She would like to say that it all ended the way it should have; she would like to say that she ended up making things better, or at least better than they actually were. She would really like to say that she was brave and strong and in the end she did the best thing possible to do in that moment, that she corrected all the wrongs in the best way that she could but in the end she couldn't be strong. In the end she hadn't been able to do what she knew she should. She had never been able to hurt other people; she had never been able to bring herself to be violent. Even though the occasion called for it she had been too afraid to end it all and in that she lost all that she really cherished in life; in that weakness she condemned the only person that she ever truly loved.

She hadn't been around to watch him go; she had been hiding out in that cold, haunting house, curled up in bed crying but she could imagine the pain and the blood and she swore she could hear the screaming even when she knew that she didn't really hear it. His voice merely echoed inside of her head, her heart beating inside of her chest even as it broke into a thousand pieces. She felt his lips still pressed against hers even as night fell across the island and her breath became labored from the tears.

She thought about all the times that she should have called him just to hear his voice; thought of all the letters she never sent and all of the times she could have let him know that she loved him more than life itself but she couldn't turn back the hands of time and now it was too late to do all that she should have done; now it was too late to let him know that without him her heart didn't want to beat and the oxygen burned in her lungs like acid.

Afterwards she refused to leave 'her room' for a couple of days, wouldn't leave until her stomach was basically eating itself up because she hadn't eaten in so long. And it was only then that she had dared to venture downstairs and face the monster in her life firsthand. He smiled, all too thrilled that she was finally back by him. He had given her as much time as she had needed to try to adjust to what had taken place but he had been growing impatient and worried and he knew that when he became impatient he became violent and he never wanted to do that with her; he never wanted to hit her like he had when she had said she loved someone other than him.

He cooked for her even though she really didn't want to accept anything from him; she had eaten what she could but even though her stomach was begging for food she could barely manage to put any of it down without feeling like she was about to throw it up all over the kitchen table. He smiled and tried to get her to talk; she couldn't look at his face but instead focused on his hands and imaged the blood of all the people he had killed dripping off of the digits and onto the table, dripping down onto the floor and pooling at his feet.

"Everything is going to be just like we always wanted when we were kids," he said, that smile still on his face, his voice sounding as though he had just given her the best gift in the world. His eyes were twinkling and she hated him for it and for so many more things that had happened; she wanted to cut his face off so she wouldn't have to look at it and realize all that she thought she knew about him was a lie.

"It will all just be perfect," he assured her but she knew that nothing would ever be perfect again.

Somewhere on the island the only man she had ever loved was now a meal for the bugs and worms.