Internecine.

It's easy to overlook how sick you really are while you're pushing fluids, easy to overlook until that one day you pause because you've realized I drank all that?, or you feel the knot on the back of your head growing and growing, or you look down and no longer recognize the color of your own skin what with all the bruises. It's easy to overlook a lot of things as a matter of fact; it's all in how you chalk it up.

I think I may give up on giving compliments, when compliments are met with naught but awkward silences. Chalk it up to misinterpretation I could, but would it sate my bewilderment I think not. Why one pulls away while the other pulls close I know not. Or I do, I can read, I just don't like the plot of this particular story. Perhaps this is why I tap away these days, trying to rearrange characters and movement into the denouement I was promised, not this stupidly predictable "twist." So overrated the twist, my hair twisted and pinned to the top of my head. Stupid hair, always in the way.

He senses that I'm lonely but doesn't know the cause, and his natural instinct is to cling and smother, to maul me bodily. Times like these I'd rather be alone, because it's far easier being lonely when you're alone, or maybe it's just harder being lonely when you're surrounded by people. A classic Chegg problem, this, but you wouldn't know about that.

I got an email from Iraq of all places. I'm losing Pete to Afghanistan. I'm scheduling yet another audit in Portland. God, I need a vacation.