Chapter 14 - I RETURN TO THE SHED
I did not want to.
Dr. Maren Shaw, my trauma therapist, said I did not need to.
Police had already processed it.
Evidence collected.
The shed could be repaired or removed.
Still, I wanted to see it in daylight.
Auberon came with me.
No cameras.
No relatives.
The padlock had been cut.
A temporary latch remained.
I stood at the threshold.
Could not step inside.
Auberon waited.
No:
Come on.
No:
You need to face it.
Just waited.
I eventually crossed.
The space looked smaller.
That made me angry.
How could something this small hold five days?
The shelf where I caught myself.
Scratch marks near door.
The pale rectangle where the water jug sat.
Bucket gone.
Tote gone.
Evidence gone.
I touched the wall.
Then I noticed one thing police had left.
A tiny crescent scratched into the wood.
I made it with the trowel on Day Four.
I remembered thinking:
If I die here, maybe somebody knows I was trying.
I sat down.
Auberon crouched near the doorway.
“I want it gone.”
“The shed?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Then I changed my mind.
“Not yet.”
“Okay.”
I hated how often trauma turned simple decisions into tests.
Destroying it felt like victory.
Keeping it felt like refusing fear.
Both were stories.
May you like
It was a shed.
We waited.
