The horror of it is not that I failed to see the monster.

The horror is that seeing the monster would have required me to be the kind of person who suspects his oldest friend, and I do not want to be that person, and I still do not, even now, even knowing what I know.

The predator with the manicure is protected not by his disguise but by our own decency — by the fact that a good person cannot go through life auditing everyone they love for signs of murder.

He was safe inside my trust because my trust was real, and given freely, and that is a thing I refuse to be ashamed of, even though it nearly cost Jessi her life.