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"How are we on a scale of one to ten?

Could you tell me what you see?

Do you wanna talk about it?

How does that make you feel?"

Bring Me The Horizon,

'Hospital For Souls'

Saph is eyeing me expectantly over her coffee. I stare her down as I bite into my toast, refusing to be the first to crack. Neither of us have spoken yet, we just wandered into the kitchen at around the same time and readied our respective breakfast items. She keeps flashing me amused glances and raised eyebrows while I try to keep a straight face.

I take another bite of toast without so much as looking at it. She bursts into laughter.

"Okay, okay, you got me," she concedes, recovering. "How was the date?"

Another bite of toast. I cock my head.

"Didn't you hear?"

She reaches over and thwaps my arm with the back of her paw.

"Wise guy." She sips at her coffee and averts her gaze before admitting: "but, yeah."

I snort.

"Saph," I shake my head. "You really don't have to listen in you know."

"Yeah," she say. "I know. I'm just... you know."

"I know," I admit. "And don't worry, I'll keep an ear perked for you if you ever get back on the dating scene."

She hides her smile with her coffee.

"Really though Saph, don't torture yourself. I'll be alright. It's been a long time since... since Marty. I've been with a good few guys since then. My confidence is back."

"Mhm," she says.

"What?"

"Well, it's just that - from what I heard - it didn't sound like _you_were bottoming dearie."

"For an asexual you sure like to keep up with my sexual proclivities."

"Come on Ash, you know what I'm saying."

"Well, okay, my confidence is mostly back. The important thing is I'm not scared any more."

"If you're not scared why aren't you doing what you love the most?"

"Oh my god, you're like my mom."

"Your mom asks you why you aren't bottoming?"

I think back on my call with her yesterday afternoon.

"I mean, pretty much."

"Ash..."

"Maybe I wanted to top," I say. She stares at me silent and unblinking, a wry smile curling the corners of her mouth. "What?"

"Ash."

"Yeah?"

"You showed me a picture of this guy yesterday, remember?"

"Oh," I say.

"You wanted to bottom," she says.

"Yeah," I admit.

"And you didn't. Recovery's a hell of a process. It's okay, just don't claim you're back to normal when you're not. I love you, you know, ya big softie. You don't need to lie to me."

"It's just... it's been over three years Saph. I want things to be normal again so badly."

"It's been three years for me too Ash, and I haven't even gone on two dates since it happened."

I grimace.

"I know Saph. I'm sorry. I shouldn't complain. And, while I mean it when I say you don't have to listen out, I get it. And, I appreciate it. Just, don't listen to my dirty talk, okay?"

She sticks out her tongue. "All I ever hear is furniture creaking and the low, muffled tones of various grunts and moans. You don't need to worry. But, hey, If you full-on scream or shout my name, I'll come running."

"You know, I wouldn't feel so bad about you listening in if I thought you might get something out of it. At least then I'd be providing a service."

"Ah, but I'm a no-fun ace, is that it?" She narrows her eyes.

It's not a serious accusation, we're used to making little jabs at one another-it's just a part of how we communicate, and how we stay sane.

"No, you're plenty of fun. You're just a total worrywart too," I say.

"Yeah, yeah. You know, if you keep on teasing me like that, I might just decide to accidentally burst in on you and the next hottie you bring home."

"He'd think you're a burglar, Saph."

"Trying to keep me your little secret, huh Ash?"

I roll my eyes.

"You know I don't tell randos you're here unless its pertinent. The less explaining I need to do on a first date, the better."

"I'm just teasing babe, it suits me too. I don't want to have to do intros with every boy you bring home. When you're on the prowl that'd leave me in a perpetual cycle of small talk and forgetting names."

"I bet you can't imagine anything worse."

"I can," she says. Instantly I feel stupid because, of course she can. "But not many things."

I take the bail out gracefully and move on.

"Now I'm wondering if you're lying about being excited to meet Eve, Jay and Feather."

"Ah, but they aren't randos, are they?"

"Well, I've not actually met Feather."

"One semi-rando then. I can deal with that."

The conversation peters, we eat our breakfast and drink our drinks.

