“Yes.” She smiles. “I love weird little bugs, remember?”
Agustina Chavezhas quotedlast month
I hear an alarm going off. I think a fire exit was just opened.
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She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Yes. How do I look? Can you tell I have a parasite?”
I laugh. “No. Can you see mine?”
She smiles. “Nope.”
Agustina Chavezhas quotedlast month
Looking through this box feels like revisiting a murder story that I first heard as a kid.
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I think if I don’t restrain myself, I become selfish, opportunistic, and dishonest. I am pretending to be someone normal, but I’m not. If I let my guard down, I am liable to hurt people.
Agustina Chavezhas quotedlast month
“Yeah,” I say. “My mom knits. She makes me sweaters. I remember seeing all the sweaters she knit me. I thought of her finding me in there with them, so I stopped.”
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Sometimes now, when I blink quickly, I still see the burned image of her crying on the insides of my eyelids.
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She interrupts me. “Did you turn to her when you were upset or scared?”
I consider the question.
I think of myself in my bedroom, lying under my blankets, muffling the sound of myself crying into my pillow.
“No.”
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The truth is that knowing there are photos of bald men in my possession makes me feel like I possess a cursed book bound in human flesh.
Agustina Chavezhas quotedlast month
She listens intently. When I stop rambling, she says, “No, you’re not being insane. That is strange. Let’s get to the bottom of it.”