I wouldn’t have hated Joseph whether he was a boy or a girl. At the time, he was the only bright thing in my pitch-black life.

My childhood was bitter and angry. I had so much energy I had to purge with fistfights and shower fights. And fights, in general.

After Joseph came, I had better control. He was slowly filling up that bottomless black hole.

Until he didn’t.

Until he left.

My little Petal inches closer as if the distance between us is a burden. Her knees touch my thigh. “You really wouldn’t have?”

“No, you would’ve been annoying either way.”

“Hey!” She hits my shoulder with her small fist. “You were one of my happiest memories, don’t ruin it.”

“Happiest memories, huh?”

“Yeah, you were the number one person in my life back then.”

Something clenches in my chest. I don’t know what it is, but it just does. I didn’t know I needed her to say those words until she actually did.

“How about your father?” I feign nonchalance. “He never visited?”

She shakes her head slowly. “I think he died with Mom. I never saw him after she was gone.”

He’s not. He’s looking for you.

“And you’re okay with never seeing him?” I ask.

“I learnt to be okay with a lot of things since I was young. When you’re an orphan and depend on foster care, you can’t be picky or difficult. There shouldn’t be any food or TV shows you dislike. I hate beans with a passion, but one of the foster families I lived with loved them, and I had to shove them down my throat with a smile. If I didn’t, if I started picking trouble because of stupid food, I’d be sent back. I hated being sent back, it felt like being unwanted trash.”

Her voice breaks on the last word.

Her eyes well with tears but she takes a deep breath and fans her face to get rid of them.

I do something I never did with another human before.

Placing an arm around her shoulder, I pull her to the crook of my body. I’ve never felt the need to console anyone, but the look on her face, the way her nose scrunches with her battle to seal down her pain does me in.

The moment I hug her, my little Petal loses the battle. A gasp tears from her throat that soon turns into a soft sob.

Her nails dig into my chest as her lips tremble with the need to hide her emotions.

“Well, you don’t have to eat beans now,” I joke.

She smiles a little. “I don’t.”

“Is that why you have picky cats?”

“Hey! Don’t go insulting my cats.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“How was it for you?” she asks after a moment of silence and her sobs dying down.

“How was what?”

“Foster system.”

“I liked being sent back. It meant I was doing a great job pissing people off.”

“You were always the rebel.”

“Always, Pet.”

Her huge eyes fix me with acute curiosity. “How did you end up the way you are? You know, with killing and stuff.”

“Someone saved me from the system and stopped letting people send me back.”

She appears thoughtful for a second, but she doesn’t speak.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I say slowly as if those thoughts might end whatever this is.

“I was just thinking about how different you are between then and now. But not really that different, you know? Back then, you always used violence to solve problems, but although I loved that you were protecting me and still love the boy you were so much, but now, I’m not sure about the man you’ve become. It’s so scary to be with you, to crave you this much, to need your hands on me all the time when I know those same hands ended other people’s lives.”

Silence.

Long, thick silence fills the space.

Neither of us break it or attempts to. My little Petal is breathing heavily against my chest, probably thinking back over the bomb she just dropped.

She said in no certain terms that she doesn’t like what I grew up into, that she preferred the boy from back then over the man I am today.

And why wouldn’t she?

After all, I’m the killer pining for her life. Being her stalker is child’s play compared to what I’m supposed to do to her —like kill her, maim her, and cut off her head so Lucio can keep it in his fucked-up collection.

He has eyes and body parts of his enemies tucked away, so he can look at them and feel triumphant about how far he’s come.

My little Petal will be just another addition to that, a last ‘fuck you’ to Paolo. Another way to ensure he’s the only one who rules.

Still, hearing her say those words doesn’t bring me the acceptance I’m supposed to feel. A dark cloud hovers over my head, expanding and blackening by the second.

The fact I’m being subtly rejected by her is like being sliced by a knife. At first, you only feel the sting, and then you’re bleeding to fucking death on the ground.

I stand up, not caring that I push her off me in the meantime.

My little Petal’s face falls.

Petal.

No wonder I started calling her that for no apparent reason at all. It’s from the times she was picking daisies and plucking their petals one by one in that stupid fucking game.

It takes me a minute to pull on my pants and throw on my shirt. The entire time, my little Petal watches me from the bed, unmoving, almost as if any motion will trigger a disaster.

I’m halfway through buttoning my shirt when she murmurs, “Where are you going?”

I don’t answer her and throw my jacket over my shoulder on the way out. If I speak right now, it’ll be ugly. If I let the words come out of my mouth, she’ll be crying and I’ll be fucking her face-first into her bed.

I’m in the middle of the living room when a soft, but quick padding of feet follows me before two slender arms wrap around me from behind.

My feet come to a halt of their own volition.

“D-don’t go.” Her voice is muffled as her face nuzzles against my back.

“Why?”

“Just… don’t. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“And why is that my fucking problem?” I snap harder than I intend to.

She flinches but doesn’t let me go. “Jasper, don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what? Leave you be as you always asked?”

“But you never gave it to me, why now?”

“The fun is over, Pet. I lost interest in you.”

Her hands fall from around me as if she’s been electrocuted. There’s a fucking tingling in my chest pushing me to say I didn’t mean that, that I’m only pushing her away because of what she said, but I kill that part.

That part will be the cause of my fucking death.

I don’t look back as I step out of the apartment. A soft whimper follows after me, but I don’t turn around no matter how much I’m tempted to. If I do, I’ll go back in there and hold her, kiss her, make her feel better. I’ll tell her stupid fucking things like she won’t be alone anymore and that I’ll be there with her.

But that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?

My little Petal and I have unfinished business.

Her life or mine.