"Oh," she says, upon draining the last of her coffee. "I didn't actually get an answer out of you, did I? How'd the date go?"

"Well." I state, avoiding eye contact.

"Well?"

"Ben's really nice."

"And?"

I shrug. "And I had a good time."

"You're not gonna see him again are you?"

I hate the question. She knows me so well. Somehow even the parts of me that I try to hide from myself are readily apparent to her.

"Probably not," I admit, deciding admitting the truth is easier than beating around the bush.

"And why's that?"

Another uncomfortable question.

"I, uh... I don't know."

She frowns. She knows too much.

"You had a nice time, and you like him?"

"Yeah."

"Yet you think he's not even worth a second date?"

I shrug.

"Guess not."

She opens her muzzle, then hesitates, and shakes her head.

"Okay babe. It's hard for us, I get it, I'm not gonna pry or question your decision. I just want to be certain that you're sure why you're making it."

I think, then nod. I guess, really, I am.

It's because I feel like the Ash I was around Ben wasn't a real person. I feel like that Ash was nothing more than a fabrication made to have hot dates and fuck. That Ash was a top, albeit a subby one. This Ash fantasizes daily about getting railed. That Ash was confident and knew what he wanted and what to do and what to say to get it. This Ash is a fucking mess, certain of nothing. That Ash was mysterious, and gave little away. This Ash is writhing in the context of his existence. The reason I am here in this house is neither simple, nor pleasant, but here I am.

There are good parts to this context of mine. The house itself is great. Saph is better than great. And I'm alive. I'm doing better month after month. Year after year. I'm recovering. Slowly. So _damn_slowly.

And, that's about it.

When I think about a second date I have to wonder if I'm ready to open up to somebody like Ben. You know, like, am I ready to let him know who I really am? What I've done? What has been done to me? Am I really ready to pull down all the defenses I've built up over the years?

For once I know the answer:

No. Not even slightly.

"Saph."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sure."

I just don't want to talk about it.

"Good," she says. "Good."

There is something I want to talk about though.

"Saph."

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember Adrian?"

Her eyes go wide.

"Well, I haven't met him, have I? But yeah, I remember the things you told me about him."

"He sent me a weird text yesterday. I haven't replied, but I feel like I should."

She scooches over to me and stares at my phone.

"Go on, show me."

I do:

Hey Ash, I'm sorry I've been so bad at keeping in touch. I'm sending my love with Eve when she comes to visit, plus a little something extra, but for now I thought I'd reach out and say it's been too long and we really should catch up again. I hope to see you soon xx

"Whoa," she says.

"Yeah," I say.

"Is he still with that wolf?"

"Yep, I checked social media before going out last night. There's been no break up, or at the very least nothing public."

"What do you think it means?"

"I really have no idea."

"What do you think he's sending with Eve?"

I shrug. "No clue at all."

"He barely kept up with you after you made out with his man the day you left the States, right?"

"That's right."

"What about after...?"

"Well, same as ever, meaning almost nothing."

"Do you think he...?"

"I don't think so, unless this is Adrian's way of...?"

"Ash..."

"Drama, right?"

"Or a peace offering. It could be nothing more than that."

"But that would pretty much confirm that he doesn't know."

"Maybe he doesn't know."

"That wolf..." I say.

"That wolf," she agrees. "Well, that's something else for you to look forward to."

"Look forward to? I'm anxious as hell about whatever it is he's sending."

"You can't deny it's adding some excitement to things though, right?"

I pause, then a sardonic grin extends across my muzzle.

"You've got me there. But, look, how the hell am I supposed to reply to this?"

She shakes her head and shrugs.

"You're overthinking it. Just say: it's been too long, lovely hearing from you. Would be great to catch up sometime, looking forward to seeing what you're sending. Or something like that. It doesn't have to be deep."

I make her say it again and write the response out pretty much verbatim, add a couple 'x's and send it. Without Saph I'd be locked in decision paralysis for hours every day, I'm sure of it.

*

I'm lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling. Saph is at work. I'm...

I'm doing nothing.

Days go like this sometimes.

