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MS: I get it. Jesus.

GR: Are you going to cooperate?

MS: Yes.

GR: Good. Now, let’s discuss what you saw when you found Jane Doe’s body.

Are you a sociopath?

In the last car of a Green Line train, a rare Alstom 6000-series that hasn’t been choked out by the newer 7000s, I reread a cheap psych article about sociopathy. It’s four paragraphs long and written by a hack that happens to have Dr. in front of their name: how to identify a sociopath, how to avoid them, and a section about how to tell the difference between a sociopath and a proper psychopath.

True crime loves the words sociopath and psychopath, and they especially love to label my father one or the other. The one they pick depends on how they want to portray him. Psychopath if they’re highlighting the senseless brutality, sociopath if they’re fixated on his suave or charm.

The train squeals as the brakes clamp down on the rails. I consider not getting out at the stop, instead riding to the terminus, ending up alone in an ugly parking garage in Maryland with a view of the Capital Beltway—not that the highway would matter. I don’t have a driver’s license, or even a learner’s permit.

And I can’t risk it anyway, not with the photos in my jacket pocket.

As soon as the train grinds to a halt, I’m up and out of the sliding doors, fumbling my card to swipe out of the exit, and taking the escalator two steps at a time until I’m back on the street and walking fast. My thumb is bleeding again. I keep tearing it.

When I was seven—I think, I’m pretty sure—Dad kept a girl I would eventually learn was named Lauren Ray. Lauren stayed in the penthouse for about two months, which was impressive. Most didn’t last that long. She didn’t catch any infections, and Dad liked her, which makes sense because she followed the rules and also looked like high school photos of Mom. (I did the math; redheads make up about three percent of the US population, and approximately fifteen percent of Dad’s victims.) I don’t remember if Lauren ever tried to talk to me, or what trades she tried to make for her freedom, or how she eventually died. What I do remember is our game.

Every few days, Dad would call Lauren over, instruct her to kneel on the floor between us, and take her throat in his hands. One hand under the jaw to compress the windpipe, and the other at the back of the head to put pressure on the veins providing oxygen to the brain. Like a chiropractor about to do a spinal adjustment.

Dad’s job was to squeeze, and my job was to say when.

When he squeezed, Lauren would gasp for air, trembling hands trying to cover her bare chest and all its black bruises, and I said when pretty quick. Or I did at first. Eventually I waited longer: until panic really started to set in, until she couldn’t fight the survival mechanism anymore and started croaking in terrified protest.

One day, I waited until she went limp in his hands. The next, I waited ten seconds more.

On that last time, I said, “When,” and Dad let go, and she fell to the floor in a cacophony of coughing and vomit, suddenly awake, clutching her throat until she had enough air in her lungs to cry.

The producer was right. Dr. Reich didn’t touch me, not like I said he did. But I saw him pull out a copy of that stupid psychopath test and I panicked. I would’ve said anything.

When I reach the back door of Winthrop Academy, I shakily tap out the entrance code and stumble into the cold, vacant hallway.

Couldn’t stay home, not with Mom there. Can’t handle Alyssa’s inevitable pity or vindication, Look at yourself, you’re not in a good place right now. And can’t stand to be in public any longer than strictly necessary: too many bodies, too many cameras, not enough control.

This is what Vincent gave me the code for. Days like today.

As soon as the school door bangs shut behind me, I fumble for my wireless earbuds, shove them in, turn up the volume until the loudness warning pings and it drowns out the incessant beating of my heart. I’ve been listening to this album on repeat recently. It’s about wanting to be sick, and then getting sick, and then suddenly being afraid to die.

I can’t bring myself to look at the photos, so I walk down the long empty halls, rows of red lockers and painted cinder block and shiny glass. Passing a mural the Advanced Art III class painted last year outside the gym, a flyer for Lit Club taped to a teacher’s door, school play sign-ups tacked to a corkboard. Each one is a reminder that some people are capable of making friends, and regulating their emotions, and changing their routine without wanting to scream. Some people can remember their entire childhoods. Some people don’t want to kill their mothers when they spend too much time in the same room. Some people don’t compulsively paint and repaint their nails, or freak out when a door locks, or look at a pretty girl and only ever picture her with her throat cut.

I found out with Alyssa that I can’t date girls. When I put my hands on them, I want to hurt them. Alyssa tried to make a joke about how it was gender affirming, even though she was crying, holding a blanket to her chest at a party neither of us wanted to be at.

And I know I can’t date boys. He’ll touch me and I’ll like it, probably, as long as I can ignore the sick feeling in the back of my throat. I’ll never, ever be able to prove that he isn’t Dad. I’ll never be able to convince myself I don’t have to hurt him first.

This is Dad’s fault. He stole this from me. Fuck my gender, that’s an entirely other monster I can’t think about without screaming, but I’ll never get the chance to untangle the knot of my sexual orientation without his dirt on everything. I’ll never know what I would have been without him. What I should’ve been, if not for the rot he packed into my brain from the moment I was old enough to lock the penthouse door.

And I can’t even escape the penthouse for good, because Mom still owns it. Even with upkeep and condo fees burning a hole in her pocket. She would have cleared it out and gotten rid of it years ago, but the problem with grisly murders is that they tank real estate value, and there’s no way in hell she’s losing money on the sale. So the torture chamber has sat there. Unchanged. Unchanging. For years. The access card sitting in her wallet like one day she’s going to walk over and step inside on a whim.

I have a hard time going to the waterfront these days. If we ever pass by Potomac Loft Living, I always look up to find his window.

The music isn’t helping. My thumb is between my teeth and I’ve destroyed the skin again, ripped it back to the knuckle.

I flit through all the bad habits Mom tried to scrub out of me because one of them might do the trick. Chewing on the ends of my hair. Sucking the blood from my ruined thumb. Mouthing along to the music, a song about putting me down like a dog, like a bitch. Nothing. Hitting my head on the sharp edge of a locker would feel better than this.

Vague memories of childhood meltdowns shake me just enough. I don’t want to hit my head. Vincent has a mini-fridge in his office, and an ice pack, and I’m always allowed to visit and hold it against the back of my neck.