Twelve

I slam the book closed, the story too close to reality, too close to home. I choke down the tears and smooth the lump in my throat, wayward thoughts pooling in the back of my mind, threatening to drown me. So much detail, each and every one stinging like a freshly salted wound. How could someone who knows nothing of me know me so well?

For days I search through the words, picking them apart like scraps from a bone for anything out of place, for something that doesn’t belong. But everything belongs. Only subtleties and nuances are missing, as if my memories have been lost in translation, a foreign film with the same actors.

Half a bottle of whiskey dulls the prickling sensation in my head, synapses bridging for the first time in years, recollections I&...

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