My breath comes back to me. I start to recover myself, piece by piece. As I do, I take the pictures of what just happened, the memories just formed, and fold them up into the tiniest little square of emotion that I possibly can. I fold it again and again, until the creases are bigger than the feelings themselves. I take that tiny little square of pain and hurt and betrayal and tuck it in my sternum, just under my voice box, where it is like a block of lead I only feel when I breathe. There. It can stay there forever. I can talk around it with no problem. It doesn’t even hurt that much, as long
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