I’m like a dog with a bone now, so sure he’s hiding something from me. And now he has put it there in my suspicious mind, I need to know. He will drive me insane with it otherwise.

It pushes my nerves to tighten, and my stomach knots. The tension is thicker than dense fog, and Alexi is visually uneasy. He sighs again, a sign he knows he has no choice, and then he seems to relent, clenching his hand and rubbing his palm with his thumb that signals it’s stressing him.

I’m ...