*Cat*

I didn’t sleep that night.

With the clock endlessly ticking the hours in my ear and how I felt both too cold and too hot, I shifted between Elio’s embrace and the edge of the bed in an attempt to get comfortable, but none of it worked.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Junior, his sadistic grin from my memories merging with the one I’d seen today. I kept imagining I was hearing a gunshot, with blood on my palms as my Mom bled out in front of ...