Every word felt like another blow to the face, like he was physically assaulting me. Smack. Smack. Smack. How long had this been going on? How many years had it been buried inside him? All his counselors. They were always searching for his hidden trauma. The big thing. His core issue. You know the one that makes drug addicts have to get high in the first place? People didn’t need to run away unless there was something to run away from. What if the thing he’d been running away from all these years was me?
