I think I may be drunk. The man across the bar smiles at me. I offer him one of my official "Kendall you're a jackass but I am at work and you are my boss" smiles. They are unnatural and barely register on any other level besides utter annoyance. They come to me too quickly now. My smile is something I am losing to this game. Vaughn fights to keep it but I know it's fading. I am drunk. I just want my own car. My car has never betrayed me. Rain pelts my head from above and I know this is the only way it could be today.

Oh I know I'm drunk. Whiskey tastes so good and I've got one in the hand that is moving ever-closer to my lips as I get in the cab. Vaughn tastes better than liquor but I had to be alone. I had to grieve over my mother and his enemy by myself. I wouldn't ask him to help me. I know he would but I just could not ask that of him. I lie constantly to people I know. Now I have to lie to myself. I stare out the window and smile at my reflection. I am not crying. This doesn't hurt. She didn't wound a defenseless six year old. This time she screwed with a 27 year old woman who was old enough to want to get hurt. The one's who know about my mother's latest treacheries against me gave me pitying looks today as I grabbed my jacket and left the building. Don't they know this doesn't hurt me? The cabbie asks me if I said something. I polish off the rest of my liquor and say in a harsh voice that belongs to someone I never want to meet, "I don't hurt". He says something but I give up-

My mother and I are sitting in her cell and she is smilingat me. We talk and she whispers that she knows the secret of life. I lean in and she tucks my hair behind my ear before kissing my brow and telling me that the truth takes time. But what's important is that we're together.

-----Someone is banging on my window and pulls me out of the cab. I feel his lips on my cheek and he says ," I wish you had let me go with you". I can't do it anymore. My knees buckle. I can't lie. It hurts