No Regrets

I do not regret that I killed him. I've thought about it, replayed it in my head a hundred times, but all I ever see is the gun. It didn't look like my hand that pulled the trigger; it looked like the hand of someone calm and unhesitating. I was screaming inside my head then, but no one heard it.
When I close my eyes, I can still see his smile.
I dream about my stepfather sometimes. Sometimes, I see the face he showed to the public, a decent, everyday guy. He had a truck, red and shiny; I still jump whenever I see one on the street- I know it can't be him. I saw him die; but it still makes me afraid to see his truck.
Sometimes, I see him in my dreams as hitting my sister, laughing, the alcohol on his breath making me dizzy, face twisted with a drunken leer.
Sometimes I see the man I trusted for thirteen years; sometimes I see his true face. It's the face of a demon.
I scream when I wake up, and they always come running, the people in white coats. I can see his face on them sometimes, and all I can think is that I have to get away from them, have to kill him again or he'll come back with the knife, with drunken agitation and paranoia and fear.
That's when I end up tied down.
But what do they know? They don't understand what's inside of my head, they can't see the devil's smile burned into the insides of their eyelids. I had to kill him. I had to do it, before he did something terrible.
They talk to me every day. They say it's okay to tell the truth, and they ask me why I did it, and if I regret doing it now. Their faces all look the same to me. I'm sane; I really am. You can't blame me for what I did. If they knew about the broken glass, the fear, the hurt, they would understand.
Sometimes, I try to lie to them. I say that I didn't mean to do it, that I was scared and it was an accident. I try to say I regret it. I really do. I can never get my mouth to move. Their stares are all the same, all hungry, and they look as if they've rehearsed their smiles in the mirror.
They don't say it, but I know they think I'm just another delinquent, someone crazy to be locked up.
It isn't true.
I choke on the words, and in my head I know that I can never tell them the truth. I regret nothing.

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