Saph left for work three hours ago. I don't know if I've even moved three rooms from this spot since. I think I was watching a reality television show about inter-species couples with traditionalist parents. Now I'm listening to metalcore on Spotify and doom scrolling through Twitter. Shrieks and monumental guitars pound my eardrums. I am their willing slut, their slave bitch. I am on my knees to the sound.

Twitter is a hellsitedesigned to eat away at your soul. Still, it's a good time waster.

It's not, that just sounded kinda funny in my head. God, what am I doing? I work two days a week. The other days I... well I... I don't know. Time passes.

I switch to Furbook. Somehow, it's even worse. I go on messenger and stare at my exchange with Adrian, wondering what the hell he's up to. I go to my conversation with Eve and send her something on impulse:

Oneweek!!!

She doesn't respond straight away, of course she doesn't. She's at work, like almost everyone at noon on a Monday.

I visualize the last time I was fucked and touch myself for a bit, but my heart isn't in it so other than a bit of leaking I achieve very little.

Okay. Okay okay okay. Enough lazing around. I fire up my laptop and open up my DAW of choice. I turn off the metal and focus on my own music. Yeah, 'music', right. These skeletal incomplete tracks are to music what a toddler's scribbles are to fine art. Still, I play with it a while, focus in on one of my drafts, twiddle some knobs, add another instrument, take it away, add it again slightly altered. I listen. I hate it. I grimace and close the program. I open up a word doc with some lyrics in it. I tweak them slightly while singing along under my breath.

I can't really write or sing, I'm not much of a producer either but, I guess, I'm improving. It doesn't matter anyway. It's just a hobby, really. Something to fill the time. I rarely even show what I come up with to anyone. I've shown tracks to Saph and Eve a few times, when they've inquired or when I've suddenly felt enthused about something, but that's about it. It's just a casual pursuit, and something I've only been at a couple of years so far anyway. All that I've learned has come via a myriad of online tutorials: I couldn't even begin to claim expertise. It's nothing serious.

What it is, is an extension of my newfound obsession with music. I've always been a fan, but in the last few years I've dedicated more and more of my time to it, getting into all kinds of genres and artists that never would have appealed to me before, keeping up to date with hot releases and under the radar gems, starting a damn vinyl collection, and now this: producing my own music. If poorly.

I guess it all came about because I felt I needed a new expressive, artistic outlet. After moving back to Canada I stopped acting. I couldn't do it. Once or twice I tried to get involved with a group or a production, but... it didn't work out. Not even a little. The memories came so thick and fast, those flashbacks, they became so common and pervasive I-

That's how I met him. Acting. That's what we did together, what pulled us into one another's worlds. God, that's what my life with him_became_. Our fucked up little personal melodramas overtook everything, even extending out to fuck up lives other than just our own. He treated life like a performance, and in time so did I. We played characters even when we were with one another. We set up our own little storylines, dictated our own dramas until... Fuck. Until I slit his throat. I was not a good person. No matter what Saph thinks, I'm not even remotely close to a hero. I was a self-centred manipulative brat for so long. Marty was too, but a hundred times worse. I could be amoral, perhaps even callous at times, but he twisted everything and everyone around him with an awful sort of nonchalance that sets my fur on end just to think about. He would have burned down the world just to get to me. Being the object of his depraved, all-encompassing obsession is not an experience I'll ever forget. It's a scar that refuses to fade.

Sometimes I feel a desperate desire to be loved. Sometimes I fear that being loved is the scariest thing in the world. What if I find somebody who_seem_s kind, but ends up obsessed and unhinged like Marty? How can I ever trust somebody the way I once trusted him? How can I expect anybody to trust me when I tell them that I killed a man? Am I meant to spin a web of lies to cover it up? Then they shouldn't trust me. So I shouldtell the truth. But the truth... The real truth? It's awful.

To meet a guythat I would love, and who would love me right, and who would forgive me for my past, and in spite of it all trust me, and who would somehow some way convince me that I couldtrust him seems impossible. Maybe that's an excuse not to even try. Maybe that's an excuse not to have a second date with Ben. Maybe that's an excuse to carry onfuckingand leaving, when even my dating profiles say that isn't what I want. But I've always been a mess ofcontradictions haven't I?I've alwaysbeen an amorphous blob of swirling thought and feeling, never settling, never sure. What happened with Konroy didn't cause that, it onlymade it worse.

