Certainly not sorrow.
Something else. Like an echo. Like silence that hasn’t settled yet.
By the time I reach the bus station, the sun is rising.
I sit near the back of the waiting area, slouched low, hood up. The ticket machine is broken, so I pay cash at the counter and avoid eye contact with the woman behind the glass. She doesn’t ask questions. Just hands me my change and a one-way ticket west.
California, here I fucking come.
I board the bus, take a window seat, and pull my legs up beneath me. A few other passengers trickle in—a mom with a toddler, a guy in a business suit, a teenager who looks like he hasn’t slept in three days. None of them look at me twice.
Perfect.
As the bus pulls away, I finally relax. The landscape blurs past.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come.
Instead, I think about the sound his skull made when I hit him. About the way the blood soaked into his pillow. About the way hedidn’tbeg.
He didn’t have time.
He always told me I was weak. Useless. A blob of nothing that no one wanted.
I’m none of those things now.
I trained for this. Not with weapons or knives, but with silence. With endurance. With the kind of patience it takes to smile at your abuser while you memorize the creak of every floorboard in the house.
That kind of training stays in your bones.
I rest my head against the window.
The ache in my shoulder reminds me of the tattoo.
A viper, coiled and poised. It’s not just a symbol. It’s a warning. To others.
Tome.
I won’t let anyone close enough to hurt me again. Not that way. Not ever.
And if they try?
I won’t wait for nightfall next time.
I won’t wait at all.
Present Day…
I’ve gone soft.
I’ve gone and developed feelings for that shithead rock star. Sure, I was infatuated with him when I followed him around Europe. I love his music, his gravelly voice, his charismatic stage presence.
Plus…getting out of the US for a year sure didn’t hurt at the time.
Funny.
I haven’t thought of my past much.
Sometimes it seems like a bad dream. Even a bad dream inside of a bad dream.
