Page 261 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

I wipe down every surface like I’m trying to erase fingerprints I know are mine.

It’s not about being clean.

It’s about starting over.

It’s about letting the old Poppy die here, quietly, between lemon cleaner and tears that won’t fall.

I don’t know who I am without the fear.

Without the fantasy.

Without the lies.

I don’t know who I am now that I know the truth?—

That the man who loved me was never a stranger in the shadows.

He was always right there.

And the worst part isn’t the betrayal.

It isn’t the horror.

It’s the ache.

The cold, hard ache that keeps whispering that even after everything . . .

I still love him.

I still want him.

But I don’t know how to forgive him.

I don’t know how to forgive myself for wanting him.

So I scrub the counters.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until my skin is raw and my hands are cracked.

Until the only thing left in this house is silence?—

And the woman I’ve become.

Standing at the threshold of something she can’t walk back from.

Something permanent, dark.

I don’t know where to put all of this. The emotion. The wreckage of the last few days.

I sit on my bed, legs folded under me, wearing an oversized sleep shirt.

My nails are wrecked—torn down so far the skin around them is rimmed in angry red, stinging every time I flex.

---