Page 171 of Ruin My Life
I need to talk about her.
Iwantto.
And there’s no one else in the world I’d rather say it all to than the two people sitting beside me now.
“They were…killed.”
The word claws up my throat like a razor dragged over raw skin. It slices on the way out, but once it’s free—once I say it—it’s like the blade is finally gone.
The pain still lingers, but for the first time, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to choke me.
Maybe the next time I say it, it won’t hurt as much.
Because therewillbe a next time.
To keep their memory alive, I’ll have to say it for the rest of my life.
“I couldn’t do anything to save them,” I whisper.
The admission is sharp—more honest than I’ve been with myself in a while.
“And truthfully... I don’t think I ever forgave myself for that. I never let myself move past it.”
And that was the plan all along, wasn’t it?
Alexander said it himself. The goal was to break me. Shatter me. Leave me helpless and small so that, eventually, I’d have no choice but to claw my way back. Stronger. Smarter.Sharper.
And when I did, I’d think I was fighting for them. For justice. But really, I was fighting for the people who orchestrated the whole thing.
I never realized I was turning into a weapon for the enemy.
A hot tear slips down my cheek, but I don’t brush it away.
I look down at Amie’s picture and, somehow, I smile. Just a little. Because I canhearwhat she’d say if she were here.
She’d tell me I’m being too hard on myself. That I’m not to blame. That I did everything I could.
She’d probably roll her eyes at me, call me dramatic, and then take one look at Damon—still looming behind me, still steady—and say I’mcuckoo bananasfor running from him.
“I miss them,” I say aloud, lifting my gaze to Damon.
He’s still there. Still standing behind me like a shadow stitched to my spine.
He’s given me every reason to doubt him, and I’ve given him every reason to walk away.
But neither of us has.
And I finally understand what he meant back at the house in Staten Island—when he found me lying on the carpet, my arm stretched toward a ghost.
He told me to take all the time I needed, that he’d stay with me until I was ready to get up.
I thought he meant physically. That he’d carry me out if I couldn’t walk on my own.
But now I see it.
My body left that place months ago—but nothing else did.
My soul, my hope, my future... all of it stayed in that room. In that memory.
