A few days ago, I was at the beach, leaping over waves. It’s my absolute favorite thing to do, maybe of all time- I run into the crest of a wave and leap over it at the last second so I fly off the back of it and plunge into the water. When it crests early or I mistime my leap, I have to duck under the foam so it doesn’t punch saltwater all the way into the back of my throat.

One of the times I went under and came back up, there was a three foot shark swimming approximately two or three feet away from me in the water. Close enough that I could see the black/white tip of its dorsal fin. Close enough that I saw its entire body flicking through the waves.

The lifeguard temporarily pulled all of us out of the water right after that, but the event stuck with me. It certainly felt like I was being sent a message.

As I had been packing to move, I’d found an iteration of this entire story that used Will, the teenager who “lived” in my childhood home, as the narrator. Will is the perfect person to be the narrator, because he successfully bridges both sides- first as a bitter, furious kid who is trapped in the grey area between worlds, and then as the betrayed and horrified man who discovers that “Alex” is a fraud, and he has been pulled into more than he ever bargained for.

I worry about Will, even now, but I can feel that he is lost to me and does not want to be found. He was so blindsided by who Alex really was, and the mess he was thrust into, and I hardly blame him for his hurt. We went from a cute little foursome who cackled over card games and laughed raucously over the Ouija board to a gross little cave of evil and surreptitious sex and sin-soaked abuse.

I still shudder when I think of living in that place, somewhere I was essentially kept as a hostage- or, to be more clear, as a spiritual battery- for four years. I know the key to so much of my healing lies in that place. I know that I have to face and confront what is going on with me internally in order to be able to move forward, to ever have any hope of a “normal” relationship with someone. I am so deeply traumatized and broken by events so strange I don’t even dare describe them to anyone.

I don’t have any specific spiritual practices, just that I listen to the Universe. I am- at all times- trying to do what it asks me to do. Even when after the other night, after an entire day of mulling over that period of time, I was told that I should go see Alex.

Which. …..okay. Sure.

I met him on the edge of the sand at the beach house. I’d never let him inside again- not after I finally took it back from all of the violence. That was actually the last time I saw him, the winter solstice of 2019.

That time, his neck was broken and his head hung limp on his shoulder, popping up like a puppet when he spoke. He was not just full demon, but something beyond that. Skeletal. Ghoulish. Devoured.

This time, he was more of a fully formed person, and much more human than he’s been in quite some time, but there is still so much visible darkness all over him. I think I saw him as he “truly” is. This is how he presents on the Other Side, for the most part. To be honest- it’s not much different than how he looked in his last life. I used to call them his “demon teeth” long before I ever saw who he really is.

His entire eye, even the pupils, are wholly black. In fact, even the area around his eyes is an ashen color, as if he hasn’t slept for centuries. His features were extremely sharp even in his life, and are even more pronounced now. Cheekbones like origami folds, a nose like the curve of a dagger, jaw like the edge of a cliff.

And those fucking teeth. There’s so many of them that his mouth appears to be swollen, like a kid with a bad overbite, hanging out from the underside of his lips. Greyblack, as if they are rotten, but they are also razor-sharp, glistening. Waiting.

Just saying his name with intention brought him here, just as easily as ever, and he could see through my eyes as I brushed my teeth and got ready to see him.

“Well look at you,” he said softly. His voice was a strange blend of the freshly baked bread softness he had in his life and that grinding gears/wounded animal demon voice that shreds straight to the base of my soul. “Quite an apartment you have here.” His eyes grazed across things as if he was stroking them with an open palm. “Good for you, Krissy. Fucking fancy. You’re a long way from Pennsylvania. Quite literally.”

“Yes. I am.”

I briefly stepped into the living room to grab my phone charger, and my son was sitting on the floor playing video games. I felt Alex’s shock as he registered the time that has passed.

“He just turned fifteen,” I said, watching Alex watch my son. The way you’d watch a strange dog with a child.

“Fifteen,” he breathed. “Wow.”

I quickly went back to my room, because I don’t even want him to look at my son, to be honest. Nothing good can be gained from those black eyes soaking in my son’s form. He doesn’t deserve to even look at him, to be honest.

