Olivia (Logan 5)

cheek and closed her eyes.

I lowered her back to her pillow. She smiled

again and reached up to take my hand.

"I've made myself a bit tired. just rest, but wake

me when your father comes home. I want to celebrate

your engagement to Samuel with him," she said. Her

hand softened and fell back to the bed like a small

sparrow losing the power of flight.

I fixed her blanket so she was comfortable and

then stood there looking down at her. She seemed to

diminish right before my eyes, shrink into a little girl.

I left her sleeping, her mind surely filled with

lollipops and candy canes.

I didn't remember walking across the hallway to

my room. It was as if I had drifted on a black cloud.

Suddenly, I stood before my vanity mirror and looked

at my face, laughing at myself now for the

resemblances I had once imagined I had to my father.

Lies and deceptions were truly brothers born from the

same desperate need to survive in a world filled with

entrapments, most of which we created for ourselves

out of our own lusts and fantasies. What a fool you've

been, Olivia Gordon. The lesson was clear. Survival

was more important than honesty.

Honesty was perhaps the greatest luxury of all,

and those who could afford it, who could house it and wear it and walk with it were the really blessed people in this place we called our home. They were never

afraid to speak, to be heard.

The rest of us? The rest of us had nothing but

muted voices.

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