Stillhouse Lake

September twenty-third.

As I look at her standing there, holding the knife, pale and afraid and yet fearless, I love her with an intensity that hurts me. I also fear what I’ve made her into.

Everything he’s done is tainted now to me. Every smile was just mechanics. Every laugh was manufactured. Every public sign of affection was just that: for the public.

And always, always, the monster lay just under the surface of it all.