Maybe I’m just too quiet, and they don’t notice me. Maybe they pity me. Maybe they just think I’m dead, just like they are. Maybe I should just�...�� BANG. Thud. Hmm? BANG. Thud. Something’s out there, fighting their way through the nightmares. I wish them luck, as hopeless as they are. They’ll never get through, no one can. You have to be quiet, you have to be still. You have to give up on the blue skies and armor yourself against the sun. BANG. Thud. Ziiiiiiiiiip. Someone’s opening the tent.. — "It would be with you." — "We must go," said she. All prepared quickly to go, and then only she took a glass of wine and immediately departed, so hurriedly — as if scared — that I didn't wait for change in payment for the wine for fear of losing sight of them. I heard them laugh as they got outside and suppose it was about me, then hoping I should at some time catch her alone, I followed quickly.When outside I saw her ahead and alone, the others had gone off. In a minute I was by her side,. “Anyway, so what happened?”“Soon as she got home, all happy and cheerful and probably freshly fucked, he hit her with it!”“He hit her?!”“No, bitch! My dad is a real man. He would never hit a woman. Would yours? Jesus! He CONFRONTED her with it,” Darby said, getting a little annoyed. “Damn, why you bein’ so difficult?! Anyway, he showed her the video and she—”“You were there for all this?!” Nora interrupted.“Well, I was in my room when she came in, but I sneaked down to the top of the stairs,. .. we did all this stuff to g... get you to go along. Then I ch... chickened out on the best part for you." She still had not managed to look at him.Part of him wanted to keep hugging her and telling her that he didn't care whether she took the glamour pictures or not. That part of him should have won out. But another part of him was fighting like crazy to keep from shaking with the laughter that was trying to take him over. His brilliant, talented, level-headed older sister was as twisted up.