Page 25 of Where the Dark Things Bloom

Now I remembered. I was the one who called him.

I thought a haunted house was more terrifying than the man I shared a bed with. That’s what loneliness does—it whispers that anyone is better than no one. So you reach out, not for love, but for the illusion of it. Just to feel someone’s arms around you. Even if those arms never held anything but control.

When I left Gloomsbury Manor at eighteen, I slept in a tent under a Boston bridge. A full year like that; thin, hungry, digging through trash for something to eat, holding out my hand for change just to buy something cheap, and burning to keep warm. The drink came next. A sip here and there until it turned into mornings that started and ended with poison. I drank to forget, to stop the shaking, to blur the edges of cold sidewalks and colder stares. I drank because being numb was easier than being present.

By nineteen, people knew my face. Not because they cared. Because they saw something they could use. They asked me to sell myself until asking stopped and taking began. I didn’t want to survive after that. But I did. Somehow. I left. I tried. And somewhere in that trying, something inside me cracked open. I stood up because no one else was going to lift me.

And just when I’d gathered my broken pieces, stacked them into something like a person again—he came back. He didn’t just knock me down; he took what was left and kept it like a trophy. That’s what people like him do. They collect. If they see beauty, they want to own it. If they see damage, they want to fix it. But there’s beauty in the broken, too.

That’s how it began from the first moment, from a day when everything was turned to worse. And when the red flags waved, I walked straight through them, arms wide open, whispering,How much worse could it get?

Worse. It always gets worse.

When you start to feel like a ghost, you become one. And then people stop seeing you, except when they need someone to walk through.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. I bit myself I called him. I thought maybe the house would swallow me whole before he could reach me.

“I know you’re in there,” he barked through the door, and then softer, dripping with thatfake concernI used to fall for, “You sounded scared on the phone, baby. I came to help.”

My stomach turned.

I stood frozen in the hallway, bare feet on cold wood, that white cotton nightgown clinging to my legs like fog. The house was silent, but not calm. It was watching. It didn’t want him here either—I could feel it in the walls.

The door handle jiggled.

“Don’t make me break this door down,” he snapped, patience slipping.

I walked, slowly, and carefully, down the steps.

One. By. One.

Each creak of the stairs felt like a countdown.

When I reached the bottom, I paused in the hallway. His shadow was visible through the glass of the door. Tall.I opened it just a crack, but he shoved his arm the rest of the way, stepping inside like he had a right to.

Troy looked the same; muscles too tight, jaw clenched like it hurt to speak gently. His dark hair was full of cheap gel, sticking to his forehead. And his eyes, those eyes that used to charm, now only made my blood run cold.

He looked around, sneering.

“This place is a dump,” he muttered. “Why the hell would you come here?”

I didn’t answer.

His eyes fell on me, on a white nightgown.

His smirk pulled crooked. “Cute. Did you dress up just for me?”

“Don’t,” I said. Voice quiet. It’s firmer than it used to be.

He laughed. “Relax, baby. I came all this way for you. You sounded like you were losing your mind on the phone.”

“I was.”

“You always were a little off,” he muttered. “It’s part of your charm.”

He stepped closer.

Too close.

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