You Believe Me Now, Don’t You?

Let’s begin where it all started:

I didn’t kill her.

I need you to remember that. Sear it into your brain like a brand. I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t have. I loved her. I still do. Even now, even as her memory rots somewhere deeper than six feet under and darker than death.

You believe me, right?

She was already broken when I found her. That’s the part nobody understands. People don’t see the cracks until they break apart. But I saw. I always saw. I tried to fix her. I really did. If anything, I was the glue. The savior. The one who—no, wait.

That’s not how I meant to start this.

Remember what I said at the start? About not killing her? That might not be entirely true. Not in the way you think. But also not in the way they say. You see, truth is a glass pane—and I’ve got a hammer. Or maybe I am the pane. Or the hammer. It’s hard to keep track when your own mind squeaks behind your eyes like a trapped rat.

Let me try again.

There was blood—that much I know. So much blood. Her blood, red like ripe cherries, like a summer I don’t remember anymore. It pooled across the kitchen tiles like it was trying to escape the scene itself. I slipped in it. Or maybe I danced. It’s difficult to say. My memories are like mirrors in a funhouse—truth gets stretched, distorted, twisted until I’m no longer sure if I’m seeing what happened or what I want to believe happened. But you still recognize the face, don’t you?

Don’t you?

She screamed. I think. Or maybe I screamed. Someone did. Could’ve been the kettle. The kettle screamed for hours after she fell. It wouldn’t stop. Neither would I. The knife was warm when I touched it. It didn’t feel real, and neither did the laughter. Or the tears. Or the silence afterward. Especially the silence. That’s the loudest sound, you know?

Wait, did I laugh? No, I couldn’t have. Because I loved her. How could I have killed her if I loved her? If I still love her, even now?

But again—this isn’t how it happened. Not really. She was already gone when I got there. She must have been. Had to have been. I found her. Yes. That’s right. I came home from work and I found her. The door was unlocked, the radio playing static, her body a poorly folded note on the kitchen floor.

Why was the door unlocked?

Why was the knife warm?

Why was I covered in cherry-red love?

It’s all so contradictory, isn’t it? But then again, love always is. I mean, if I loved her, why would I have killed her? That’s the twist, right? That’s what makes it all so deliciously tangled. Spiderwebs tied in bows. Sticky truth disguised as innocence. Or is it guilt pretending to be grief?

Let me say something that is true beyond any doubt: I don’t like spiders.

They spin things. They wait. They trap. I’m not a spider. I’m not the villain here. I didn’t lie to you, I just rearranged the facts. Told them in a more flattering order. A safer rhythm. You wouldn’t have liked the raw version anyway. Still, let’s test something. Let’s rewind. Back to the very beginning.

I didn’t kill her.

Now that you know everything, does that line feel any truer? Or more hollow?

Did I say that to convince you…or myself?

Because honestly, sometimes I forget which version I’m telling. There’s the one I tell the cops. There’s the one I write in my journal and burn page by page. There’s the one I whisper to my reflection.

And then there’s the real one.

But that version…That version is locked away so tight it may never surface again. It’s made of teeth and shadows and her last look before everything fell apart.