I open the DAW again, work on a different project for half an hour, listen to it, grunt, delete the file, then slam the laptop lid shut. It's terrible, it's pathetic, underdeveloped and unfixable. Just like me.

Fuck.

I lie back.

I shout.

I scrunch my eyes shut.

I open them.

I sit up.

I lift the laptop lid, retrieve the file from the trash, sigh, open it, make a few changes, listen, smile. It's not exactly great, but it's not all that bad, and it's improving, slowly. Just like me.

I close the laptop, put the metal back on and lay back. I don't stare at the ceiling this time, I close my eyes and think about music. I feel a little better.

*

My phone buzzes. I'm getting a call. Saph tears her eyes away from the property hunt show on TV to raise an eyebrow at me. If we were still watching sci-fi I don't think she'd have noticed.

Caller ID says...

"It's Ben."

It's only been a day since our hookup. He sent me a message over Liftrthis morning saying he'd had a great time. I didn't respond. I thought that would be it. That's usually enough to get would-be suitors off my back. People tend to get the picture pretty quickly when you ignore them. Its a meet-and-fuck kind of app, not some sanctum for lonely souls looking for a partner, if your lay doesn't stay in touch then that's the end of it.

But here he is, calling me.

When did I give him my number? He gave me his before the date - not date; hook up - as some sort of courtesy. Ah, yes, I reciprocated, gave him mine too, seemed rude not to, and I liked him well enough. I just never really thought he'd use it. Last night he said I should call if I wanted to meet again. I didn't. Now he's calling. I guess he figured he should try his luck.

"Ben? Oh!"

Saph is intrigued.

My stomach's aflutter. I'm about to answer, but some voice in my head yells at me to have this conversation in private, so I stand and walk out the room before picking up.

"Hey," I say, pacing down the hall aimlessly.

"Hi Ash," he says. "It's Ben."

"Yeah," I say. "It's, uh... yeah."

"Sorry, I know you probably don't want to hear from me, I..." He sighs, I imagine him shaking his head, stroking a paw down his face as the reality of the situation dawns on him. "Yeah. I guess I should have taken the hint, right?"

"I- Well, I mean-"

"Hey, look, it's okay. My mistake. I found myself eager after last night, so I called to see if you were interested in meeting again, but you're not. I'm sorry for wasting your time Ash. It was a pleasure to get to know you, have a good eve-"

"Wait." I say.

I don't know why I say it.

The line is silent, but not dead.

"It's not your fault," I say. I cringe. What does that mean?

"I, uh, okay." He says, sheepish, unsure. "Sure. I get it. Life is complicated. You don't have to justify yourself, Ash, but I do appreciate you saying that. Hey, I'll be the endless optimist and say_you've_ still _got my number._You know, on the off chance you have a change of heart, but, yeah. I get it. I won't hold my breath."

Why is he so nice? Why does he like me so much? What does he see in me? There is nothing good about me. Passable charm when I try, average appearance if you don't mind 'em chubby. I mean, I've got a nice butt, but for now it's off-limits to anything other than molded silicone.

I want to cry and I don't know why. I rarely know why, not precisely. It's all endless uncertainty with me. Formless reactions to vague stimuli.

I'm keeping Ben at arms length, or I'm pushing him away, because... because why? Because he doesn't know the real me? Because I don't want him to? Is that really it?

Or does it go deeper? Is it because I don't know the real me in the first place, and I'm scared to admit it?

Fuck it.

"You're a really nice guy Ben." I say. There's a rasping undercurrent to my voice. Hearing it crushes me. I'm weak. Certifiably pathetic.

Today is a bad day.

Calm. A waterfall in slow motion. Deep breaths. Acoustic guitar and birdsong.

However bad you are now, Ash, you've been worse.

Somehow, I find that comforting.

"You too Ash." His words are spoken with care, soft and low.

