LEILA
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“Okay, so everything has just been about me lately,” I said, trying to inject some lightness into the air, needing to shift the focus, needing to feel free, just a little, needing to actually breathe because I felt like I was being choked up by all the intensity, all the secrets, all the near-death experiences of the past few days and yeah, my skin, the bruises, the marks from everything, seemed to be coming back to normal, more like getting back its strength, the color returning, the tenderness fading.
I felt that this had something to do with the fact that I’d seen my mother, seen that video of her smiling face, or maybe just the fact that I felt genuinely happy these days, a fragile happiness blooming in this dark place, and the growing effort I and Gerald were puttin
