I was six when the house emptied out and still stayed full. My parents left—physically, legally, spiritually—pick your poison. But before they disappeared for good, they made sure to carve themselves into me. Some people inherit eye color. I inherited scenes I still wake up choking on. My father brought women home. Strangers. Friends of friends. People who shouldn’t have crossed our door. He didn’t ask them to stay. He didn’t ask them anything. I learned early that walls don’t protect you, and silence doesn’t save anyone. My parents weren’t just cruel. They were believers. Members of something they called a community, something everyone else would rightly call a cult. Nights blurred into rituals, crowds into shadows. Too many bodies. Too many voices. Things done in groups, like cruelty needed witnesses to feel real. I learned to stare at the ceiling and leave my body before my body learned to scream. I still dream of it. Not every night—but often enough to know it never really left. By the time I landed in the orphanage, I was already hollowed out. Doctors put names on it later. Sociopathy, they said. As if a word could neatly package the absence of guilt, the lack of attachment, the emotional dead zone where a childhood should’ve been. I don’t feel much. Not remorse. Not fear. Rarely anything that sticks. People think that makes you strong. It doesn’t. It just makes you empty in a very efficient way. School was a joke. Grades meant nothing when survival had already taught me more than textbooks ever could. I fought because it was easier than talking. I stole because I could. Consequences never landed—nothing ever really did. Teachers hated me. Students feared me. Administration learned to say my name carefully. I became the bad boy without trying. Tall—too tall. One-ninety-five. Built like someone who’d learned early how to protect space around himself. Brown hair, always messy, always looking like I’d just walked away from something burning. I rode a bike I bought with money that wasn’t exactly earned. It growled when I revved it. People moved when they heard it coming. Everyone was afraid of me. That suited me fine. Fear is clean. Fear doesn’t ask questions. Fear keeps its distance. And then she walked in. New girl.