Page 19 of Mason

But I was wrong. Monsters don’t always hide in the dark.

Sometimes, they stand in the sunlight, smiling, slipping a ring onto your finger.

David was one of those monsters.

The kind who doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t throw fists. The kind who whispers venom into your ear while brushing the hair from your face. Who isolates you without ever telling you no. Who breaks you in ways you don’t even notice until there’s nothing left of the person you used to be.

Six years ago, I thought I married the perfect man.

Clay thought otherwise.

He was watching at my wedding, standing off to the side, his arms crossed, his jaw locked tight. I remember the way he pulled me aside before the wedding, his grip firm on my wrist, his voice low but sharp. “He’s not who you think he is, Shelby.”

I scoffed at him then. I told him he was being protective, dramatic. That he was looking for a reason to hate the man I loved.

Turns out, he didn’t have to look very hard.

For a while, everything was perfect. Or maybe I just convinced myself it was. David had a way of making me feel like I was the center of his world. Like I was lucky to have him. It was easy to believe, even when the compliments started coming with edges, even when his touch felt more like ownership than love.

It started small. I guess it always does.

A comment about my clothes. A suggestion that I should stop seeing certain friends. A disapproving glance when I laughed a little too loud, talked a little too much. Before I knew it, the walls were closing in, and I was losing pieces of myself.

And when I finally tried to leave?

He didn’t stop me. Not right away. He let me run, let me feel like I had escaped.

Then he came for me.

Every time, he found me. Every time, he smiled and told me he forgave me for overreacting. For making things bigger than they were. For not understanding what love really meant. And for a while, I believed him. Because when you hear the same words over and over, they start to sound like truth.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

The last time, I didn’t tell him I was leaving. I didn’t wait for his rage to subside or his promises to sound convincing. I packed a bag, left the divorce papers on the counter, and ran.

And Clay ran with me.

For the past two years, we’ve been running. New towns, new jobs, new names. Every time we think we’re safe, David reminds us that we’re not. He doesn’t come for me directly—no, that would be too easy. Too final. He wants me broken first.

He’ll stop at nothing to destroy me. Every calculated act, every twisted game, every carefully placed blow—each one is another crack in his carefully controlled façade. The harder he tries to pull me back, the more I see it—David’s mind unraveling, fraying at the edges, slipping into something darker, something desperate.

He had our power cut off in the dead of winter.

He got Clay fired from his job, feeding his boss the right lies to make him look like a liability.

Then the stalking started. I’d feel him before I saw him, a shadow just out of reach. Then the texts.Miss me?I always know where you are, Shelby.

But the car accident—that was the moment his madness bled into reality. The proof that his obsession had crossed the line from control to something far more dangerous.

Clay had been driving home late, uneasy about the way the car handled. He said it felt off, like something wasn’t right. Before he could pull over, he lost control. The brakes failed. The car spun, flipped. He crawled out of the wreckage, dazed, bleeding, lucky to be alive.

I knew.

David had done it.

Not to kill him. Just to warn him. To remind us both that no matter how far we ran, we would never be beyond his reach.

So no, I’m not surprised Clay is in jail.

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