There are times when I wish I hadn’t left.

But then I look in the mirror, and I feel the anger and disgust coursing through me.

And then it doesn’t take long before the mirror is shattered, scattered all over the floor in glinting, mocking facets of myself. No matter how hard I try, I can never lose my reflection.

I think it’s become my new worst nightmare. My greatest fear.

I sit and stare at the blood swelling out of my knuckles, clenching and unclenching my jaw, taking deep breaths, trying to forget. But it’s so impossible, and I know. I know it’s impossible to cut the string that binds me – No, not me, Tristan – to me.

I have to realize. I must face the truth.

That I am a freak. I am a monster. I am a murderer.

But never – never – will I place the ones I love in danger. Because they’re the only ones keeping me sane every moment I pass by in my prison.

Yeah, staring at the blood definitely helps.



Eventually Roxy will burst through the door and make a fuss. She will sweep up the glass and hurry out of the room, muttering that she will dress my wound. There was a time when she looked absolutely frightened when she walked in on me like this.
Now, though, she just seems disappointed.

Roxy thinks I need help. They all do.


I don’t. I’m fine.

I want…

I wish…

But all I can do is sit in my prison cell, repressed within my own suffocating mind, shuffling through paperwork that I have already memorized, confirming events that I have already confirmed more than enough times.

Anything. Anything but thinking about her.

I am beginning to lose my sanity.

I have distanced myself from the ones I need in order to protect them. Whatever happens to me isn’t in any way important. I just need them to be safe.

And then it’s really none too much of a worry for me whether I live or die.

I’ve thought of dying before…

I don’t think it would hurt... Not as much as it hurts right now.



I wish I hadn’t left.

I need her. More than I ever imagined.

I said things to her that I could have never brought myself to say if her life didn’t depend on it. They were all lies. But she was naïve. Of course she’d believed me. Of course she’d accepted that I’d spent the moments I’d spent with her were like a man in debt who had resolved to using a credit card for as long as he could. And I was too freaking selfish to pay the bill.
I had no choice. I had to leave. For her. Only her.


But sometimes I almost can’t stop myself from getting into my car and racing back to meet her and tell her everything.

If it weren’t for the nightmares, I probably would have done it by now, too.

Sometimes, I wonder what it was that gave me the courage to push her away. It was utterly unbearable.

But I think I might know part of that answer now:

Because I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, who picked fights with her in college.

I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, who let his walls crumble away and let her in in the first place.

I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, who was the dork with the laptop and eyeglasses after dark – someone who even I didn’t recognize anymore. But she’d brought him back.

I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, that earned the trust from her to read her book, and talk about our pasts.

I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, that, if not for the most fleeting of moments, managed to break through and just breathe….just breathe and be…Aden. Because of her.
And I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, who pushed her away.

I’m sure that it was Aden, not Tristan, who fell in love with her – and still is.

I’m so sure.



The only thing I’m not sure about is which one I am now.