Two paragraphs, three sentences, 144 words from one book

Sunday 3/1/26

She did say leaving and going away aren’t the same thing. She sounded ashamed when she said that, as if she was on the cusp of adding she only had herself to blame—you know, that intake of breath people do when they’re trying to be accountable, or else they’re someone bordering on incapable of knowing something isn’t their fault.

Then they suck that breath further back in, perk up and pass off whatever just happened as this fluky moment of weakness like stumbling over a pebble where usually there aren’t any and you can trust them, really you can, they have good advice for you when it comes to your personal trials and tribulations given all they’ve experienced and they want to help, leaving aside the part about how it’s harder to live with suffering when you can’t escape feeling it’s for nothing.  

The reading back of the likes of the above is why you could walk past my door at seven AM on a Sunday morning and hear someone laughing, because what else can I do but in essence say, 'You gotta be kidding me." It'll be in There Is No Doubt: Story Girls.