Page 209 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

The engine roars to life, low and angry, vibrating through the street and rattling my bones.

And then he’s gone.

A blur of black and chrome swallowed by the night.

I stand there, barefoot on the concrete, arms wrapped around myself as the silence rushes back in.

Heavy and suffocating.

A single tear slides off my chin and lands on my bare arm.

Only then do I realize I’m crying.

Soft tapping draws my gaze down.

Dexter stands beside me, his little paws clicking restlessly against the driveway.

He looks up at me, head tilted, his eyes solemn and confused.

He huffs—an almost scolding sound—and turns back toward the house, tail swishing as he disappears through the open door.

I stay where I am, rooted.

Staring at the place where he vanished.

The first kiss I ever gave away?—

My first taste of something I never even dared to dream about had been everything.

Fierce.

Wild.

Consuming.

Until it wasn’t.

Until it became the space he left behind.

The hollow ache where he used to be.

Now, alone in the bruised silence of night, arms wrapped tight around my chest, I feel it settle in deep.

The ache of absence.

The kind that doesn’t just hurt but lingers.

The kind that stays.

And somehow, impossibly, I know:

Nothing will ever be the same again.

The second the door slams shut behind me, I’m moving.

A blaze through the house.

A hurricane of fury that won’t be bottled, can’t be reasoned with.

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