I’ll have to stop dripping blood on these lovely oak floorboards.

Not mine, mind you. I’m fine. Mostly. It’s him who isn’t.

The pool spreads out from under his shoulder, creeping towards the skirting boards. The oak drinks it greedily, darkening, staining. I told him it would end this way if he kept pushing. He laughed, like they all do, certain I was bluffing. People never imagine you’ll actually go through with it.

But here we are.

The knife is still in my hand, humming. I reckon steel does that if you hold it long enough; it seems to start vibrating with the memory of use. He isn’t humming anymore. He’s wheezing, a broken accordion, and the sound is throwing off my focus.

The floor. That’s the problem. Oak this fine doesn’t come cheap, not in a city like this. Whoever installed it cared. They knelt for hours, aligning each plank, sealing each seam. I can picture the craftsman’s hands, calloused, reverent, steady. Hands that worked for beauty, not for blood.

I crouch down and press a rag over the wound, not for him but for the wood. Too late. Crimson seeps through, unstoppable. I glance towards the linen closet. Towels. Bleach under the sink. The things you think about, mid-crime.

He gurgles my name. I don’t answer.

The house is quiet otherwise. Streetlights slice through the blinds. The clock on the mantle ticks, loud enough to grind on my nerves. Upstairs, the neighbours are stomping again, oblivious. Life goes on. It always does.

I should be planning my exit. Wipe down the counters, drag him out the back, bury the clothes deep in the laundromat bin. Instead, I’m fixated on the stain widening under him. A flower blooming in reverse.

“You ruined it,” I whisper. Not to him, not really. To the floor. To myself.

I drag him onto the rug. The rug is ugly crap anyway, a cheap geometric pattern, polyester pretending to be wool. Disposable. Yuch! Let it take the brunt. I can almost hear the oak sigh with relief.

His breathing slows. The humming in the knife fades. When silence finally comes, I feel lighter, but only for a moment. Then the heaviness returns, because silence means decisions.

Do I leave him here? No… Too obvious. Do I carry him out? Too risky. Every option leads back to the same snag: the floorboards. No matter what I do, the stain remains.

A souvenir. A confession. A signpost.

I sit back in the armchair, knife balanced across my lap. The rug squelches under his weight. The smell will come soon, that iron, rot, inevitability.

I could walk away. Pretend I was never here. But I know myself. I’ll come back tomorrow, and the next day, with sandpaper and oils, trying to coax the wood into forgetting.

It won’t. Oak always remembers.

And so will I.