Chapter 31 #3
Not one feeling, all of them at once. It didn’t make sense, it didn’t line up, nothing fucking did.
She tried to kill me, she feared me, she…
and now she’s… I couldn’t follow the thought all the way through, it broke apart before it got there.
I sat there, looking at him, but not really seeing him anymore.
My focus slipped somewhere between him and the space in front of me, like my mind didn’t know where to anchor.
My chest tightened again, worse this time.
Like my body was reacting before I could catch up to it.
My stomach twisted hard enough that I had to press my tongue against my teeth just to stop whatever was trying to come up.
Little Ghost… I need you to stay with me. Don’t disappear now. You wanted this, didn’t you? You wanted to know what was underneath everything.
This is it. Fucking messy and nothing you will ever be able to hold onto without it slipping.
“If you want to…” he hesitated, just briefly, like he wasn’t sure if he should offer it, “I can write down where she’s buried. In case you’d like to visit.”
Visit, I almost laughed, but instead I nodded, once. He got up. Moved slower than before, like the room had changed for him too.
He walked over to the same cabinet, opened a drawer this time, pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
I watched him do it, every movement feeling distant.
Like I was watching it through something instead of being there.
He wrote it down, came back and held it out to me.
I didn’t take it right away, I just looked at it, then at him, then back at it again.
My hand lifted eventually and took the paper.
It almost felt too light, that was the first thought I had.
Too light for something that was supposed to mean anything.
I held it between my fingers for a second before letting it rest against my palm. Then I stood up.
“I need to go.” It came out short, blunt.
The room felt smaller now, like it was pressing in from all sides. The air didn’t move properly. Every breath felt like it stopped halfway, like there wasn’t enough space in my lungs to take in what I needed. He stood up too.
There was something on his face again, that same thing from before, that fragile hope, but now mixed with something else. Disappointment. He tried to hide it, but didn't quite manage.
“I’m glad you came,” he said. “I really am.”
It sounded real and that just made it worse. I didn’t answer, I couldn’t, I just looked at him and I don’t know what he saw because I wasn’t trying to show anything.
“Do you have a number? Or an address, or…” he stopped himself, shooting me a careful smile like he didn’t want to overwhelm me. “Some way I can reach you?” I swallowed hard.
“I’ll come by again.”
The words came out before I could think too much about them. They sounded like something I was supposed to say, not something I meant. I saw it, the way his face shifted. Hope again, stronger this time.
“I’d like that.” Then, after a second, softer, like it slipped out without him planning it, “I really would, son.”
That fucking word, it hit, harder than anything else.
My stomach turned immediately, hard and sudden, like my body had finally reached its limit.
I nodded once, didn’t trust myself to say anything.
And then I moved, fast. Too fucking fast for it to look normal, probably, but I didn’t care.
I crossed the room, the hallway, my hand already on the door before I fully registered how it got there.
The air outside hit differently, but when I stepped out I didn’t stop.
I walked. Then faster, I don’t even remember deciding to run, but I did.
And I kept going, because if I stopped, I was going to break.
I can barely remember the first steps, just the feeling of movement, like my body decided before I did.
The gravel hit harder on the way out. I noticed it this time, every fucking step too loud, like it was chasing me, like it wanted to keep me there just a little longer if it could.
I didn’t look back, not once, because I knew that if I did, if I even let myself glance at the door, at the windows, at anything that belonged to that house, I wouldn’t leave.
My breathing was wrong, it kept catching, like something inside me didn’t want to let the air all the way in.
I tried to slow it down, tried to force it steady, but it didn’t listen.
My chest felt tight, like it had closed around something and forgot how to open again.
I kept moving, faster, then faster than that.
Little Ghost… this is where I should tell you I thought it through. That I made some calculated decision, weighed it properly, came to a conclusion like everything else, but I didn’t.
It was simpler than that, I had to get away, that was it.
I could never go back. Because I saw him.
Not the version I built, not the one that made everything easier, no I saw him.
And he wasn’t what I needed him to be. He wasn’t absent in the way I told myself, he wasn’t something I could break without it meaning anything.
He was good. I hate that word, but it fits.
And that changed everything, because if he’s good, then what the hell was I doing there?
What was I about to do? I slowed down just enough that I could feel it again.
The knife, still there, still pressed against my back.
I stopped for a second, my hand almost went back to it.
Not to use it, just to feel it. To remind myself it was real.
I had walked into that house with it, sat across from him with it, listened to him talk, while it was right there. All it would’ve taken was one moment.
One.
And it would’ve been over. He wouldn’t even have seen it coming, because he fucking trusted me.
He let me in, he turned his back to me, he stood in the same room as me and he didn’t see it.
Didn’t feel it. Didn’t know what I was. I dragged a hand over my face hard enough that it stung.
I needed to move again, standing made it worse, so I did.
I kept going. The street blurred slightly at the edges.
My thoughts didn’t line up anymore, they came back in pieces, overlapping, cutting into each other. My father, my mother, the papers, the river, the word son. It all sat there, tangled together in a way that didn’t make sense.
And somewhere in the middle of it, Zwierek.
That part hit differently, because it wasn’t just me.
It never is. I know what follows me, I know what I bring with me when I walk into places like that, it doesn’t stop with me, it never has.
So I couldn’t go back, not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t get to.
He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve me standing in his house again, carrying everything I carry, pretending it’s not there.
He doesn’t deserve Zwierek anywhere near him.
And I, I didn’t trust myself not to cross that line if I would be there again.
You understand that, don’t you?
Of course you do, you’ve been here the whole time, you’ve seen what happens when I stay too long.
When I get too close. It doesn’t end well.
Not for them, never for them, so I left.
That’s the only thing I’ve ever been consistent at.
I ran until my lungs burned properly this time.
Until the tightness turned into something simpler, something physical, something I could understand.
And I didn’t stop, because if I stopped, I might have turned around.