I can never forget that night,

the way the blood splattered across the walls, the floor, my hands. I was drenched in it from head to toe, but in the moment, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Every stab felt like releasing something I had been holding inside for years: anger, fear, resentment. All of it poured out through the blade.

People always told me to stay quiet, to endure, to wait for things to “get better.” But they didn’t see what happened behind closed doors. They didn’t hear the things said to me, or know the bruises hidden beneath long sleeves. That night, something inside me snapped. When I finally fought back, I didn’t know how to stop.

And what haunts me isn’t the scream, or the silence that followed.

It’s the question: why didn’t anyone stop me?

Why didn’t anyone help?

That was a month ago, but the memory clings to me like a second skin. No matter how much I wash it off, it’s still there. The evidence of what happened is still clear as day. I see it in the mirror when I look at my face. I hear it in the sink when the water runs red in my mind. I feel it in the cracks of my fingernails, no matter how hard I scrub.

Maybe it’s only in my head, but I feel filthy, wrong in a way no amount of soap can fix.

Every stranger I pass seems to know. Their eyes linger a second too long, and conversations freeze when I walk by. I’m waiting, nervously, constantly, for someone to expose what I’ve done. But no one does.

And that terrifies me more.

Are they waiting for me to confess?

Are they enjoying this guilt that gnaws through me every night?

Or maybe… they want something. Why else stay silent? Why let a monster walk free?

Sometimes I wonder which is worse:

being caught, or knowing that everyone already knows, and choosing not to say a word.