Page forty-two, my mind etches in the details of the page as Michael walks through the door. The anger, the irritation, the tension; it smacks me out of my book and joins my newly formed memory of that page, page forty-two. Something has happened here, but neither of us speaks, neither of us even looks at the other. Gravity seems to increase on my arms that hold the book I’m reading with clenched teeth and hands, as I feel the heat of his presence walking by. I keep my eyes glued to the paper and let the words dance across my eyes, perhaps more frantically than normal, and keep my profile as low as possible. It’s the animal with the highest profile that gets picked out of the herd first.
