My hands were shaking.
That never happened.
I braced them on the sink and stared at my reflection like it might explain me to myself. My face looked the same—composed, sharp, untouched. The kind of woman people underestimated because she didn’t look like she’d already planned their funeral.
But something was wrong.
It was in the way my chest ached. The way my throat tightened like I swallowed glass. The way his words wouldn’t stop replaying.
You ever see someone you love die right in front of you…?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I’d seen death. I’d caused it. I’d cataloged it, weighed it, measured its effects like a variable I could control, when in the end nobody really could despite their strongest desire to. Men went to great lengths for it, but we all ended up the same in the end.
I had to admit I’d never heard it spoken like that.
Not as a threat. Not as leverage.
As living, breathing, grief.
I told myself this marriage was strategy. That the poison was precaution. That turning him into a weapon meant I would never have to be vulnerable again.
But weapons didn’t break your heart.
Weapons didn’t let you hold their hair while they threw up. Weapons didn’t joke about losing what little vanity they had left. Weapons didn’t talk about birthday cakes they never got.
I pressed my fingers to my lips.
He never said a name.
Not once.
And somehow that made it worse. Like saying the name might break a part of him that couldn’t ever be fixed.
I knew exactly what kind of man remembered details like balloons and dinosaurs and ice cream cake. I knew what kind of loss left marks that deep. A man like my father. Like the men in our family who I love and respect. And I know what kind of monster it took to put a bullet between someone’s eyes and not care.
The vial in my purse feels heavier now. Hotter. Like it knew something I didn’t.
I thought control would make me safe.
But control required distance. And somewhere between the bathroom floor and his confession, that distance collapsed.
He’d threatened me.
I should be angry.
Instead, I was terrified.
Thrilled?
No. I tamped it down. The last thing I needed was to lose focus. Because for the first time since I was a child watching adults smile through perfectly crafted lies, I wasn’t sure who the real danger was anymore.
Him.
Or the part of me that didn’t want to hurt him again.
I straightened my spine. Fixed my face. Practiced the mask that had kept me alive this long.