Page 34 of Ruthless Regret

I slept in prison. Not well, not deeply, but enough to make it through the days. Out here, it’s different.Everythingis different.

It’s too quiet. It’s not like the constant hum of prison life. There was always noise. The shuffle of footsteps outside thecells, the buzz of doors locking and unlocking as the wardens made their rounds, the shouting, the banging on bars.

Out here, the silence bothers me.

In prison, I knew my place. I had a schedule. A routine. Rules that kept everything simple, even if it was brutal at times. But now? Now I’m lost in a world that feels too big, too open, too different. It’s moved on without me, and I don’t have a place in it.

I don’t know who I am out here.

I shift on the tiled floor, and try to relax. It doesn’t work. I’m too keyed up, too wound tight from everything that’s happened. I came out of prison with a plan, a clear goal that got me through every endless day.

Focus on Ashley.

Focus on revenge.

Make her pay for everything she took from me.

Every year. Every breath. Every fucking second I spent rotting behind bars,because of her.

It’s the only thing that kept me going while I was inside. The only thing that kept me sane when everything else was stripped away from me. Every fucking time I closed my eyes in that cell, I pictured her—a vague figure of a girl with dark hair, and no features. Every night, I imagined the day I’d get out and make her pay for everything she did to me.

But now? Now that I’ve twisted her life into something unrecognizable, the victory feels hollow. Empty.

I roll onto my side, and drape an arm over my eyes, trying to block out the thoughts that won’t stop filling my head.

How did I lose control over the situation?

I was supposed to get the upper hand. I was supposed to be the one pulling the strings, making her dance to my tune. Yet every plan I made, every calculated move, has brought me to the point where I don’t know if I’m torturingheror myself.

I grit my teeth, pushing the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to shake off the image of her face. The way she looked at me. There was fear there, sure, but also something else. Something I didn’t expect.

Something that’s been fucking with my head ever since I forced her to watch the videos of both our police interviews.

Regret.

Not just the regret of someone forced into a situation they don’t want to be in, but the regret of someone who realizes they’ve been living a lie.

She isn’t the monster I built her up to be.

I fucking hate that realization. Hate it more than I hated the years I spent behind bars, the endless grind of survival, the endless cycle of anger and despair.

The thought of getting revenge kept me alive. I told myself that if I could make Ashley suffer the way I did, it would fill the cold, empty space inside me.

But now that I’m out, now that I’ve been face to face with her, I see the cracks. I can see the fractures in the story I’ve told myself for so long. And those cracks are driving me insane.

Because it means I was wrong.

I was wrong about her.

And that means I wasted years focusing on her when I should have been trying to figure out who really murdered my best friends.

I exhale slowly, forcing my breathing to even out, trying to focus on the rhythm of the air moving in and out of my lungs. It doesn’t work, and I push myself up into a sitting position. My head is pounding, my body aching from days of tension, but I can’t sleep.

Not in here. Not in the bed. Not any fucking where.

I know it’s because I spent so long in a space that confined me,definedme, that I don’t know how to function outside of it.I keep wanting to fall back into the prison mentality of waiting for someone to tell me what to do. For the rules to be laid out in front of me, simple and clear.

But there are no rules out here. No structure. No routine. Just a void of endless choices, and decisions to make. And I’m fucking drowning in them.

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