I settled and placed myself fully on the beach, examining his dark features. I was surprised that I didn’t feel afraid of him- just a kind of dismayed curiosity. And strangely- a sort of deep love and affection for this creature who has caused me so much loss and catastrophe.

My God, I still love him. I still love this monster.

We stood side by side on the sand, watching the waves crash in front of us.

“So,” I said flatly. “What are you… up to? Are you and Hermie still…”

He tipped his head slightly and shrugged a little. “I mean. She’s really trying to help me, and we…” He smiled a little to himself, just the vaguest shake of his malformed head. “We really got each other good in this lifetime. We both thought we had the upper hand.”

I was disgusted by him referring to my life as some kind of strategic play, some type of game. “What were you thinking, Alex?” My voice was cold. “I mean, I go back and read these journals and my God- I was a fucking baby. I was so naïve, and I trusted you so much. I don’t understand what the point of any of it was. What did you hope to gain?”

He sighed. “I know you’ll never believe me, but I really did want to prove that I could be good. At first. I really felt like this was my moment to show you what a truly kind and pure man I was capable of being.” His shoulders drooped. “But then I got lost in the fantasy of having a life with you. And then I… got lost.” He turned to look at me with his whole face, as if displaying it as his example.

“I’m still really fucked up, Alex,” I said, my face not showing a slice of sympathy. “Like. I can’t let people touch me. I haven’t been in a relationship in years and years and years.” I let intense flashes of him roaring over me, all teeth and blood, wash over both of us. A flash of me wrestling my last physical partner off of me. A flash of me sobbing with my face pressed against the bathroom wall.

He nodded slowly, turning his face back to the sea. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

He looked back at me briefly, the vortex of those onyx eyes pulling me into their hold. “Yes. I really am.”

“Okay, but like-” I held up my hands. “What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to fix that? I’ve spent years and years trying to find a way out of this fear and I can’t seem to get my hands around it. Like I met someone that I-” I cut myself off instantly, immediately angry that I’d said too much. I don’t want him to know anything about me now. I don’t want him to have any idea of what my life is like.

I could feel him begin to sift through my thoughts, pulling up an image of a person that I’m currently vaguely interested in. I immediately waved my hand and swept him completely out of my brain, giving him a hard, angry look. He smirked and shrugged, as if to say, What do you expect?

Some things never change.

“This isn’t an invitation for you to be… involved in my life. I don’t want you involved in my life. At all. And I want you to stay away from my son, too.”

He turned to look at me with a face that is all too familiar to me- one that lands somewhere between a smirk and a scowl, his mouth disgusted and his eyebrows smug. “I really have no intention of interfering with your life ever again,” he said. His eyes were like a midnight new moon- somehow both empty and full. Like a burning hole. “And you don’t have to believe that-“

“I don’t.”

“-but I mean it.” His features softened to the degree they were capable of, and his hand lifted as if he was about to reach out for me before he thought better of it.

“Look at the damage I have already done. Krissy, there is no repairing some of this, and you know that.” His eyebrows lowered with a remorse I wanted to believe. “I ruined you for anyone else. On purpose. And now…” He held up his empty palms. His fingers ended with blood-caked claws, so dark they too looked black. “I don’t… I don’t have the answers. There are no answers. And I think you know that. You wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t.”

I sighed and we both looked back out at the horizon.

“So,” I said softly. “While I have you here, let’s talk about a few people. I just wanted some… clarity.”

“Okay.”

“What about my ex-husband? Does he…”

Alex sneered, and then chuckled nastily. His eyes flickered with a raven flame as he gave me a leering look. “Oh, come on. Is it necessary to have that conversation? You and I know what it was- and you were perfectly okay with using him. We are both complicit, and you know that. Now, of course, he was abusing you too, just in a different way.” He turned and raised an eyebrow at me, his mouth pulling to one side with an arrogant joy. “Talk about toxic, wow.”

He chuckled to himself and waved his hands, dismissing the entire conversation. “Look- you finally managed to get away from that, right? So let’s… not.”

“Okay. And what about Jim?”

