Page 16 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

And then… it stopped.

No more calls.

No more letters.

No more fear in her eyes when the doorbell rang.

I was ten. And even then, I knew better than to ask.

Now, sitting across from her, watching the worry she tries to hide, I wonder if she made it stop.

If she did what the system never would.

I don’t know what pulls the thought forward.

Maybe it’s the quiet between dinner and dishes.

Maybe it’s the towel she keeps folding like her hands need purpose.

Or maybe it’s the weight of this week—this loss, this mistrial—pressing too hard against what I thought I could carry.

I drift inward.

Back to the thing I pretend I’ve made peace with.

I never asked much about him.

When I was young, I got the basics.

He was older. She was sixteen. He hurt her.

And somehow, she survived.

When I was a teen, I searched the internet.

As a lawyer, I pulled everything—transcripts, redacted photos, the case file.

One image stays with me.

His booking photo—shirtless, defiant, arms tensed like he still had control.

But it was his chest that held me.

Red scratch marks scattered like a confession.

I counted them. Not out of morbid curiosity. Not for vengeance.

Because I needed to know.

One hundred seventy-three.

That’s how many I could see.

My mother—gentle, private, fierce—fought like she knew she’d die otherwise.

And still, he walked free.

That image didn’t just stay in my memory. It lodged deeper.

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