I can't respond. The crush of emotions that bear down on me are overwhelming, I feel like if I open my muzzle it will be too much, I'll break down.

"Okay," he says at length. "Thanks for your time, I'm sorry to have bothered you like this." He pauses. I don't fill the silence. He exhales and tells me: "take care."

I can't leave at like that.

I can't say nothing.

I pool all of my resolve and speak for as long as I can without crumbling:

"Take care, Ben."

That's it. It's all I can muster. And then the call is over.

Blur.

Nothing.

More.

I find myself squatting, back against the wall, my head in my paws.

I stand and sniff and straighten up. I shake my head and rearrange my brain. I return to Saph.

Saph tilts her head to regard me, nodding slightly, the signal that I should tell her what the hell that was all about, you know, if I want to.

"He, uh, yeah. He wanted to meet again."

"And?"

"I turned him down."

She nods again and turns back to the TV.

"Fair enough," she says.

"Yeah," I say.

The rat couple on the television tell the host that the house would_be perfect, but the garden isn't _quite right. They don't put in an offer.

*

My phone buzzes. It's just a text. Thank god.

It's from Eve.

It's late evening. Saph is out with a couple of her work friends. I'm reclining on an armchair, alone. I've found myself staring at the ceiling again. This time the soundtrack is ambient instead of metal.

I put down the gin I've been nursing steadily for the last twenty minutes and read the message.

We're so excited! Feather and Jay won't talk about anything else! Thanks again for having us all over <3

I wonder for a second, or five, if coming here is little more than a holiday to the three of them. But, I mean, of course it's a holiday! And of course it's more, too. Eve is a true friend, same as Saph. I trust eachof them more than anyone I know, myself included, and it's not particularly close.

Thank the estate of our mutual 'friend'.

That's what I want to type. Part of me finds it funny, part of her might too, butit's not the right thing to say. It's humor born of tragedy, and not the kind of tragedy long since outlived, ratherthe kind still felt every day. I'd hazard a guess I'm not alone in that. Marty died in her dining room. I slit his throat rightin front of her. I fucked her up. I fucked all of us up.

Instead:

Of course, it's my pleasure, I've missed you! I can't wait to meet Feather.

She replies:

Good, you'll get on so well with them, they're a delight

And adds:

Can't wait to see you hon! xx

And I smile. And I feel good. And I remember thatthere _is_joy to be felt, and that I can fight my anxieties,and that I can be happy, and that there are things to look forward to, and that for all of my issues and all of my trauma, I am me, and I am not contained in my past, and I am moving on.

I may be a mess of ever-mixed emotions and eternal uncertainty, but, hey, maybe tomorrow I won't be. Maybe next year.

And I reply:

The feeling is mutual, beautiful xxx

Somedays I feel stuck in time, paralyzed, stupefied, but it's incredible how much having something to look forward to changes that. A few more dull, nothingy days, then Eve will be here and things will change,my world willbrighten,new stories will be spun.

The future is here. Or, it will be, soon.

*

Hell on fucking earth.

It's three thirty AM. Why the fuck am I awake at three thirty AM?

My dick begs for attention with a needy,aching throb as I idly grind itagainst the bedding, barely realizing I'm even doing it. Maybe I was dreaming ofgetting my assrammed. What caused me to wake up, however, is unclear.

Regardless, I jerk off to the memory of my time with Ben, quickly stickying my belly and chest. I gather some of my seed on a finger and lick it off, repeating the process a few times before letting out an exasperated sigh at my own self indulgence. I grab my phone and check the time.

It's almost four AM.

I can't sleep.

Oh.

Oh no.

I know why.

Here comes that urge again.

It pokes its way out of my unconscious, insidious, a simple strand of that basic desire to lay bare the unknown, untethered and just waiting to be pulled. Pulling it doesn't help, it only uncovers more and more of that thread, and you pull that and it goes on and on, out into infinity.

I know by now that once this self-destructive curiosity finds foothold inside of me, it won't budge until it's been properly sated and my head's spinning and I'm scared and confused and wish I had never pursued the thought in the first place.

But pursue it I do, every time.

