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Crouching down, ed the crumpled boxes out The printed cardboard collapseda lid off, I stared into the box of childhoodface ofthe picture, a fewthe entire photograph off ontoeven more as my eyes filled Memories I’d held on to washed away in an instant…it was like having the i away at the clear picture of them in my head

Marisa gasped and covered her ers “Oh God, Liv” She wore the same face people had atthe mental picture I’d built up of theraphs and slivers of their time Colm hadn’t even wanted to keep these pictures Maybe he’d been right These weren’t the truth; these were part of the fabricated past I’d tried to create for h my broken future

Everything in there was a part of the old Liv Some of the recent pictures would still be saved on hted down by the past I’d always been trying to ers Sing back against the thickness in my throat, I wiped my eyes This was it The last of theone, and now the pictures I’d clung to in order to preserve those one It was hard to catch my breath Where did this leave o”

“There’s nothing you can salvage?”

“There’s nothing here for o”

The car ride to LJ’s was pin-drop silent Marisa and I stared straight ahead like we’d both just run away froure out what caht money mattered to me before, part of the reason was that I kneas always there Colm was there to bail , it was a matter of when the money reached my account, not if

I had ten shirts, five pants, a couple of pairs of shoes, some socks, panties, a couple bras and textbooks My entire life fit into the duffel bag onto build a stable life forin the back of a taxi with no s

“I put in the renter’s insurance stuff, but I have no idea how long it will take theet us a check”

“Once school’s over, I can work more at the dance studio, pick up as many classes as I need to”

She turned to h “Why the hell would you need to do that? I’d have thought Col you need”

“It’s a long story” The cab pulled up to the front of the Brothel, and we climbed out

“Spill”

Standing outside LJ’s house, she paced back and forth like a fighter preparing for the heavyweight title Throughout the recounting of what had gone down thatof familiar curses and a fely invented ones

“I’ll kill theers around both their necks at the same time and choke the life out of them”

A few people walked by and stared at her, likely trying to figure out if they needed to call campus security The few items retrieved from our apartment sat on the steps to the Brothel, and she threw her hands up in the air