_“I should have known that meeting them would lead to something like this.”_

I thought it the second I saw the police lights flickering against the walls of my bedroom, painting everything in a horrible, guilty glow. My heart pounded, my stomach twisted, and every memory of them came rushing back like a flood I never asked for.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

They were supposed to be good for me.

“I swear, we’re just having fun,” they’d grin, pulling me along rooftops at midnight, stealing dumb souvenirs, leaving flowers on strangers’ porches, racing trains like we were immortal. I thought I was finally alive.

But tonight was different.

A shattered window. A scream. Blood on concrete.

And then their voice in my ear, urgent, panicked, terrified.

“I didn’t mean to — I didn’t — you have to believe me.”

I looked down at my trembling hands, red like the sun setting on our last good day, and knew there was no going back.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens.

Somewhere in my heart, something breaking.

I should have known that meeting them would lead to something like this.