My tears were not for my father, a drunk and a bully. I escaped him seven years ago when I was sixteen and only returned to the cabin to make sure he was dead. It had always been a prison to me, representing everything I hated about my life.
I unlocked the door and crossed the threshold. Cold shivers rippled across my skin and dread settled in my belly, irrational and unexpected. I should have trusted my instincts and stepped back outside into the sunshine. Instead I berated myself for being stupid and forced myself to look around the house.
Everything was much the same as it had been on the day I left, the same mess and chaos, but now that he was dead, it seemed to have shrunk, not smaller—just less, somehow. Maybe that’s why I was ready to cry, because he’d seemed such a powerful monst
