xxii

                                    

                                          
You know what's weird, Cade?
                          
I feel so much safer with your burning gaze than my father's hands, with your little immature antics than my father's prescence. 
                          
You always give me that weird look. Distant. Dismissive. Disfigured.
                          
But eyes filled with so much more than what's fleeting and transitory. With something I just can't quite decipher just yet.
                          
Somehow, a feeling of comfort always settles in my throat and my lungs and my heart when you're around--cigarette or not. The lingering smoke from your careful and measured huffs seem to carry all my murderous thoughts with it. 
                          
I'm afraid, Cade. I'm afraid of home.
                          
But I'm more afraid for you, with your blue-and-black spotted skin and blood-shot eyes.
                          
I know it's your dad's doing.
                          
I hope both our dads rot in fucking hell.
                          
Please you know that I know how you feel, that somehow I'm wishing that my petty unsaid empathy gives you a reminder that you're not alone.
                          
                                               - Lindie