“Are we done here?”
It’s weird how sometimes words can knock the wind right out of you. Except it’s not wind. It’s something else. There’s something deep in my chest, and I don’t know it’s there, but it listens to every word she says. It responds to every word she says. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how it got there, but I carry it for her, so the ‘it’ can be close to her.
She thinks she’s being mean to me. She makes the comments to me, Jeremiah, you’re embarrassing me or Ugh Jeremiah, don’t be stupid. But the words don’t touch me. They touch this thing inside me that I can’t find or explain. Its pain is my pain and it shrinks and it’s scared. But for now, I carry it anyway.
I hear her roll her tongue in her mouth, clicking it against the roof of her mouth. She’s annoyed and she isn’t listening anymore.
