Page 162 of Penance

I’m a monster.

She’s an angel, and that’s why I had to do this.

An angel like her could never love a demon like me.

I’m broken. I’m fucked up. I’m not good enough.

Inside me, my heart is fighting a war against my mind. The satisfaction of seeing her afraid—this girl who represents everything I’ve been denied—battles against the whisper of shame that creeps up my spine. This is my revenge for a past I cannot escape.

For foster homes where I was less than nothing.

For prayers that were never answered.

For scars that never healed.

For the nightmares that would wake me from a dead sleep, shaking and screaming.

This moment, this power, this is mine.

It’s mine, but I don’t want it anymore.

I don’t want to be what I’ve become.

I want to run.

I don’t want to be this.

“Why?” she asks.

The word is like a blade, and she drove it right into my heart.

I can’t answer that.

Her lips part, but no sound comes out. A tear finally breaks free, carving a path through the mud splattered against her cheek.

“How does it feel, Mercy?” I say. I stare into her eyes. I want to see the realization bloom. “How does it feel to be raped and no one fucking believes you?”

I tore these words from some festering wound inside me that I’ve never allowed to heal. It’s bloody and raw, and infection seeps from the flesh.

It’s like cancer.

It eats at me.

It changed me.

My secret made me sick.

Her eyes widen, and the tears keep falling, slow at first, and then faster.

“W-what?”

“It doesn’t feel great, does it, Mercy? It hurts. Doesn’t it? You feel embarrassed, hurt. Right? You feel stupid and scared. You feel it. You know how it feels now. You know howIfeel now.”

I nod, hoping she will too, and she does. She nods, and realization blooms like a field of wildflowers across her face. It’s beautiful, and it’s sickening.

“Draco, I—”

The sound of my name on her lips—not “monster,” not “demon,” but “Draco”—sends a crack through the armor I’ve covered myself with. I’d die a thousand deaths to hear her say my name.

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