Page 15 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

I stop. Like saying it would tempt fate.

She reaches across the table and takes my hand.

“You can’t save everyone, Pops.”

“I know,” I whisper. “But I want to save her.”

She squeezes. Softer:

“Then do what you have to.”

That should be the end. A permission-granted moment you tuck away.

But her words open a door I’ve kept bolted.

Because I’ve heard them before.

Not in court but from her. Something always unspoken when I was younger.

She was tired in a way I didn’t understand then.

Always watching windows. Always packing.

I thought we were adventurers. Turns out, we were just running.

We had moved seven times before I was nine.

New apartments. New schools.

Always after something happened like a midnight call. A man staring too long at the grocery store.

Back then, the rules were simple:

Don’t answer the phone.

Don’t talk to strangers.

And never tell anyone your mom was sixteen when she had you.

We lived on edge, like a horror movie stuck in the quiet part before the scream.

And still, he found us.

Her rapist.

My father.

No one used his name. At least never in front of me.

He wasn’t a person, really. More like a a shadow.

He’d call her job and leave voicemails. Show up at the store and just… watch. Nothing “actionable.” Nothing the cops could do.

They said,We can’t help if he hasn’t done anything.

Sound familiar?

I used to wake up to her crying in the kitchen. Whispering into the phone. Holding ice to her jaw—even when there wasn’t a bruise. Like memory alone could make it ache.

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