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upon the terency

TWENTY-FOUR

IT TAKES A WEEK AND A HALF FOR PHELPS TO PRONOUNCE h to travel, and four e

Caden didn’t ask any of the other scouts to escort me to the border He did it himself

It would have been easier in the company of Boyce or someone else Anyone No tension No unco in front ofthe texture of his skin beneathbreath when he accidentally brushes against me And the worst is e actually look at each other When my eyesthat’s been there froto be forgotten or replaced in ait easy for ood-bye is torture Misery in a way I could not have anticipated I made my choice My decision It shouldn’t hurt so much

The dark pull of his eyes, the deep velvet of his voice is host I know he’ll haunt aze stark "Coive up easily Anger radiates off hi from him I moisten my chapped lips

"If I could force you to stay," he adds, "I would, but I know you’d hate h it’s not true I could never hate hi the power he has over s for hi I can trust

It’sto me He’s not a carrier Such a sih Al now I can’t re I can’t choose a fate where that fear has no hope of fading With hi hi who I am--what I am--around him

So I smile at him and stamp down on the ilad so me what I feel You have no idea If you understood how I felt, you wouldn’t go You’d believe in us"

I stop talking for good then, sealing htly shut Our farewells are done

There’s nothing left to say

My guide in Mexico is an old lish, he keeps that fact to hiestures No sound passes his withered lips Not even a grunt rises up fro chest His face is as weathered and lined as the brown earth taking each hit of ullies rutting the broken landscape His black eyes re out with some manner of prescience