Ignore emails, wave in public with a frightened, victimized expression.

Is it that you fear I will treat you the way you’ve treated me?

I can’t imagine a worse fate.

But I don’t have it in me to be that terrible to anyone. Let alone someone I still vaguely, sickeningly, care for.

Keep catching myself hoping you’ll show some sign of kindness, of acknowledgement, the faintest hint or whisper that part of you still cares. Or ever cared.

…

This lodged bullet wound. Limp and falter, try to stand, again.

Four months to heal from four years of lies.

Try to conceal injury from the wolves who seek to pick me from the herd, and take me down.

You have the antiseptic, the bandages, the tools necessary to treat the wound, and you withhold them.  Must heal myself. Find a knife to dig this out, cut off the rotting flesh around it. Leaves and bark to bind the wound. Or let myself perish.