Someone said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to shake.
They were talking about my writing. They said:
“You write about the moment trust turns into a trap.”
This stopped me in my tracks. I still can’t seem to shake this observation.
Because they weren’t wrong. They were just saying out loud something I had never once said to myself.
I write dark stories. A cat who brings wrong things in through the flap. A little girl who collects broken people and gets slowly taken apart. A child who feeds their most beloved thing into the darkness to protect something they love more.
I’ve tried to write romance stories, cute funny, silly kids books, SEL books, but it never quite lands. I did do better with romance stories (and still have one planned), but that’s because of the angst I can build.
I thought I was drawn to tension. To atmosphere. To the dread of something ordinary going wrong. I thought maybe it was somehow an influence of Edward Gorey, or my love of R.L. Stine.
I didn’t realize that I was writing the same story over and over.
But they didn’t stop there. They went even further:
“Things that should protect you become the source of danger or failure, moments something or someone safe becomes something that hunts you. And what you become in the aftermath.”
Read that again if you need to.
Because I did. Several times. When someone names something that accurately, it feels less like a compliment and more like being caught.
Seen in a way you didn’t know you needed to be seen. Seen in a way I don’t know that I wanted to be seen. Some part of me would much rather not acknowledge this and pretend as if this isn’t the truth. That this was a bunch of crap and not accurate at all.
But, I’ve been working on being honest with myself. Therapy and all that. So here it is:
I grew up in an abusive household. My stepfather abused me, emotionally, physically, mentally, and sexually. And the people who were supposed to stop it, didn’t.
He tried it once with my aunt, and she told my grandma. I still remember the moment my grandma sat me down on her lap and asked me about it. She said the same thing had happened to her as a little girl. I told her the truth. And she tried to help.
She called CPS. They came to the school and asked questions. I thought maybe it was going to stop. But then, that evening when I got home from school, they called him and told him what I had said. After that, at some point, CPS came to the house. I sat on the porch swing with my mom right next to me, and him standing behind me on the deck, and asked about things.
He made me say my grandma told me to lie to them.
So, that’s what I did. What else was I supposed to do?
My grandmother eventually killed herself, or accidentally overdosed. I’m not really sure we’ll ever really know. My aunt ended up in a group home.
The system that was supposed to intervene looked directly at what was happening and decided it wasn’t happening.
A few years after that, my mother found out. She walked in and caught it. He promised it would stop, so she stayed.
Sometimes she would ask if it had stopped. And I would lie. Because he made it very clear what would happen if I didn’t.
My life continued with this occurring until I moved out at 18.
Twenty some years later, my mother finally left him. She was good for a while, but I think the guilt, the pain, and the self-hatred finally got the best of her. She became addicted to drugs. When she finally got sober, she got sick. Her body couldn’t handle fighting it off with all the damage that had been done.
She died seven years ago.
—
Now look at the cat flap story.
A child. A beloved cat. A thing that should be safe — a home, a door, a pet who curls up at the foot of the bed — becomes the vessel for something wrong. The child tells the truth in a note. The answer comes back in mud-smeared letters, claw marks dragged through the words.
Nobody believes him. Nobody helps.
So he handles it himself. He takes the thing that smells like home, the thing he has carried everywhere since he was small, and he feeds it into the dark.
To protect something he loves more.
I wrote that story without once thinking about myself.
—
I think this is what writing does when you let it. Somehow it finds the things you haven’t figured out how to say. It builds them a door and lets them walk through.
I wasn’t writing horror. I was writing the truth in a language that felt safer than the real words.
But at this moment, I’m using real words.
Because I think there are people reading this who know exactly what I mean. Who have handed something precious through a door and watched a red ribbon snake around it in the dark. Who said yes, everything is fine while someone who should have known better sat right next to them.
Who learned early that the things or people meant to protect you are sometimes the very exact thing you’re trying to survive.
So, I’ve learned this is why I write what I do.
And today, right now, I’m claiming it. I’m owning it. I’m accepting this part of me. I’m going to embrace it. I have to.
So now, this is why I’m writing these stories.
Not to scare you.
But to remind you that it’s about what you become in the aftermath. That is something you are in control of.
I know.
— Paige