My eyes flew open to see Leandro slowly setting down the guitar, but my racing heart had spots dancing in my vision, blood red and white hot to match the heat seeping from my pores. Sweat glued my shirt to my back and my hair to my temples, and the light scruff of my beard itched from the dampness.
But I was frozen in place, trying to decipher the rampaging confusion coursing through my thoughts and flesh. Emotions that ran so deep, I ached even when left with only their memory. Possibilities that went against everything I believed, presented in my voice, with my face. Truth that shouldn’t have been, because its existence threatened the very world I’d created for myself.