Smothering the Truth

Kristo

How much sleep did I get that night? It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two, that was for sure. I felt as though my head was leaking, brain dripping down my front like so much syrup. She was wrapped around me like a vine on a tree, and part of me just wanted to put my arms around her and go back to sleep. But there was no way in hell that was happening, not now that I was conscious enough to start thinking, to start putting the pieces together in my mind.

A war was raging inside of me. It might have sounded melodramatic, but it was the only thing that came close to summing up everything that was running through my head right there and then. It was as though bombs were exploding and people yelling and turf being torn from the ground even as I tried to keep myself together. I was surprised I was only in one piece, that the emotional turmoil hadn’t made itself known on the outside too.

It had all started with that conversation my father had with me the day before when he’d