What I Should’ve Never Done

“People keep calling him a monster.”

“Like that makes this easier.”

“Like if they say it enough, I’ll stop remembering who he was.”

“Nineteen.”

“Do you understand how young that is to someone like me?”

“I have watched centuries pass. Entire countries vanish. I have buried friends whose names nobody remembers anymore.”

“And somehow…”

“Somehow the thing that finally broke me was a nineteen-year-old boy with terrible jokes and hair he never fixed.”

“When I found him, he was terrified.”

“The police were still outside the lab. Sirens everywhere. He wouldn’t stop shaking.”

“So I took him somewhere nobody could reach us.”

“Our little pocket of nowhere.”

“He kept asking if they were coming.”

“He was trying so hard not to cry.”

“…so I gave him the moose.”

“You should’ve seen him.”

“Nineteen years old now, and I still remember how he held it like a kid the first night. Like if he let go, everything would fall apart.”

“I told him we were safe.”

“I told him I’d take care of him.”

“I meant it.”

“I loved him the best way I knew how.”

“I cooked for him. Stayed awake when he couldn’t sleep. Sat through every bad day. Every nightmare. Every moment he hated himself.”

“And when he started changing…”

“…I kept hoping my son was still in there.”

“Even at the end, when the whole world was terrified of him—”

“—I still just saw Jason.”

“My son.”

“The boy who trusted me.”

“The boy who thought I could fix anything.”

“Everyone says I saved the world.”

“But nobody talks about what it costs to kill the person who called you mom.”

“…I still can’t throw away the moose.”

T.S.G
•4mo
•Edited