Chapter Thirty-Six

CAMPBELL ASKS ME TO STOP TALKING BACK. Especially when he’s angry. I can always find that sharp thorn of a comment that takes him from casually pissed off to losing his shit. If only she knew how much I’m holding back. All the words that I don’t say. Instead, I swallow the words whole, and the letters are pointy on their corners and sharp on their edges and they hurt going down. They stay there inside of me and make my stomach ache. Sometimes I think that if someone cut me open, the words would really be there. Like a whale that consumed too much garbage, and now her body is nothing but a time capsule for all the things humans throw away.