***

  I walk to the kitchen.

  Each step feels wrong. My spine is too rigid. My shoulders locked. The latex gloves are slick with condensation—sweat, not blood—but my skin underneath crawls.

  The air is thick. Copper and rot-flower perfume. It coats my tongue. My sinuses. I can taste it with every breath.

  I reach the sink and twist the tap hard to the left. Not warm. Not hot.

  Scalding.

  Steam rises immediately. I peel off the gloves—inside-out, trapping the moisture—and tuck them into the hidden pocket of my robe to be burned later. My hands are pale. Bloodless. Clean.

  ?I thrust them under the scalding stream.

  ?The water is punishing. My skin turns pink, then red. The heat radiates up my wrists. It should hurt. It does hurt. Good. I scrub until the phantom sensation of Sofia’s cooling wrist and the tackiness of Dexter's blood begin to recede.

  I pump soap. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Not because of what's on my hands — there's nothing on my hands — but because this is how I find the edges of myself again. The heat. The sting. The specific pressure of my own palms pressing together.

  ?Plink. Plink. Plink.

  ?I dry my hands slowly. Methodically. When I’m done, they look like the hands of someone who never left the bedroom. The hands of a victim.

  ?And I am just me again before everything started.

  But it is not over.

  Not yet.

  I move to the master bathroom—my true sanctuary. The white marble is cold, honest, and silent.I strip. Every layer of clothing is a layer of them—their heat, their biology, their noise. I place the silk, the wool, and the latex into a heavy-duty bag. Later, they will become ash in the incinerator behind the estate, but for now, they are simply contaminants removed from my skin.

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  ?I step into the shower. I don't use the artisanal soaps Dexter liked—the ones that smell of sandalwood and ego. I use a clinical, unscented scrub. I turn the water to a temperature that should scald, but to me, it feels like a reset. I scrub my forearms where Sofia’s warmth briefly lingered. I scrub my neck where Dexter’s breath was a humid intrusion until the temperature of my skin belongs to me again .

  ?I watch the water swirl down the drain, tinged with a microscopic hint of pink. Down the pipe. Out of the house. Into the dark. When I step out, my skin is raw and flushed.

  I press both palms flat against the cold marble countertop and breathe. In. Out. The stone is hard and honest beneath my hands.

  I am finally alone in my own body.

  ***

  The bathroom is spotless, scrubbed with bleach until it smells like a hospital.

  If they ask about the smell of bleach, I will tell the truth: I clean when I'm anxious. It's the only way to control the environment. They will look at my medical records, see the sensory processing disorder, and nod. Poor thing, they will say. They are scrubbing the sink while their husband is about to die.

  ?I dress in a soft, oversized sweater—something that doesn't demand to be looked at.

  I take a deep breath. The house is silent now. Truly silent. No tapping of Dexter’s fingers. No giggling from the hallway. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the wind against the glass.

  ***

  I open the front door. Mountain air moves in — cold, carrying pine and stone, nothing that has ever belonged to anyone. It pushes out the smell of lilies and copper.

  I walk.

  The gravel shouts under my feet at first, then softens as the house falls away.

  I wait until my pulse finds its own rhythm.

  Slow. Mine.

  No one else’s.

  I listen. Wind. Trees. Nothing that needs anything from me.

  I can finally hear the silence. It is beautiful.

  ***

  I waited exactly three hours and twelve minutes.

  I have timed it. Just like I time everything.

  I walk down the mountain path, the cold air stinging my cheeks. It is necessary. I need the flush of exertion on my skin to mimic the flush of panic. I need my legs to tremble from fatigue so they will look like they are trembling from shock.

  I have left the house "in a rage." That is the story. Dexter has humiliated me—again—and I have stormed out because I don't want to hear his voice. I don't want to hear any voice.

  I reach the driveway.

  The house stands dark and silent against the trees.

  I stand on the porch for a full minute, watching my own reflection in the glass. I practice the expression: the slight parting of the lips, the widening of the iris, the way the hands should tremble but never quite stop.

  ?I step inside. The silence is there, but it is weighted now—heavy with the cooling mass of two bodies. I walk into the study. I stand exactly three feet from the doorway, ensuring my shoes are planted on a clean patch of hardwood. I do not look at Dexter. I do not look at Sofia. I look at the wall, at a point six inches above the light switch.

  ?I take my phone—the clean one—and dial the three digits that will bring the noise back, one last time. A practiced panic shakes my frame; the tremble in my voice —not too much, not too little. Just enough to sound genuine.

  ?"911, what is your emergency?"

  ?I let a jagged, wet breath hitch in my throat. I don't speak immediately. Silence is more convincing than a script.

  ?"I... I just walked in," I whisper. I keep my voice low, the sound of a victim who is afraid the killer might still be in the room. "The door was open. There’s... oh god, there’s so much red. Dexter? Dexter, honey?"

  ?I drop the phone. I don't hang up. I let it clatter to the floor, the line staying open so the dispatcher can hear my shallow, panicked breathing and the heavy, oppressive silence of the house. That open line is my best witness. It records my shock.

  ?Only then, as I hear the dispatcher’s tinny voice calling my name through the speaker on the floor, do I allow myself to sit.

  I pull my knees to my chest and wait for the sirens to pierce my beautiful, hard-earned silence.