I search Martin Konroy into Google,and Reddit, and Twitter, and every-fucking-where. Old articles, threads, new ones. Jokes, hot-takes, conspiracy theories. Marty wasn't particularlyfamous before his death, hejust had a famous surname, beingthe son of a powerful, rich man. His fatherowns Konroy Electric, and _he_isn't even particularly famous,at least not on a _personal_level.In fact, even after his death, calling Marty famous would be an overstatement. His demise_was_notable enough to become a story in mainstreamnews,butnot a particularly sensational one. Multi-millionaire'sson passed away at the tragically young age of twenty-seven.No cause of death given - none ever was. The statement from the family just talked about grief and privacy and tragedy. All obfuscation, but the public didn't know that. Didn't care, for the most part.Assumed it was an accident or, more likely,suicide. It always was in cases like that, right?

Themediadug out pictures of Marty in his stage work to give a face to the name,talkinguphis well reviewed performances todraw interest and empathy from the masses. I hated that. The fact thatmost outletsused a picture of him and I sharing the stage forour last roles - co-stars in Romeo and Julian - made me sick to my stomach.

Marty's deathwasn't a big story, nor a long running one, nor was there any ever reason for any normal person to dig deeper into it,but there was _my_face next to his, my name a mere Google search away. In the days following, Iwas contacted a few times for comment as a known close associate of his. Of course, I gave none. Isimply said thatI had no statement to makeand onlywanted time and space to grieve alone. All lies, of course. All apart of the settlement.

Grieve?Fuck me. Grieve? I _killed_the cunt. I certainly wasn't grieving over him.

Of course I moved back to Canada. Of course I changed my name. Of course I changed my life.Of course Iabandoned acting. Of course I ran.

That was aboutitas far as the media was concerned. The story hadrun it's course. It was over.Forgotten by most who saw it, never seen by plenty in the first place, but... the internet is the internet, right?

Somepeopledecided to care a little _too_much. There was someonline discussion, some memorializing for this largely unknown rich brat. Some people that had met him or known him chipped in here and there. It became known thathe was bisexual, and _very_sexually active. He became a sort of ultra-niche LGBTicon to a fractionaldemographic of terminally online, young andimpressionable queers.

Anotherthought thatbrings bile to the back of my throat. People idolizing him after the shit he did is worse than sickening, but, of course, they don't know. How could they?

The other stories that came out, those of his self-superior attitude and apatheticsleaze, helpedcounteract such positivecharacterizationsof himsome. Those investedknow by now that he was, at the very least, problematic.

Really though, even those few who dug deeper didn't care about the incident all _that_much. It was simply something unusualthathadhappened to somebody somewhat notable, a temporary diversion at best, especially whenthat sort of thing isa near enougheveryday occurrence in this day and age.Nobody_actually_cared.

Well, almost nobody.

A strange few plunged their claws inand dragged on, tried to find out more, to understand Marty and what hadhappened to him. Was it really something as simple as an accidentor, as the public had assumed, suicide? Or was it something entirely other?

Snippets of facts surfaced alongsiderumors about family tensions andtales of Marty's drag-addled nights-out. His habits and hisaddictionswere brought to light.It was pointed out that his roommate - boyfriend? - and theater co-star Ryan Sky hadn't said anything, and in fact hadquickly left the country after the incident.Was that justdue to grief? Orperhapssome sense of guilt?An even longer shot, but maybehe knew something he shouldn't and was hushed by the family.

Speculation ran wild and in every direction andoff ofevery lead. The funny thing with untamedspeculation is that somebody usually gets it right, somewherein thatmaelstrom, oftenpurely byaccident. I remember browsing some forumsa couple months after coming back to Canada and seeing somebody speculate that Ryan had killed Martyin self defense after being assaulted, potentially sexually, by the otter in a drug-addled state. My maw fell open. I could barely believe what I had read, butnobody really payed anyattention to thatpost.It's not that it wasimpossible, but as far as theories went it wasoutlandish. Merely an overly-specific possibility among countless many. In actual factit was on the fucking money. Well, almost. Nuance was lost, different events weresmashed together, context was missing... and, one mistake. It wasn't strictly speaking self defense.

