A sensation rose inside me—one that had been long-repressed. Something I should have expressed, fully and freely, when Max first disappeared, but instead I had hidden everywhere else, to be a good girl. I had turned it in on myself, to examine all my possible imperfections. I had let it rise like hot air into my brain to analyse and pathologize needlessly. I had allowed it into my heart and let it melt down into something patient and forgiving. I had distributed this feeling into any part of my body so that it wouldn’t escape from my mouth; so that it couldn’t catch the air. That way, no one
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