He took a deep breath and all the supercilious humor in his face faded. His entire form even drooped a little. “Oh, man. Fuck. Yeah, that whole thing was… super uncool. He is a really good dude, for real, and …” He shook his head slowly. “I feel really bad about what we did to him.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “We?”

His face slowly turned back towards me and his black eyes scoured me with disdain. “Yeah. We. As in, like, allllllll of us. And what you continue to do to him, as a matter of fact.” He held up a clawed hand. “Well I mean, not you, but her.”

“Wait wait- I thought she was done with him? Is she…”

He laughed a little bitterly, and his eyes went back to the waves. “Oh, no one ever really knows what she’s up to. I mean for fuck’s sake, you had to split into two different ‘people’ just to be able to survive and sustain all of this.” He turned back to me with his entire face twisted into confusion and bewilderment. “Do you understand how fucked up that is? You have to refer to yourself in third person?”

He held up a finger and wagged it at me. “Don’t ever let her convince you she’s not as much trouble as I am. She is.” He leaned in a little. “You are.”

My mouth twisted, and I turned my face away from his. “And what about [my oldest friend, who is Alex’s oldest enemy]?”

Alex snarled suddenly, viciously, and I took a half-step back. His teeth immediately grew out of his mouth another three or four inches, until they hung like charcoal icicles off of his chin. His eyes got blacker, which hardly seemed possible. They became so black that the skin around his eyes became even darker, spreading like a rash all the way to his temples, down his cheeks, into his hairline.

Then he caught himself. His teeth pulled back and the darkness of his skin receded, and he gave himself a quick shake, as if he was resetting. I watched this with the same sensation I’d had watching that shark swim only a few feet from me- a helpless terror, while also knowing I was not in any real danger.

But I could have been.

“Oh, let’s not go there,” he hissed. “Please.” He turned to scour my face again, searching for how much I know. “He is not who you think he is and you know that, right?”

I shrugged. “I know.”

“I mean, he is … that guy, but…” He scowled with disgust, unimpressed. “Who fucking cares? That’s just one lifetime. It doesn’t change any of the other shit he’s done. And if you think how he’s behaved with you is any fucking better…” He laughed a single bark of defiance. “Ha! Yeah fucking right. Look at how the fuck he’s behaved in just this lifetime and tell me he’s not a mess of a person.” He scowled again, deeper, angrier. “Please. Ha! All he got was a cool storyline.”

“Did he, though?” I asked softly, and the fury on Alex’s face receded.

His face slowly turned back to mine and the darkness in his eyes seemed to sparkle. “Yeah,” he admitted, giving me a semi-sheepish grin. “Okay. That’s fair.”

I started to fall asleep as we were talking, and woke up to find his face very close to mine, as if he was leaning in to kiss me. I pulled my entire body away, even my living body, and gave him a baffled, disgusted look.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked. “Like I mean- are. you. fucking. kidding. me.”

He laughed a little, holding up his palms. “Oh, come on. I mean. All right, all right.”

“I have to go,” I said. “And I want you to go, too. Please do not take this as an invitation for you to be a part of my life or to start-“

He waved both of his hands at me dismissively. “Oh my god, stop stop stop. Look.” He waved his arm around the beach. “You can’t see, but you are being very closely watched, even right now. You are never alone. No one will ever let you be alone again.”

He leaned in a little, conspiratorially. “And part of that, my love, is because you are in just as much trouble as I am, and we are under close surveillance.” Then he leaned back again, smug, proud, always happy to remind me of my darkness. “But let’s be really real- I couldn’t get to you if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. I cannot stress that enough. I have enough to answer for, to repay.”

He flashed an image of my new apartment into my head. “You have created a beautiful life from total destruction. That is a marvel. What I did to you, what you survived?” He shook his head a little, then turned to look at me with as much softness as his monstrous face could allow. “You amaze me. You truly are a phoenix. If I couldn’t destroy you, there’s nothing you can’t survive. Conquer.”

And then he was gone.

Is this the closure I wanted and needed? Is this the conversation that needed to happen? I don’t know.

It is a long walk in the darkness with the darkness, my friends.