I need to be careful. She can’t ever find out about this.

Slowly, I scoot toward the edge of the bed. As I pull the blanket up to cover her body, I catch a glimpse of the red marks around her wrists.

I smile to myself in the darkness, remembering how I tied her up with my belt, lifted her up, and fucked her against the wall. Her face was contorted in ecstasy as she slid up and down to the rhythm of my thrusts.

But now, she appears peaceful. There’s even a hint of a smile on her lips.

I consider giving her a light kiss before I leave but I don’t want to wake her up. I can’t risk that.

I gently pull out a drawer in the dresser and grab the little plastic bottles. I put everything in a backpack, keeping my eyes on Sarah the entire time.

If she suddenly opens her eyes and asks questions, I won’t be able to explain this away.

I sneak out of my room—we seem to always end up in the same bed lately.

Sarah’s bag is on the coffee table in the living room, where I made her shed everything on her body earlier tonight.

Crouching by the table, I unzip the main compartment and take out the keys.

I cast a worried glance in the general direction of my bedroom.

There’s nothing to worry about, though. She’s a pretty deep sleeper.

There’s also an en-suite attached to my room. It’s not like she’s going to wake up in the middle of the night and wander out just to check her keys.

I place Sarah’s keys in my backpack, put on my sneakers and head outside.

I can take the car, but the engine might wake her up. Besides, because Sarah’s been taking up so much of my time, I haven’t had a chance to run lately.

As my feet start to pound the pavement, I wonder if I haven’t remembered to run because I’ve been indulging in my other habit instead.

With Sarah there to absorb all the aggression out of me, I’m no longer restless or anxious. I feel in control.

I miss this feeling.

Even though Sarah keeps telling me that she likes the way I fuck her, I can’t help but feel guilty, like I’m taking advantage of her.

She’s younger than me; she’s grieving; and she’s vulnerable. These three things alone should be enough to deter a sane person.

But not me. Those things don’t deter me.

She’s even my best friend’s sister and I fuck her like she’s a real sex doll, like she’s just an object for me to use.

I always try to make up for it afterward, but soon I get the urge to hurt her again, to use her body until it’s spent.

Jesus, I can’t believe this. I’m getting hard just imagining those long legs spread under me, while I’m running. And we’ve just had sex, too.

I swear, if this keeps up, soon my balls are going to be milked dry.

At least I didn’t have a boner when I went to see Joe last week to get my supplies. I wouldn’t have been able to live that down.

Joe and I used to hang out quite a bit when we were in prison. He’d agreed not to let anyone know about our meeting, but if there was a good story in it—like me popping a random boner—he might change his mind and blab.

As I near the clinic, my heart thumps in my chest.

I’m actually doing this. This is breaking and entering. It’s serious shit.

It’s not like I was completely innocent before, but I’ve never stolen . . . although what I’m about to do probably doesn’t count as stealing, seeing as I got Peter’s express permission. He just never got the chance to give me a copy of the keys himself.

I shake my head to chase away the convoluted thoughts inside.

I shrug off my backpack and unzip the front compartment.

Act natural, I tell myself.

Me going into the clinic in the dead of the night probably looks normal to most people. I’m always with Sarah anyway.

Maybe she left a jacket, and she wanted me to come pick it up on my run. It’s possible. It’s probable. More likely, at least, than me breaking into a clinic that belongs to my late best friend.

As the keys jangle, I wonder if the streets have always been this silent at night. Not even the air is moving. It’s like time’s standing still.

It feels surreal.

As I walk into the clinic and turn on the lights, I get the deep sense that even though this place is familiar, it’s different tonight.

It could be because I’m carrying out the last wish of a dead man, or it could be because I’ve gone soft after too many years of living on the straight and narrow.

The fluorescent tube lights buzz as I try the keys one by one. I hurry, but all my guesses are wrong. It’s only when I get to the last key that the door finally opens for me.

It’s disheartening that I can’t even pick the right key out of five because soon I’ll have to identify a handful of bottles out of hundreds in there.

The door creaks. Stepping into the drug storage room, I grimace as the smell hits my nostrils. This room reeks exactly the way I expected it to. I feel like I’m sick in bed.

Once upon a time, though, this small closet would’ve felt like a massive candy store to me, stocked with all kinds of substances to make me feel whatever I want to feel. Life on demand.

I check my phone. No message from Sarah—perfect. My muscles relax. For some reason I worry she’s going to find out her keys are missing, although there’s no reason why she’d even be awake.

I scroll through the pictures on my phone until I find the one that Peter sent me a few months ago, probably about the same time he told Sarah not to come here.

It takes me a while, but Peter left me straightforward instructions, and I eventually find the right bottles.

I guess despite his issues, Peter still had a relatively clear mind at the time. Too bad he didn’t use it the right way.

I try not to judge Peter for what he did. Mortality was staring him right in the face and he did the only thing he knew to fight against the darkness that was closing in on him.

He lost the battle—not very gracefully—but I can’t say 100%, for sure, that I’d be able to do the right thing if I were in his position either. I mean, hell, I’ve done a lot of things wrong.

I open my bag and throw the the bottles inside.

It’d be a disaster if I get them mixed up with these ones, I think to myself as I take out identical bottles from another compartment.

Finally, I arrange the pill bottles I brought from home on the shelf.

I take a step back to check my work. The new bottles I got from Joe certainly blend in with the others.

I don’t think either Sarah or Brian or whatever the other vet’s name is would notice anything different about these bottles.

I was very careful to source the correct stuff. That’s why I had to wait this long to do this.

As I make my way back home, the sound of my running shoes hitting the ground fills my ears, but I feel like I’m running on air.

A big weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I can stand tall again.

Finally, I don’t have to hide anything anymore. I can stop lying and sneaking around behind Sarah.

To be honest, that’s been getting harder and harder to do lately. I’m glad that’s over.

Now, with my task finally done, I have some space left in my brain to consider other things.

Things like . . . Why the fuck did it bother me so much anyway? I was only trying to protect her, just like her brother had wanted me to.

Now, I don’t need to keep Sarah in my house anymore.

But what I’ve been doing to her . . . I worry that I’m only making things worse for her, that she’s only getting stronger and stronger cravings for more extreme shit.

And now, if I let her go home . . . What if she goes online in search of a stranger to dominate her?

I shouldn’t care. This isn’t supposed to be about me.

But . . . I do.

She’s quickly becoming my new addiction, and I can already feel myself getting lost in her. I keep craving her.

And for the first time in a long time . . . I start to wonder . . . Maybe it won’t be such a bad idea for me to actually make her mine. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can stay by her side and continue to take care of her, always.