Fuck.Here they come.I want to throw up. They'reso vivid. It's like I'm therein the moment, tugging his head back.It's like the three years between then and now didn't happen. It's like I'm bringing thatblade to his throat. It's like I'm pulling it across his ne-

I scrunch my eyes shut and push it down and out of my mind. I know what happened. I think on it daily. I don't need to torture myself like this every single time it comes to mind.

Alright. Okay. Moving on.

Of those who initially pursued the details of the incident, speculating anddigging deeper, even fewer haveactuallystuck with itupuntil now,andof thosethe majoritytreat itmore as a curiosity to occasionallycheck back up on and think about than anything all that pressing or important.At this point all they do iskeep tabs on the players, as they see them, practically salivating at the thoughtthat somebody mightfuck up and say something they shouldn't and the whole mysterycould be unraveled. It's amazing how a tiny bit of missinginformation, combined with a few gleamedinteresting tidbitscan so easily and fiercely spark the fires of conspiracy.Then again, thisisn't a conspiracy, is it? There_are_untold secrets here, things that the public aren't meant to know.

These people are dehydration-level thirsty fornew information. They have their eyes open forany news of the Konroys, foranynewinfo from or about Marty'sflings and exes,for any sign of me. They haven't found me yet. The Konroy's helped with that. In every aspect other than easilyverifiable past truths, they made damnsure there was no way to trace me back to Marty. On top of that,after my return to Canada, Idisappeared entirely. Ryandied. Ash emerged.Nobody cares about me enough to come looking, andeven if they did they'dhave a hell of a time finding me. What happened is in the past, and it'sstaying there. I should feel safe, comfortable. Andyet...

There's that one, big, glaring loose end: it all went down at Eve's place.People witnessed the police, the ambulance, the covered body being carried out. They must have.I know a few passers bysaw us all arguing at one point, before Marty died, before I killed him. They saw his desperate entry into the house, the shouting and theshoving. It was nothing more thanglimpses as they walked by, but at least a few people must have seena ragged otter in there.

The Konroy's were thorough. No official link between that incident and the death of Martin Konroy was ever established.Even the exact date of his death was not public information. As far as the public was concernedhis association with Eve or the others was nonexistent. There was no reason to conflate the two events, even for the rare few who saw a snippet of something on that day. I was terrified somebody would put the pieces together fromseeing a distressed otter one dayand adead oneon the news days later, but they didn't. Not backthen, as I held my breath, and nothereeither,years later. I a_m_anxious about it, even now, but I know I needn't be.YethereI am,staring at conspiracy nuts online to, what? Torture myself? To see if the truth will ever see the light of day and allour lies will be exposed?

No. Not really. It's a done deal. These preoccupiedfew online aren't going to change anything. I just... I guess this ismore evidence that ever truly moving on is impossible for me, that everactuallyletting go is a distant dream.

I have this fear in the back of my mind that someday some conspiracy freak is gonna walk up to me, call me a murderer and put a bullet in my head. Obviously it's deeply illogical, but it's there, and it's not going anywhere any time soon.I keep telling myself that I'm moving on, and maybe I am, but it's the 'moving' part that's key. I wonder if I'll ever actually be able to stop, or if I'll just keep on _moving_on forever.

I close all the tabs, lock my phone, put it on charge, stare at the ceiling in the silence of the dark and exhale slowly. I rub my cheeks, groan, and feel theoh-sofamiliar threat of tears. It's notmemories that have me feeling this way,or the ghost-threat of online theorists who know nothing and never will, no. These tears wet the corners of my eyes because all I've wanted for three years - in fact, longer, since before I killed Marty, since I found out what a fucking controlling monster he was - all I've wanted isto get away from him. And, evennow, I can't.I can stillfeel his pawsgraspingme,and seehis sly smile and thatpracticed arrogance deflecting anything and everything I throw at him. I was his little plaything then,andI'mstill on his fucking leash now.

Mygasp for air comes out asa sob.

I want my life back. I want to goa day without thinking abouthim, obsessing over him. I want him gone, for good. Even killing him wasn't _fucking_enough.

What will be?