The immense difficulty the sentences took began to sink deep into my lungs as the necessary words poured out of my mouth. I could hardly look at her eyes now damp with disappointment, but was obliged to in order to convey the decided message. It's what's necessary, Savannah says. You had no other option, Savannah says. Savannah says that if I didn't, things would be much worse. Though she had said exactly what I had wanted to hear, the excruciating guilt showed no signs of relief as a new part of me, an unwelcome conscious, pinched at my throat. Perhaps it would become an unremitting consequence of the falsehood I had plugged her ears with. Perhaps I deserved it. Of course I deserved it.
I am nothing but a deplorable child capable of spitting deceit into my mother's forgiving eyes. Nothing, but an undeserving liar who accepted arms and a shoulder which only came due to a flawless performance, nothing but a worthless human who wants to crawl into a desolate corner and be left to decompose. I'm proud of you, she says, for telling me the truth. You shouldn't be proud of me, I want to say, it's all an act and you're far too credulous. I want to say just shoot me, the way you hear my lies as fact wounds me more than bullets ever could. But what's necessary isn't easy and what's desirable isn't real. And as the swift drag of her feet fade down the hallway, creaking incoherently along the hardwood floor, the wish for everything to end seemed much more like a need. I'm so sorry.