I stand there for another moment, bow tie hanging loose around my neck. My gaze shifts from Harold’s saliva to the spot on the sawdust-covered floor where Eliana and I made love four nights ago. It was there, right f*****g there. The world was so perfect then. It was ours. She was mine. We’d made it, both of us.
But maybe I was an i***t for ever thinking that I’d get to keep something so nice and pure. You can run and run and run, but you can’t escape what’s in your veins. Some sins can’t be forgiven. Some roots cannot be hacked away.
So I clench my jaw and flex my fists. Then I turn my back on that spot and walk toward the stairs. Each step takes me further and further from the man I’ve spent sixteen years trying to be…
… and closer and closer to the one I’ve always feared I’d become.
