Page 70 of Vicious Hearts

I hear a crack and then silence.

25

Ben

At first glance, my apartment looks like it always does. But it will never feel the same.

A smudge of lip gloss on the edge of a glass. A towel draped carelessly over the door. The bed is messed-up from where we tumbled around in it only hours ago.

Back when I thought we would make it together.

I want to call her, but I don't. Doing whatever I want is what got me in this mess in the first place.

The Dollmaker is dead. It didn't take much—failing to kill Roxy obviously sent Graham off the deep end. I'm glad I got a few good punches in before the cowardly fucker took himself out.

He was a man without a conscience. A man who took what he wanted, acted out when he was denied, and used other people to meet his own needs. His fantasies drove him to snuff out innocence and potential, leaving behind devastation and loss.

I don't like having things in common with a man like Graham. I told Roxy that deviance is on a spectrum, but so are many other things.

We all have the capacity to commit terrible acts. But I don't believe in evil for its own sake. What I do believe in is far more terrifying.

It's often said that evil people do fucked-up things, but that's too simple. In fact, every individual who commits an atrocity feels justified. They have their reasons, even if they are incomprehensible or based on bullshit.

When I killed my father, I told myself it was the inevitable consequence of the way I’d been treated. If you tie a dog up and kick it every day for years, you can’t be surprised if it turns around one day and tears your throat out. The cop was just in the way. Hard luck for him.

For the first time ever, Idon'tfeel justified. Roxy’s belief in justice has reached into me, made me see things differently. When I told her what I’d done, she offered me forgiveness, and somehow that hurts more than hardening my heart ever could.

I feel fucking terrible, and for once, it's notmeI feel sorry for.

My love for Roxy was real. I was too afraid of what that might mean, so I let the darkness inside me smother it. She was innocent, too, a woman willing to be grazed by my rough edges if it meant she could have the good parts of me. I couldn’t handle the possibility that I might be dangerous to her, so I pushed her away.

I fucked her so hard. I should havelovedher even harder. She deserves a man who will cherish her and have the courage to bare his chest, trusting her not to stab him in the heart.

That man isn't me. I knew it all along.

I've never been more sorry to be right in my life.

I open the refrigerator and take out a new bottle of vodka, twisting off the cap. I put the bottle to my lips.

No.

Roxy said I drink too much, and she was right. She was right about so much.

I'm not gonna let my dysfunctional bullshit define me anymore. I may have squandered Roxy's faith in me, but I feel her in my heart, urging me to do better. Tobebetter.

I stand over the basin, watching the vodka as it swirls down the drain.

I crawl into bed and roll onto Roxy's pillow, breathing her in. The pain hits with a hollow thump in my chest.

She's gone.

* * *

Roxy is running. She's scrambling through shadows, appearing and disappearing. I try to keep her in view, but I can't keep up, and she gets increasingly distant. Somehow, I can still see her eyes dart maniacally as she looks over her shoulder.

She's so afraid.

I look behind me. Pillars of darkness block the light, then reveal it. Roxy is crying, her thin wail of panic tearing the air.