t come out of nowhere, the kind that recognizes something before it even has a name.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands hanging between them like I’d forgotten what they were for.
I stared at the floor, didn’t trust looking at him, didn’t trust what might happen if I did.
Would it have been better if she had succeeded in killing me?
That thought didn’t even hesitate, it came straight through everything else. I let out a breath that didn’t feel like mine, because the answer came just as easily.
Yes.
I would’ve missed all of this, I wouldn’t be sitting there, I wouldn’t have done any of it, none of it would exist. I swallowed hard, my jaw tightening again without me noticing until it hurt.
I would’ve been… nothing, and honestly, that felt easier.
That’s the worst part, I think. Not so much the thought itself, but how right it felt.
Like it settled into place better than anything else had so far.
My life, I don’t even know how to say it without it sounding wrong, but it felt like a long accident.
Something that kept going when it shouldn’t have.
And look at me now, little Ghost.
I’m here, exactly where she thought I would end up, exactly what she was afraid of, and I can’t even say she was wrong.
“Rowan.” It took a second before I reacted to it.
Like my name had to travel through something thick before it reached me.
I blinked, once, maybe twice. My eyes were still fixed somewhere lower, not really seeing anything, just fucking stuck.
When I looked up he was already watching me.
I don’t know what he saw exactly. Something in my face must’ve changed, because his expression…
there was something in it that made me want to look away again, but I didn’t. I held it, even though it felt wrong.
“So…” my voice came out uneven, thinner than I expected. I cleared my throat, tried again, slower this time.
“She tried to kill me… while I was still inside her?”
I didn’t dress it up and even though I had just read it, it sounded ugly out loud.
He just nodded, and I hate how much that did.
I exhaled, but it didn’t feel like relief.
It just left my body and didn’t make space for anything new.
My chest stayed tight, like something was sitting where it shouldn’t be.
He started talking again, broke the silence and everything that tried to take shape in it.
“Doctors believed it was a form of psychosis after the birth,” he said carefully, like he was stepping through something fragile.
“But it didn’t start there, not really. She had… difficulties before that. I just didn’t understand how far it would go.” he paused briefly, like he was checking himself, or maybe checking me.
“She told me things early on. Small things, but enough that I thought I understood the situation. I didn’t see the full picture, not until it was already too late.”
I dropped my gaze again.
The floor was steady, at least that was something.
My vision didn’t blur, but it felt like it might if I didn’t focus on something simple.
The lines in the wood, the way the light hit it, anything that didn’t move.
Because inside, it didn’t feel like there was enough air.
I took a breath, deeper this time, or tried to.
It stopped halfway, my lungs didn’t fill properly.
I could feel it, physically, like something was pressing inward, not letting it expand the way it should.
Another breath.
Same thing.
I swallowed hard, but my throat felt tight too, like everything in me had decided to close at once.
You’d hate this, little Ghost. Not because it’s violent or easy to understand, but because nothing is happening on the outside and everything is happening where no one can see it.
And you’re still here anyway… you always are.
I dragged my eyes back up to him. He was still looking at me, and there was something in his face now I hadn’t seen before.
Pity, or something close to it. It made my jaw tighten without me noticing until it started to hurt.
“What happened, Rowan?” He asked, softer now. “Where have you been all these years?”
It hit somewhere I wasn’t prepared for, not because of the question itself, but because of everything attached to it.
It came in flashes, quick and uneven, no order to it.
A room that smelled wrong, hands grabbing too tight, voices that didn’t stay consistent long enough to trust, the feeling of being watched even when no one was there, being moved from place to place like it didn’t matter where I ended up, just that I wasn’t someone else’s problem anymore.
I felt it building too fast, too much at once.
Like it was all trying to come up at the same time, and if I let it, if I let even one piece settle properly, the rest would follow and I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t keep control of it. I straightened, forcing my body back into place before it could go any further.
Cut.
It.
Off.
Stop.
It.
“I don’t…” I started, then stopped, pressing my lips together for a second before trying again.
“I don’t understand.” My voice was steadier now, not because it felt better, I was just forcing it. “I was in an orphanage,” I said, choosing each word like it mattered more than it did.
“Later I was placed with a foster family.”
I held his gaze, refusing to let it slip.