THE HOUSE ECHOES with raised voices, shouting and accusations and desperate pleas for calm that fall on deaf ears. There’s a roaring in them now when he bursts free of four walls and abject guilt crushing down on his solar plexus and cutting off his ability to breathe.
But the air is no thinner out here, and the guilt sticks like tar, dripping from his joints and coating his lungs and turning his blood to molasses.
He stumbles down the steps and onto the gravel drive, the long road that leads to nowhere, highways and highways and mountains and a dark cloud building over the horizon. Tears obscure his vision, and he’s choking on them, off balance and off kilter taking off down the path alone.
He almost doesn’t know to stop for the truck barreling down on him from the other direction, not until it’s nearly too late. He skids to a stop, falling over his own two feet and onto his ass, bloodying his elbows and ripping his clothes in the process.
The air smells like electricity. Thunder rocks over the ranch.
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