I moved to sit beside her, my legs swinging as I took her hand in mine, and she blinked up at me, gazing into my eyes and seeking something there I didn’t dare to hide. Let her see me, why not? Let her peel my skin from my bones and pick through each box until she finds out that I’m a monster made of many malevolent things. Let her find my wasted heart among them all too, discarded like the trash I’d often thought it to be and take it into her palm, caress it, stoke life back into its rotten core.
