Page 18 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

She brushes my hair back, tucks it behind my ear like she did when I was little.

“I know,” she says. “I love you too.”

We don’t talk about it after that.

Instead, we clear the table—stacking dishes, wiping counters, listening to the dishwasher hum like part of the family.

By the time we migrate to the living room,Law & Order SVUis halfway through, and Mom’s setting up the dominoes like we haven’t just circled the most earth-shattering conversation of our lives.

When the next episode starts, I can’t help it—I dance.

I’ve been shimmying to that theme song since I was seven, convinced Olivia Benson was a superhero.

Mom throws a kitchen towel at me like she always does.

Some things never change.

We play three rounds of dominos and she wins two.

I accuse her of stacking the boneyard; she calls me a sore loser.

For a while, it feels simple again.

Normal.

Safe.

She disappears during a commercial and returns with two slices of peach pie and scoops of vanilla-bean ice cream already melting.

And that’s when it hits me.

To make it stop.

She said it like a fact.

Like gravity.

You do whatever you have to—to survive.

To protect the ones you love.

To make it stop.

The phrase lingers. Humming beneath her smile, behind the clink of dessert plates, under the swell of theSVUmusic.

I stare down at the pie.

It’s golden and perfect. Flaky crust, ice cream melting into the syrupy filling.

My fork hovers in midair because my brain is sprinting somewhere I hadn’t let it go.

I thought she meant it metaphorically.

Now?

I’m not so sure.

There are only two reasons that man would’ve stopped harassing her.

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